Sly 2 presents an interesting puzzle. On one hand, developers Sucker Punch really improved the whole concept over the first Sly Cooper game; bigger worlds, longer levels, pickpocketing, clever heist schemes. And on the other hand, they watered down the whole experience and lost a little of what made Sly 1 so good; no more twisty-turny linear level designs, far too many missions forcing you to use Sly's lame sidekicks, and a storyline that flies over the rainbow in the last hour. I found myself wishing I had the game designers sitting by me so I could personally point out what worked and what didn't... because this is a series that deserves attention, yet always ends up overshadowed by Sony's other cartoon mascot games Ratchet and Jak.

If you'll recall, the big bad boss of Sly 1 was Clockwerk, a mechanical bird focused on destroying Sly. I'm not spoiling much by saying he failed in the first game... so he's back for the second. Sort of. Pieces of him are, anyway. A new set of enemies, the Klaww Gang, has been scavenging his parts for use in their own criminal empires. Using his indefatiguable internal organs as train engines, his feathers in a counterfeiting machine, his eyes in a hypnosis ray. That sort of thing. Sly and his pals are afraid of the inevitable re-assembling of Clockwerk, so they set out to steal his parts before somebody gets the bright idea to resurrect the evil vulture. Of course, somebody is...

Inspector Carmelita Fox is back as well, forever a step behind in her efforts to capture Sly. There's always a certain amount of sexual tension between the two, and it's nice to see their relationship take a few further steps in this sequel. New to the cast is Neyla, another attractive young female cop out to intercept both Sly and the Klaww Gang.

The key difference between Sly 1 and 2 is the new hub world system. Sly 1 had several hub worlds that held little more than the entry points to the actual levels. Sly 2 works hard to make the hubs feel like part of the game, simply by incorporating the hub world into the missions. Most of your missions take place in the hubs themselves, with only a handful (per hub) taking you into other areas. It would not be incorrect to compare this setup to the free-roaming style of Grand Theft Auto. This means you gradually get to know your hub zone, developing a street sense that might help you find shortcuts later on. You can spend as much time exploring the hubs as you like (they are now the sole location of the famous collectible clue bottles from Sly 1) and you'll usually have a selection of missions to trigger in any order you choose. Many missions have you interact with the Klaww Gang bosses - like sneaking into their private quarters to plant a bug - so you get to know your adversaries well in advance of old style boss fights.

The graphics are much cleaner and smoother than before; the first game had some ugly slowdown that seems to be gone this time around. (The biggest glitch I noticed was in the final world where far-off objects would disappear while the patrolling guard remaining walking on top of it.) Cel-shading is still the order of the day, despite being out of fashion. The cartoony concept is rarely as well done as it is in Sly 2, as the characters all animate beautifully. Even the low level guard baddies are fun to watch, likable characters in their own right. One problem: some of the hubs are overly dark. I know, I know, Sly is a thief and would rightly work at night. Maybe my eyes are going bad, but I celebrated loudly when I got to the snowy Canadian world where it wasn't so damn dark.

Mission variety is a high point, although I miss the style of the first Sly's levels. Nothing is as complicated, design-wise, as the linear platforming levels of Sly 1. When you're not fetching stuff or destroying stuff in the hub worlds, you're in an interior location that's only a couple of rooms long. I would have liked to see a return to the winding paths of the first game... combined with the new missions and enhanced hubs of this one. That's not to say that the levels here aren't beautiful and well-presented - you have to go a long way to find games with stronger art direction that the Sly series - just that those platform levels were so much fun and it's a shame they didn't return.

A welcome change is a life meter. The first Sly had a one-hit-you're-dead policy. Having a life meter makes things much more forgiving and results in much less restarting. If you're the type who likes to beat games rather than have them beat you (I know I am), Sly 2 is a perfect game... infinite lives, no resentful punishment for exploring, falling, or getting caught by sentries.

The other new feature of Sly 2 is the increased role of the rest of his gang, Anal Geek Cliche #1 and Stupid Muscle Cliche #1. Oh right, Bentley and Murray. In the first game, their levels were little more than mini-games inserted to break up the pace of all of Sly's platforming levels. Now, they're assigned almost as many missions of Sly himself, although their missions tend to take on a different flavor. Whereas Sly gets all the sneaky stealthy stuff, Bentley usually comes out when a mission requires something blown up or a computer hacked (hacking is done via a Tron-esque arcade shooter that can get tedious). Murray is a punching machine, and he gets all the arena-style boards where you have to knock out X enemies... or even just when the gang needs something heavy lifted.

Here's where things get weak. After learning to love Sly's repertoire of jumps and acrobatic attacks, you're stuck playing one of two goofs who can do neither. All three characters have slightly altered button control schemes, which gets annoying to re-learn every third mission. And all those great thief skills you've grown used to pulling off as Sly are completely without equal in Bentley and Murray. Where Sly can scamper up pipes, perch on spires, and swing from hooks to travel the land, the other two just walk. It's like teaching a baby bird to fly and then cutting off his wings. No, it's like ripping them off and plugging bricks in their place. It hurts every time you have to downgrade by dragging a sidekick out of the safehouse. It's a direct result of the new hub design; in the first Sly, Bentley and Murray never set foot in the hub zone and were only trotted out when their sub-level game required it. Now they get to go wherever Sly goes.

Blame Sly for it; he's a wonder to control. His scaling and leaping abilities are so fun, so elegant. He makes exploring the hub zones an art form, while underpowered Bentley and clumsy Murray make it a chore. I would often pan the camera across the skyline while playing as Murray and reminisce about how much fun it was to actually swing across the rooftops instead of being forced to plod along in the alleyways. You start longing for Sly after a couple sidekick levels.

Yes, Bentley and Murray get their own upgrades, but they're just more of the same. Bentley gets this insipid shrink gun and new bomb types. Murray gains the ability to catch enemies on fire when he punches, among others. I stopped upgrading them pretty early on when it became apparant that these guys were going to suck no matter what I bought for them. The secret is that only a couple of the upgrades are actually required to progress through certain levels. Most of them are fluff.

Many of Sly's upgrades are fluff too, but I'd still rather play with his than the others'. The game doesn't help much by using a weird powerup scheme that only drives home the fact that the upgrades are completely unnecessary. You're allowed to map three of the special moves to the L1, L2 and R2 shoulder buttons. Any powerup that is truly important - like Sly's handglider - will be assigned in other ways. Sly has a cool electrical charge attack, a railslide maneuver, an alarm clock for distracting enemies... but like I said, very few of them provide anything different than the normal attack moves. They're just there for variety. More than likely you'll settle on a trio you like and stick with them for the whole game.

More interesting is the hidden movie rewards you get for beating bosses. Once you finish a boss, sit on the menu screen for that level. After a few seconds, a badge will blink in the lower left corner. Hit square and you'll watch a secret movie. The best one is a really long behind-the-scenes interview with the developers and voice cast.

One of the things that comes up repeatedly in talks about Sly 2 is the setpiece heist missions. Coming at the end of any given hub world, these multi-layered missions are the game's sole excuse for propping up Bentley and Murray as much as they are. The inspiration is classic crime films like Ocean's 11, where a gang of likable yet screwy crooks all work together to pull off some ridiculous stunt. Bentley explains the plan... Sly goes here, Murray goes here, he does this, Sly does that. And in the end, an elaborate scheme is pulled off that upsets the Klaww Gang's operation. Most of them are silly Rube Goldberg-type machinations, but I rather think that's the point.

The heists are a nice thiefy element, like the stolen item runs and the pickpocketing. Another nice touch is the headset communication. It's not mentioned in the manual, but if you plug in your USB headset you'll receive mission instructions in your ear instead of on the TV. Very slick! If only you could talk back to them.

Stupidly, Sly 2 offers no way to turn off the subtitled mission text. Although I see the need for subtitles in games (both for hard-of-hearing gamers and for those nights when you can't crank the audio), I hate them because they detract from the immersive experience. And to make matters worse, the characters all talk fairly methodically, making mission briefings a slow burn.

Here's something else I don't understand. Why does the pause screen have to look like ass? Pausing brings up an options menu decorated in rastery images of the cast. Guys, you have to have that artwork sharp somewhere; every cutscene is a gorgeously animated Flash production for crying out loud. Why'd you cheap out on the pause screen? This isn't a PS1, you could have done a nicer job on that.

To recap: I love everything about Sly, and I hate everything about Bentley and Murray. Here's my request for Sly 3: push the "gang" into the background. I'm okay with Bentley handling mission briefings and with the occasional mini-game... but I don't want to feel like I'm cheating on Sly with the lesser characters. I would even go as far as to suggest adding Carmelita as the second playable character. She could bring in some variety (that gun!) while maintaining the same acrobatic skills as Sly. While we're dreaming, let's go for splitscreen 2P missions, some with Sly and Carmelita cooperating, and some with them fighting each other, spies vs. mercs style. Hell, add a time traveling element so we can play Coopers of years past in online burglary races against each other. Or introduce a new enemy who is just as talented as Sly and let us control her/him. Do whatever you have to do to avoid slumming as the Geek and the Moron.

Did I mention yet that Murray has developed an annoying superherfaux personality as "The Murray"? It's really sad.