Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves

Sly 3 Honor Among Thieves
Developer(s)	Sucker Punch Productions
Publisher(s)	Sony Computer Entertainment
Engine	Modified Sly 2: Band of Thieves engine
Platform(s)	PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3
Release date(s)	PlayStation 2 NA September 26, 2005 EU November 18, 2005 PlayStation 3 JP January 27, 2011 NA November 9, 2010 EU December 3, 2010 PlayStation Network) NA November 29, 2011
Genre(s)	Platform, Stealth
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: E10+ (Everyone 10+) PEGI: 3+ (some sales) PEGI:7+ (most sales) OFLC: PG
Media/distribution	DVD, Blu-ray, download

Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves is a platform stealth video game developed by Sucker Punch Productions for the PlayStation 2 in 2005. It is the third game in the Sly Cooper franchise. Sly 3 has optional 3-D stages, and it comes with a pair of specially designed 3-D glasses inside the manual. Despite being rated less than the predecessor, the game received generally positive reviews from the gaming press and was as well-reviewed as the original game.

On November 9, 2010, Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves was released on PlayStation 3 as part of the Sly Collection. Japan originally did not see a release of this game, until the Sly Collection was released on Early 2011 for the region.

Story

Set one year after the events of Sly 2: Band of Thieves, Sly Cooper and Bentley attempt to open the Cooper Vault on Kaine Island, with the help of mystery people. Unfortunately, they are intercepted by Dr. M, the owner of the island. Sly and Bentley escape, but a monster grabs Sly. During this scene, Sly's life flashes before his eyes, and the game moves back into the past. It is explained that Sly had come to learn of the Cooper Vault being hidden on Kaine Island from one of his father's colleagues. The vault contains the accumulated wealth of the Cooper Clan built up over thousands of years. Sly went to find the vault, only to discover that M had built a fortress on the island in an attempt to get at the wealth hidden in the vault. Sly realized that he needed a gang of master thieves in order to get past M's extensive security, he needed the Cooper Gang back in action.

First, Sly and Bentley decide to first find Murray, who left the team due to Bentley's leg injury, but learns a mob boss Octavio who "runs" Venice, Italy where Murray has been sighted recently. Sly catches up with Dimitri again, who is locked in jail, while looking for Murray , who agrees to find Murray if Sly distracts the police chief controlling the jail Carmelita Fox and steals the cell keys. After being chased around Venice by Carmelita, he finds Murray again, who helps him escape. He tells Sly he has moved onto being a trainee for a peace loving figure known as the Guru in order to become more peaceful. Murray refuses to rejoin the gang until he fulfills the task the Guru gave to him, to wait until the canals are clean, forcing Sly and Bentley to take down Octavio who has been polluting the canals with tar as part of a scheme to threaten the city into liking opera again, by sinking buildings. After putting together some plans, they destroy Octavio's comeback recital, but he injures Bentley, making Murray so mad that he quits his training and battles Octavio, defeating him. Octavio is arrested, and Murray rejoins the team.

After Murray misses the Guru, the gang flies to Yuendumu, Northern Territory, Australia, to find the Guru, but construction by miners has taken over his land. After finding him locked up, Sly discovers that the Guru refuses to leave his cell until he has his moon stone and staff. After Sly finds them, Bentley gives them back to the Guru and he breaks out, pulling off tasks and agreeing to join the team if Sly and the gang help clear the miners from his land. To do so, they have to destroy the Mask of Dark Earth, a demonic mask that makes its wearer an out of control giant. After Carmelita Fox goes after Sly, the Mask of Dark Earth gets stuck to her face, and she starts growing at an uncontrollable rate. Sly has to climb up her bootlegs and cut it off. After it is destroyed by Carmelita's mercenaries, the Guru joins the Cooper Gang.

In desperate need of an RC Combat expert, Bentley meets a Dutch mouse named Penelope online, who agrees to join their team if they can take down her boss the Black Baron, an expert flier who has his own flying competition (ACES Flying Competition) and has always won. The gang travels to Kinderdijk, Holland, Netherlands, where they enter Sly in the flying competition. While there, they meet Dimitri who agrees to tell them where to find the competition roster, but only if Sly agrees return the favor. When Muggshot, Sly's former enemy in Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus is flying in the competition, Bentley comes up with a plan and gets him thrown back in jail. After more plans are pulled off, Sly beats the Black Baron, leading to him battling Sly on the wing off a plane. When he is beaten, he is revealed to be Penelope, and Sly wins the competition. Penelope tells the crew that there was a reason for being the Baron because she was too young to enter the competition herself. Penelope joins the gang without hesitation.

When they need a demolitions expert beyond Bentley, they realize they must recruit Sly's old enemy, the Panda King, from Sly Cooper and The Thievius Raccoonus. After finding he left his life of crime, they confront him and he agrees to join, but only if they help him rescue his daughter, Jing King, from the evil General Tsao, who kidnapped her and is forcing her to marry him. During this time, Murray locates and recovers the old team van that was in the vicinity, aided first by Penelope and then by the Panda King, who recognises the bond Murray shares with the van is the same he shares with his daughter. Sly must defeat Tsao and get Bentley's laptop back, which was stolen by Tsao. After finally rescuing Jing King, Tsao is arrested by Carmelita, who escorts him to jail and Panda King joins the gang.

Later, Dimitri e-mails Sly and reminds him of the favor he owed him, so Dimitri buys tickets on a cruise to Blood Bath Bay, the Caribbean Sea. After learning that his grandfather, Reme Lousteau, had his diving gear and treasure he had collected stolen by Black Spot Pete, they attempt to get it back, but find the map to it to have been stolen by Captain LeFwee, another dangerous pirate whose known as the smartest man on the seven seas. After pulling off some jobs, they sail off to find Reme Lousteau's treasure and gear, only when found by Sly, they are confronted by LeFwee, who kidnaps Penelope and steals the treasure. However Dimitri keeps his diving gear. After preparing to take him on, they confront LeFwee, Bentley managing to outwit him. During the getaway, Bentley is injured, and Penelope battles LeFwee and knocks him into the habour where he is eaten by sharks. Thus, Dimitri joins the team as their frogman, and Bentley and Penelope become a couple.

The game then returns to the present, where Sly is struggling with M. As he's about to be eaten, Sly realizes he's been "cowardly" towards Carmelita, regretting never telling her how he really feels about her. After seeing Bentley and Penelope together, he now realizes what life is about. Just then, Carmelita arrives in force on the island, intending to capture both Sly and Dr M, and battles M, defeating his monster and allowing Sly to escape. She ends up fighting it out at sea. After the battle, the gang all work to retrieve Sly's cane, which is the key to the vault, and battle M several times. During these events, we learn that M was apparently not treated as an equal by Sly's father, and that he believes Sly is the same.

After fighting security, they finally break into the vault, where Sly sees the history of his ancestors. Meanwhile, M breaks into the vault and battles Sly. After Sly emerges victorious, M once again compares him to his father, but Sly insists he is not any of his ancestors, just Sly. Carmelita arrives to arrest them both, however Dr. M shoots a blast towards her, with Sly jumping in front of her to keep her from her death. Carmelita defeats M and checks up on Sly. He appears to suffer from amnesia, in which Carmelita pretends that Sly is her partner. Together, they escape, and M is killed when the entire vault becomes unstable and collapses. The rest of the Cooper Gang finds Sly's cane and calling card next to an alternate opening into the vault containing the entire wealth of the Cooper Clan. When Sly never returns, the gang splits up, except for Bentley and Penelope, who are in a relationship.

Dimitri becomes a rich scuba diver, the Panda King returns to China, starts living two doors down from Jing King, and screens all her future husbands(as of yet, she is still unmarried), Murray went to complete his training with the Guru later becoming a professional race car driver with the van, Guru, after finishing training Murray, teaches his mystic art to a group of rock stars(who found him even in New York City), and Penelope and Bentley have created a new vault to contain the Cooper wealth that is shielded by lasers and built a time machine. In the end, Sly is seen holding hands with Carmelita on a balcony, when Bentley spots them. Sly looks straight at Bentley and winks. This seems to prove positive that Sly actually faked his amnesia. Why he did so is unclear, though the reason is most likely that he's given up the thieving life to be with Carmelita. As the game ends, Bentley says "That Sneaky Devil!".

Gameplay

New variations in the game include additional playable characters besides those of Sly, Murray and Bentley. Firstly, Inspector Carmelita Fox is a playable character in some of the minigames and also a few times in the game. Secondly, some brand new characters have been introduced, including a shaman named The Guru and a mouse named Penelope. Finally, previously mentioned characters such as Dimitri from Sly 2: Band of Thieves and the Panda King from Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus are playable as well.

The game also contains 3-D sections. 3-D glasses have been distributed with each copy of the game, and are used in certain parts of the game. However, 3-D is optional in these sections, allowing the player to view the levels in standard 2-D instead. Some levels are playable in 3-D from the beginning, while other levels require the 3-D feature to be unlocked, another feature being objects in the levels are only visible when being played in 3-D. The 3-D effect is focused upon certain objects in the background rather than the characters themselves, minimizing the necessary blue/red separation and making it easier to watch someone playing in 3-D without a set of 3-D glasses.

Also, to increase replay value, an offline multiplayer mode is included, along with challenges and extra movies unlocked with specific game completion percentages. The multiplayer games are: "Cops and Robbers," "Bi-Plane Duel," "Hackathon," and "Galleon Duel." Challenges are missions that are set with specific standards, along with a Treasure Hunt mission for each world attained at the end of the game. Murray and Bentley can now pickpocket. Murray hoists stunned or unsuspecting guards above his head and shakes them down for coins and loot. The coins must be picked up off the ground after the guard is shaken. Bentley uses a fishing rod like magnet to reel in coins and loot. When the magnet attaches Bentley moves away from the guard to reel in the goods.

Loot no longer needs to be sold back at the safe house. The amount an item is worth is added immediately to the coin count. Special treasure is absent from the over world. Sly 3 also features new gameplay elements and skills, such as safe-cracking, searching for clues and objects in paintings, aerial combat, disguises, pirate ship battles, and conversations. One feature that received negative feedback from the players is that you can no longer search for clue bottles to open up a special safe somewhere inside the different worlds, which was a popular part of the first two games and added extra replay value to the game.

Reception

Sly 3 was well received, having an aggregate score of 83/100 on Metacritic.

Legacy

Sequel

Main article: Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time

Brian Fleming of Sucker Punch Productions stated in an interview that "We're broadening ourselves a little bit, taking on some new challenges," but also noted that "I think it's extremely likely that you'll see us return to the 'Sly Cooper' franchise at some point in the future. Nate Fox, one of the game designers for Sucker Punch Productions, also stated in a phone interview when questioned about it that he'd love to make another Sly game, adding to the possibility of a sequel. " An Easter egg found in the Sucker Punch game inFAMOUS shows a movie called "Sly Cooper 4" on the building's marquee; there is also a Sly Cooper symbol on Cole's backpack and back of his pants. Upon completing all three games as part of the Sly Collection for the PlayStation 3, a movie option is enabled within the game's menus. The movie is a short video showing Sly's silhouette lurking in tall grass, followed by a Sly 4 logo, with Cooper's trademark cane used as a question mark, teasing the possible sequel. Kevin Miller, the voice actor who voices Sly, has also confirmed that he has been contacted about voicing Sly in Sly 4, furthering its possibility.

The sequel, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, was finally revealed at Sony's E3 conference 2011.

Other games

Main article: Sly Cooper#Other games

The Sly Collection (titled as The Sly Cooper Collection in Japan and The Sly Trilogy in Europe and in some parts of Australia) is a remastered port of Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, Sly 2: Band of Thieves and Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves for the PlayStation 3 on a single Blu-ray Disc as a Classics HD title. The game was released on November 9, 2010. The Collection updates the graphics, including support for the 3D capabilities of the PlayStation 3, new mini-games that can be played using the PlayStation Move or standard controller and additional title supports such as Trophies.

PlayStation Move Heroes, is a 2011 Action-adventure video game developed by Nihilistic Software and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was released for the PlayStation 3 on March 22, 2011, and utilizes the PlayStation Move. It is a cross-over of the Jak and Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, and Sly Cooper franchises to form a total of nine main characters.

Soundtrack

A soundtrack was released by Sucker Punch and Peter McConnell for Sly 3, below is a track listing of the tracks on the CD..

1. Main Title and Credits
2. Penelope's Mighty Sky Chopper
3. China Palace Grounds
4. Dr. M's Island
5. Dr. M's Aerial Attack
6. Bentley and Penelope Suite
7. Murray the Ghost
8. The Shaman Rides
9. Sly the Pirate insults Pete
10. Pirate Fight
11. Gauntlet of the Ancestors
12. Bamboo Fight
13. Feeding the Croc
14. Lemonade Drinking Contest
15. Zombies' Army
16. Carmelita vs Muggshot
17. China Palace Interior
18. Venice Chase
19. Hotel Lobby with Muggshot
20. Fight with the Black Baron
21. Dimitri Underwater
22. The Great Sea Battle
23. The Treasure Island
24. Venice Espionage
25. Holland Dogfight
26. Murray fights the Hybrids
27. Canada Train Station (bonus track from Sly 2: Band of Thieves)
28. Sly's Great Train Robbery (bonus track from Sly 2: Band of Thieves)
29. Sly in Paris (Theme of Sly 2: Band of Thieves)

See also

• List of stereoscopic video games

External links

• Official website
• Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves at MobyGames
• Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves at Metacritic