Sly Cooper has a very distinctive visual style that is only outdone by its innovative hide-and-sneak elements. You’ll find yourself creeping around corners, tip-toeing about in a barrel, and pulling other such stealth maneuvers (some of which seem like they were pulled straight out of the Metal Gear Solid series), in an attempt to stay out of sight while you complete your objectives. Along with Sly’s computer-nerd turtle buddy, Bentley, they will attempt to retrieve an old family heirloom called the Thievius Raccoonus. This heirloom is a book that was stolen from Sly’s family and contains the deep dark secrets of Coop’s burglar heritage, describing in detail the various methods of histories’ most renowned and successful thieves. The criminals who stole the book have torn it into many pieces and scattered the various pages around the world, locked in coded vaults. Bentley’s brains and Sly’s stealth tactics are a match made in thievery-heaven. Sly will sneak around and dispose of various enemies while Bentley decodes secret clues and conducts remote-reconnaissance from afar, all the while keeping in constant contact with Cooper and alerting him of potential hazards.

The various acrobatic maneuvers that Sly can perform include everything from scaling twisting pipe and rappelling from walls, to swinging from objects hanging in the sky with his hook-weapon. Even the infamous double-jump is included. You’ll come across clues in the form of notes in a bottle scattered throughout the nooks and crannies of the games’ expansive environments. Finding every clue will give you the pass-code to the level’s vault, which contains pages from the legendary Thievius Raccoonus and teaches Sly how to perform new maneuvers for use in your quest.