Jeez, to pick a favorite Sony franchise is kind of like trying to decide what candy you want to give out for Halloween without devouring the entire bag, you know? There's just so many delectable treats to choose from. On one hand, Insomniac's Ratchet and Clank series is the creme-de-la-creme of action opuses; God of War is quickly growing into a stellar action series (with more rumored on the way), and then you have Sly Cooper, a group of all-age-friendly action games put together by the folks at Sucker Punch, whose only previous foray into development was the Nintendo 64 platformer Rocket: Robot On Wheels. We've already endured two grand adventures with Sly and the gang, and now we're upon the third, Honor Among Thieves. And my inability to choose just one quality Sony brand continuously grows.

Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves isn't really a full-blown reinvention of the series like Sly 2 was, but rather a restructuring of part two with some new elements that keep it refreshing. It once again features Sly, his genius wheelchair-bound buddy Bentley, and the somewhat confused compatriot hippo Murray, all back for an all new quest, this time to find the sacred Cooper Vault, which reportedly contains millions in moolah. The beginning of the game actually seems to be a recap of the events leading up to this, as Sly's about to look down the gullet of a most unsavory beast.

As the game progresses, you see how Sly and the gang begin their quest to get to the vault. Sly must first convince Murray to return, ever since the clumsy hippo took off on a spiritual quest after he believes he caused the accident that forced Bentley into a wheelchair. After that, he's got several new recruits to work with, including a couple of familiar enemies from the past who manage to lend a helping hand, some fresh new faces with talents all their own, and Carmelita Fox, the cop who's out to catch Sly but still can't help but find a bit of charm in him. This all spreads out over a number of locales, from China to India to an island bombared with death traps.

Honor Among Thieves features a structure that's similar to Band of Thieves. You've got various missions that you can choose from strewn throughout a free-roaming environment, and there's different characters designated for each mission. Sly, for instance, is ideal for picking in terms of sneaking inside a building to get the goods, while Bentley will come in handy merely for hotwiring some electronics to get the gang further ahead. These free-roaming environments have their own little challenges from time to time, including missions that require you to follow a specific target, as well as avoid guards and hit the occasional "trap button" to dispose of a nearby enemy. It's really great how you can just roam around, pick some fights, and just be sneaky about it.

The in-game missions themselves show a lot of variety, no matter which character you happen to be using. If there aren't lasers to avoid here and there, there's the henchmen who could wreak havoc by hitting an alarm or being a pain in the neck on your energy bar. Furthermore, there's also new areas to explore and get bonus goodies, as well as lots of opportunities to test those platforming chops of yours. If you feel you're getting rusty, no worries- the game features lengthy tutorial missions that will teach you the basics.

Graphics-wise, the game looks as great as it always has. The Sly Cooper series has always set the standard in terms of meshing platforming controls with a comic-book-style appearance, complete with cel shading and Scooby Doo-like opening cinemas to give you the lowdown. The level designs are, like always, delightful and challenging, giving you the opportunity to test out all sorts of skills like crawling under tables (which enters you into a cool first-person perspective) and climbing into new areas. The frame rate remains pretty constant with very little slowdown, and the detail never stops. My only gripe would be with the occasional camera problems, when you're trying to look around for particular points and find yourself doing a frustrating manual rotation. Sometimes you could just be prepped for an ambush. There's also other tricky times when you need to get a photo of a perpetrator and have to go through numerous attempts just to get in the right spot. No biggie, as it adds to the challenge, but I wish this had been somewhat repaired.