Among the many great games that have come out in the past few weeks, I've been playing Sly Cooper 2: Band of Thieves with my 3 yr old son.  It doesn't always hold his attention (he constantly wants me to play "Murray" or "Turtle" and then wanders off when I don't have any missions for them), but it has mine absolutely captured.

Rarely do I play a game and say "wow, that's just a better way to do things".  Sly Cooper 2 is one of those games.  The game is broken down into a series of "heists" (episodes).  All your missions for each episode are laying all the groundwork for the big heist at the end -- disabling defenses, gathering information, creating a cover or a distraction.  Then when you finally pull off the heist at the end of a mission all those individual threads are pulled together into a triumphant payoff.  You really get the sense that you have a master plan that you are executing due to careful preparation. 

In other words, it captures the "heist" vibe perfectly.  There are a million other things to like about the game of course -- like the original Sly it has sharp, polished minute to minute gameplay, a great variety of mechanics, and a wonderful sense of humor.  But the heist structure of Sly 2 just blows me away.  It gives the whole game an intensity and cohesiveness that is downright impressive. 

Sucker Punch remains one of the best under-publicized developers in the industry, IMO.  Both Sly games and Rocket: Robot on Wheels were all top-notch games filled with humor, variety, and warmth.  I really hope Sly 2 does well for them, though I fear the "cartoon animals" setting will instantly turn off a lot of people who would otherwise love it.

I have to say the new HDTV really brings some games to the next level.  Playing Burnout 3 in widescreen is pretty awe-inspiring (even if the gameplay is becoming a bit repetitive a few hours in).  Unfortunately I ran into some problems with Fable on it, but nothing a little research on the internet couldn't give me a workaround for.

It's going to take me months to dig out from the avalanche of high quality games this year.  Dawn of War & Battlefront are sitting on my desk waiting to be played, freshly purchased from the local EB.  Tomorrow is Kohan 2 and X-Men Legends.  Meanwhile I've barely scratched the surface of Sims 2, Fable, and Call of Duty: United Offensive!  At least it's a pretty good problem to have...