This wish might have to wait until next Christmas, but it is never to early to start drafting your letter to Santa. With Sucker Punch Productions currently working on the third-person action game “inFamous,” it is unlikely that we will see a new game in the popular cel-shaded franchise for quite some time. I fully expect a fourth “Sly Cooper” game to be announced at some point, but I imagine that the Bellevue-based studio won’t be revealing its next game until many months after its current open-world project launches.

Or will we?

Back at the 2008 Leipzig Games Convention, Sucker Punch game director Nate Fox told VideoGamer.com that Sucker Punch would “love to get back to Sly.”

He added:

Right now, in the lifecycle of the PlayStation 3 the people that own them are largely adults. As we get deeper into the lifecycle more kids will have access to them. It makes sense for us to do an adult game or a teen rated game earlier on.

I can’t imagine that I won’t make another Sly game in my life.

While I would argue that the thieving raccoon appeals to both younger and older generations, I certainly respect the company’s decision to wait until the PS3’s install base increases. Though, with more than 17 million users, I doubt Sucker Punch would have trouble finding an audience for “Sly 4.”

With Fox’s comments in mind, I began to create a list of things I would like to see in the next “Sly Cooper” game.

1) Ditch the extra playable characters introduced in “Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves” and focus on Sly, Murray and Bentley.

The extra playable characters certainly added some variety, but the problem was that you never really got to spend a substantial amount of time with any of them. I loved controlling the firework-launching Panda King, but his inclusion seemed almost pointless, as he was only playable for a couple missions. Each character could have received more attention had the game’s story been extended beyond six episodes, but with such a short game and so many characters, some received almost little to no screen time. This was especially true of former villains Panda King and Dimitri, who joined Sly’s squad in the latter half of the game. Plus, the inclusion of these additional heroes cut into Murray’s mission total. Not cool.

2) “Sly 4″ should play a lot like “Sly 2: Band of Thieves”

Though I enjoyed all of the previous “Sly” games, the second was by far my favorite. Whereas “Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus” tasked players with hunting down keys in individual levels, “Band of Thieves” introduced hub worlds to the series. In each of these locations, players had to complete numerous smaller tasks, which eventually set up a final heist. Sly also gained the ability to pickpocket enemies in the gang’s second outing. That money could be used to purchase new abilities from the in-game store. The ability to pickpocket was extended to Murray and Bentley in “Honor Among Thieves.”

3) Bring back the clue bottles

These were noticeably absent from “Honor Among Thieves.” Introduced in the original game, these collectibles were scattered throughout each level. When a player collected them all, he/she was given the code to that level’s safe, which contained a hidden ability. In contrast, the bottles in “Band of Thieves” were scattered throughout each hub world. However, they were still used to acquire new moves.

The list continues on page two.

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