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.

Sly, which was recently released in the United States and will not reach Japan until early next year, is a brilliant family-friendly romp in the Mario/Sonic-style. There was a time when adventure games like Sly became instant best sellers.

Sly should be an instant best seller. It's a great game with well-tuned game mechanics, great graphics, and a light touch. Sly, the raccoon jewel thief, may not be as groundbreaking as Mario, but he is an appealing character.

The game begins with a short tale about how the Coopers, a raccoon family, had long been in the thieving business. They had a book, "The Thievius Raccoonus," which detailed every jot and tittle about thievery; and learning from that book, they had become the best burglars in history.

They had become so good, in fact, that they only stole from bad guys. Where's the honor in stealing from good folks, eh?

But that all backfired when five supervillains crashed the Cooper home, killed Sly's dad and absconded with the book. Now Sly, teamed with a high-tech turtle and a fast-driving hippo, vows to save the family honor by getting the book back.

The game is divided into five separate adventures -- one for each villain. As it turns out, the bad guys tore the book into fifths.

So, Sly's first big adventure is visiting Sir Raleigh Frog, a brainy type with a hideout in a swampy graveyard of ships. Raleigh is actually in an armored zeppelin flying high above the ships; but to get to him, you must lead Sly through several passages in which he will find keys to open the portal to the zeppelin.

Sucker Punch, the game developer that created "Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus," has shown amazing talent in creating this game. It succeeds on every level.

First, and most important, Sly is a fun game. A rather traditional 3-D adventure, the game involves helping Sly slip through corridors and warehouses while beating up lackey villains, collecting coins, and smashing wine bottles containing notes.

Sly carries a large hook he uses to bash bad guys, latch onto hoops so that he can swing to distant platforms, and destroy such furnishings such as stacks of books and gambling chips. Destroying stuff earns Sly coins, and he gets an extra life for every 100 coins he collects.

As a thief, Sly often does better avoiding enemies. In this, the animation is quite clever. Remember, Sly is a raccoon with a long body and a bushy tail. He slips around corners, climbs ropes, ladders, neon lights, and more. His tail waves slowly as he performs these movements. With all of these touches, Sly is a pretty game to watch.

The notes in the wine bottles hold notes that help his high-tech turtle pal figure out the code to special safes. Opening these safes enables Sly to learn new moves.

You do not need to open every safe to win the game, but it's much more challenging if you endeavor to do so.

As you explore each villain's lair, you will discover a heavily padlocked door. This is the way to the evil boss on each level. To get the keys to these locks, you must help Sly find mini-levels and solve them.

Here, again, Sucker Punch demonstrates an eye for quality.

Many of these levels simply involve slipping past more guards and destroying more stuff -- they're well-made, but fairly standard. Some levels, however, Sucker Punch has dressed up with races, shooting galleries, and more, making them more fun and challenging.

Along with solid game mechanics, "Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus" has interesting artistic direction. It was created using an animation technique called "cel shading." Cel shading generally leads to simplistic characters and graphics, but Sucker Punch has spiced up the old technique to create a game that captures the ground between comic books and Saturday morning cartoons.

Sly is not perfect. The game is short. Better players will finish it within a week, and most people get a bit peeved when their $50 game doesn't last a full 40 hours.

But "Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus" is also one of the better-made platform games that I have seen in a long while. It may be easy and short, but it is also clever and beautiful and downright fun. Had this game come out two or three years ago, it would be one of the top-selling games of the year.

These days, however, the gaming community seems to have outgrown platform games, and that is sad. Video games established themselves as a new form of entertainment on the backs of Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog and Donkey Kong. It would be a shame to lose those roots now.