American-made adventure games do not typically hit the Famitsu top 10 rankings that determine what's hot in gaming in Japan. "Donkey Kong Country," a British-made Super Famicom game, was Japan's all-time best-selling foreign-made adventure game.
A couple of the "Crash Bandicoot" games, made by Sony's U.S. operation, did reasonably well here, but "Jak and Daxter," a PlayStation2 game made by the same team, did not.
So it is with trepidation that I bring up "Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus," a new adventure game for PlayStation2 from Sony Computer Entertainment America.