Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus
Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus is a stealth platformer developed by Sucker Punch Productions and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. Released in 2002 for the PlayStation 2, the game follows Sly Cooper, a skilled raccoon thief, as he and his gang attempt to find the Thievius Raccoonus, a book containing the secrets of his family's thieving heritage. The game combines sneaking, platforming, puzzle solving and light combat and is characterized by its cel-shaded graphics and humorous narrative. The game is divided into five worlds, each revolving around a specific part of the world and the villain who has his headquarters there. Most worlds are structured as a central hub with entrances to numerous individual levels. Each level has a main objective for which the player receives a key. You must collect all the keys in the world in order to fight the boss of the world. Many of the levels have a platform structure. The goal of these worlds is to reach the place where the key is located. There are many stealth elements here, as the player must dodge searchlights and triple lasers that trigger an alarm and avoid alerting guards. In addition to the main objective, there are also clue bottles to find. If you find all the clues in a level, you can open a vault with a side of Thievius Raccoonus, which gives you a new ability. Once you have obtained this ability, there is also a master thief sprint where the player must get from the start of the level to the exit within a time limit.
Story
Sly Cooper comes from a long line of master thieves (the Cooper clan) who only steal from other criminals and thus turn to vigilante justice. The Cooper family heirloom, an ancient book called "The Thievius Raccoonus", records all the secret tricks and techniques of the individual members of the clan. On his 8th birthday, Sly was supposed to inherit the book and learn all of his family's ancient secrets to help him become a master thief. However, a group of thugs called "The Fiendish Five" (led by Clockwerk, the arch enemy of the family clan) raided the Cooper household, killing Sly's parents and stealing all the pages of Thievius Raccoonus. After that, the ruthless gang go their separate ways to commit dastardly crimes around the world. Sly is sent to an orphanage where he teams up with two boys and forms a gang who become his lifelong best friends: Bentley, an engineer, inventor and gifted mathematical hacker with encyclopedic knowledge who plays the role of the brains of the gang, and Murray, a huge husky, cowardly guy with a gigantic appetite who plays the role of the gang's muscleman and getaway driver. The three leave the orphanage together at the age of 16 to start their lives as international vigilante criminals and give themselves the name "The Cooper Gang". Sly vows to one day avenge his family and track down the Inhuman Five and steal back the Thievius Raccoonus. Two years later, the Cooper Gang heads to Paris to infiltrate the Itnerpol (a police headquarters) to find the secret police file that holds details and information about the Inhuman Five, but during the heist they are ambushed by Inspector Carmelita Fox (with whom Sly develops a romantic attraction), a policewoman who belongs to Interpol and is after the Cooper Gang. The gang manages to steal the police file and escape from her and the other police officers. With the secret police file in hand, the Cooper gang manages to track down the Five Inhumans.