Meet Sly Cooper, the last of a long line of raccoon master thieves. And with all his stealth techniques and attacks, he's as cool as Sam Fisher and as stealthy as Solid Snake.

Those of you who are fans of Metal Gear Solid 2 (that's quite a lot of you, I imagine) will really enjoy the tongue in cheek references to it that are here in Sly Raccoon. With stealth playing quite a big element in the game, it's only natural that the master of stealth should have an influence.

Sly Raccoon has the most stylish beginning I've ever seen in a platform game. We see Sly leaping and swinging across the rooftops until he stands on the lookout - this is when the options to either start or load appear. Start a new game and there is no interruption, as the action begins in the current location on the screen. A few movie-style credits (like in MGS2) flash up on the screen as Cooper talks to his buddies via radio and learns his basic moves. This first level is a quick introduction to the story and the controls and it ends with a cool chase where you are dodging the destructive stun bullets of Carmelita Fox, the foxy (literally, as in the animal variety!) inspector who's been trying to catch Sly for years.

The story is introduced as Sly leafs through the file he's just stolen - his own police case file. He recalls the story of his youth, when five evil criminals broke into his home, killed his father and stole what was to be his most prized possession - the Thievius Raccoonus. This book had been handed down from generation to generation in the Cooper family, chronicling the secrets each thief in the family used to become so successful at their work. The criminals tore it into 5 pieces and went their separate ways to use their new knowledge to enhance their criminal ways. Sent to an orphanage, Sly met Bently and Murray, his two best friends and now accomplices in his quest to regain the pieces of his precious book and avenge his father. Bently is a highly intelligent tortoise who has built various gadgets and gizmos and gives you the heads up for each new encounter in the game. Murray is a stupid and fairly useless hippo, but he's good at driving your van around.

The graphics in this game are absolutely gorgeous. The ever-popular cel-shaded graphical style has rarely been executed as well as it has here. Sly himself and every enemy, object and destructible piece of scenery look wonderful, it's all fully three dimensional yet perfectly cartoon-like and brimming with detail. And when you see it in action you will be blown away by just how cool and stylish it looks. Sly's movements are perfect, I'm hard pressed to remember a platform game with such great animation, in fact it gives the awesome Ratchet & Clank a real run for their money and is graphically up to their very high standards.

Sly can sneak, run, roll, jump, swipe, swing, dive, climb and perform a number of attacks, all with absolute style. There are so many nice touches, like when Sly grabs hold of a ledge; he doesn't hang like your average platform character, but balances on the edge, poised and ready to leap fully onto it. He can press his back against a wall and sneak along very narrow ledges and one of his best tricks is the crouching ninja jump, where he spins around in mid air and lands, perfectly balanced, upon very small areas such as the tops of narrow poles. He carries a cane with a hook on the end everywhere he goes and he uses this to haul himself onto ropes and grab onto hooks, swinging back and forth until he lets go and flies forwards. When he grabs hold of a pole or rope and shimmies up it quickly, he puts the cane in his mouth so he can use all fours to speed to the top. He's a versatile little fellow, but some of his moves must be learnt as you progress through the game, which I'll come onto later.

The very imaginative and often comical enemies are just as colourful and brilliantly rendered as Sly, and their attacks range from clubbing and biting to throwing things or shooting homing bullets at you. The enemies are very imaginative and a nice touch is that when they manage to attack you, they celebrate! For example, a dog that skims a load of playing cards at you (!) shuffles the deck like a pro, whilst the machine gun wielding rottweilers fire their guns into the air and howl! The coins, notes in bottles and various parts of the scenery you can destroy all look wonderful too.

What really adds to the impressive look of the game, however, is the quality of the scenery and the backdrops. Whilst the style of the scenery remains cartoon-like (with exaggerated angles and larger than life objects) the scenery is not cel-shaded, but done in such a way that it looks fantastic and goes perfectly with the cartoon style of the characters. Every environment is rendered in lush detail and each of the 5 areas of the world you visit features a wide variety of levels and styles within a distinct theme, such as the pirate ships in Wales and the run-down casino town in a barren, rocky area of America. The amount of imagination and thought that's gone into the design is superb and the execution couldn't have been better. The very distinctive comic book style of the cut scenes in between locations is excellent too, stylishly unfolding the story and adding a lot to the already superb presentation.

The sound effects are very good and again in a cartoon style, adding to the humour of the game. The voice acting is excellent and Sly's softly spoken voice makes him one of the most likeable game characters I've seen in a while. His buddies, Bently and Murray are pretty funny and the five bosses are suitably over-the-top and insane! A dynamic soundtrack is used, with each level sporting a different catchy tune that enhances the stealthy atmosphere of the game, becoming faster and more full on when you have a run-in with a bad guy.

The main action sees you exploring a wide variety of levels, evading or knocking out bad guys whilst searching for coins, clues and keys. Each area of the country you visit begins with a level that introduces any new skills and techniques you'll need to use in the rest of the area. After this you reach a hub, from which you can access another 4 levels, with a further 2 available a bit later on and a boss level once all 6 are completed. This is a good system as it lets you choose where to go first and allows you to exit tough levels and come back later if you want to. One of the first things you'll learn to do is smash everything that looks even remotely like it can be destroyed, using your trusty cane. Pieces of scenery go flying as you smash statues, keep out signs, all manner of valuables and many other objects, all of which reveal coins to collect.

Sly is not a resilient raccoon and one hit from an enemy or dangerous object is enough to take him out. The death animations are really funny - especially when Sly gets set on fire or falls off a ledge with a big drop below - he runs in air for a second before shrugging his shoulders and plummeting to his death! However, collect 100 coins and Sly gets a horseshoe, which gives him good luck. Not only does this allow him to take a hit without dying (the lucky horseshoe takes it for him) but it also works for falling - so if you miss a ledge and fall into water or would have fallen to your death, the horseshoe breaks and its power whisks you back to the place you jumped from and gives you another chance. This is a great system and better than the standard energy bar, which will never save you from falling no matter how full it is. The fact that Sly can't take many hits causes you to play the game in quite a cautious manner, but there are continue points in each level and they're generally frequent enough that you don't end up repeating the same bits too many times.

There are clues in bottles to collect too - find them all and Bently can use them to work out the safe combination for the level's top security safe, in which lies a page from the Thievius Raccoonus. These bestow you with new abilities and moves, the first of which are a fast attack, which is handy for taking out most enemies, and the ability to roll speedily along the ground. Others include being able to jump in slow motion, dropping your hat and then triggering it to explode when enemies are near and pounding the ground to smash everything nearby. You gain other abilities too, such as magnetically attracting coins, being able to swim and the crouching ninja jump mentioned earlier. These are very handy and it's well worth hunting out those last few very well hidden bottles to get the page. Also, each area has one safe containing data that allows you to scan for bottles and destructible items, which is dead handy when you just can't find that last bottle. You can go back to a level at any time to finish finding missed bottles too. The main objective of each level is actually to get hold of a master key, of which you need 7 to gain access to the big boss. After you've defeated him, it's onto the next location.

To aid you in your thievery, you have a Binocucam that you can use at any time to scope out the area and the zoom is very powerful, giving an amazing level of detail on distant locations. Bently uses this to point out areas you need to go and any obstacles in your way or sneaky routes that are worthy of mention, in a style suspiciously similar to that of Solid Snake's Codec! The banter between the cautious and ever-pessimistic Bently and the fearless Sly who takes pleasure from laughing in the face of danger is highly amusing!

The amount of interaction with the scenery is excellent as there are many environmental hazards to face, particularly in the first location where you spend several levels inside giant machines. Also, the way objects that are suspended from ropes or floating in the water move when you land on them is very realistic. Stealth plays a large part in this game and although some platform games have used elements in the past, none have done it as imaginatively or to the extent that Sly Raccoon does it. I've heard criticisms that Sly Raccoon has no new ideas, but I think that's unfair to say. It has taken ideas from serious games like MGS2 and used them to great effect in a platform game, which hasn't been done before. Sneaking along narrow ledges plays a big part in the game, as does the avoidance of security systems. Spotlights move back and forth and you must dodge them - get spotted and the alarm is raised, the spotlights turn red and the next time they hit you you'll be fried! There are all manner of laser beam set-ups to dodge too, as well as rigged floor panels and guards with torches. These guards are particularly dangerous as the moment they see you they fire homing bullets at you that never miss - the only way to deal with them is to run up behind them or drop down from above and whack them! The lighting is outstanding for a platform game, both fixed and moving light sources portray very realistic effects and really add to the atmosphere.

There are a number of mini-games and different types of levels to play on as you progress, some of which are quite original and different to the standard platform fare. As well as your classic racing levels, others offer something different, such as the underwater level in a submarine. You must control the sub's direction of movement with one thumbstick and the direction of fire with the other and zoom around shooting treasure chests before the crabs that come out from holes all around can grab a chest and take it to their lair. Sounds simple, but it gets very tricky towards the end and will take a few attempts to beat the crabs and win the key. One of the best levels sees you covering your fat friend Murray as he makes a run for a key. You hop onto a fixed rocket launcher with a zoom function and must blast all of the thugs and guards that attempt to attack Murray before they get the chance. Levels like this really serve to break up the game and keep it fresh.

Possibly the most fun type of level is the ones where Carmelita Fox shows up with her stun gun. She blasts out shot after shot and you must dodge them whilst collecting bottles and keys and climbing, swinging, running and jumping your way to safety. It's particularly exciting when every one of Carmelita's shots smashes the ledge it hits and causes it to fall away, pressurising you to keep moving at all costs.

There's little not to like about Sly Raccoon, it's all so slick and varied that it'll keep you entertained to the end. The only real criticism I could make is that it is perhaps a little easy and a tad short. Although certain sections will challenge you, most levels can be completed in your first couple of attempts without losing too many lives. Most of the enemies are easy to dispense with, although caution is needed for the more dangerous ones. The levels themselves aren't anywhere near the size of those from Ratchet & Clank, meaning that although there are clue bottles to search out, you'll never have to stray very far to look for them. Also, the controls to hook your cane onto something can be a little hit and miss, so in some sections you end up losing several lives just because you didn't time it exactly right, which can be frustrating. Still, these moments are rare and none of these things detract from the game and are more than compensated for by the many good points.

There are no loading times and very quick transitions between levels - even when selecting a completely different location from your hideout and jumping to a previous level, the game goes straight into the action meaning the fun is never interrupted. Another good point is that to fully complete the game you will need to complete the time trials on every level (not available until you've defeated the boss for that area). These are incredibly tough and there is literally not a second to waste - you will have to take risks and use every trick in the Thievius Raccoonus book to make it through. Completing the time trial unlocks a DVD-style commentary for the level, where some of the designers and developers talk about various aspects of the game - it varies from interesting to boring like any commentary does, but is a very unique feature that gives a real insight into the kind of skill and effort that goes into creating a game.

Sly Raccoon is one of the most graphically accomplished platform games around. The combination of cel-shaded characters and picturesque scenery is a joy to behold and the amount of style and humour used really adds to the fun. Sly's great range of moves and stealth abilities combined with varied and creative level designs will keep you hooked until the end and whilst it's not as big as Ratchet & Clank, you'll enjoy it while it lasts. So grab a copy quick before Sly steals them all, leaving nothing but his calling card on the empty shelves!

Reviewed by Geoff Holland for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).