Thief: Deadly Shadows

[Akerfeldt]

I recently finished this great game and, to put it mildly, this is the most creepy, fucked up game ever made. Early on, the game is quite fun, it's mainly robbing and killing/knocking out religous fanatics which is one of my favourite pastimes. The weapons are neat, the stealth gameplay is quite fun, though you can always just kill guys if you have the money for the arrows and health potions. But near the end, the game takes a large, sudden turn and wanders into nightmare-land. Someone at ISA must have had some serious psychological issues. This will be one of the most memorable games I've ever played. It's free on gametap, I highly recommend it.

[Jujixi]

Might have to pick up a cheep copy somewhere (no internet at home atm ) although i've only played it on the Xbox and that was just the first level demo.

I do remember them doing some very neat stuff with the game but also seem to recall it was plagued by some of the same problems as DX:IW with them both running on the same engine.

If it's anything as fun as Splinter Cell chaos theory then i'd prolly enjoy it.

[that guy]

You should check out thief 2 if you have the opportunity. I enjoyed it a lot more though Jonas would kill me for mentioning it .

[Jonas]

Only out of jealousy then, since I could never get into Thief 2 for some reason and I really wish I could've. Thief 3 is one of my favourite games, I love its level design and its stealth gameplay, and it has some of the most memorable missions of any game ever. The Cradle is the one everybody always mentions, but my favourite levels are the museum, the captain's mansion, and the pagan hideout. I just love how well the game encourages and rewards exploration and I love the steampunk atmosphere oozing out of every corner of the game world.

And yes the story is fantastic. I played through the first couple of missions in the game again a month or so ago, and I was reminded how creepy it really is. That children's rhyme about the grey hag really makes my spine tingle. I think we can thank sound designer Eric Brosius for much of that, I can't understand he's not a damn legend by now.

[Jetsetlemming]

I liked Thief 3 more than the first two. The gameplay mechanisms and controls of the older ones prevented me from really liking them compared to the substantially more workable Thief 3. The only thing that was easier in the first two was being able to flashbang someone then knock them unconscious, if you hit someone blinded by a flashbang in Thief 3 they magically recover and turn on you.

[DaveW]

I have the first two but I've never played through them, doubt they'll work on Vista (couldn't even get them to work on XP). Someday I'll play though them.

But yeah, Thief 3 is an awesome game. I love the Captain's Mansion mission - the music and overall atmosphere is amazing. And climbing walls is great fun.

[DDL]

I found the wallclimbing more frustrating than anything else: it was as if, now you'd been given this magical ability, it served only to highlight the areas you COULDN'T climb. And the distinction between 'climbable' and 'non-climbable' seemed extremely arbitrary at times.

But then I play games weirdly, so perhaps I'm not the best judge*. Still a hell of a lot easier than fucking rope arrows, anyway.

Aside from that, the fact that the weapons were..."effective if used PERFECTLY, but really pretty awful if used otherwise" was quite a nice mechanic for ensuring that you'd concentrate on enemy avoidance rather than just cold-bloodedly slaughtering your way through everything, and the pickpocketing system was just plain inspired.

I have to admit to hating the AI in the towns, though: hammerite meets pagan, they fight, one dies...guard blames you.

Or worse: guard spots you, chases you, loses you, COMPLETELY UNNECESSARILY decides to slaughter a random passer-by instead...and then 'discovers' the body...and blames you.


*I managed to break project snowblind just by box stacking. Fucking box-stacking, ffs. That's like..a fundamental element of anything 'DX-affiliated', surely?

[Jonas]

Hahahah the AI is pretty wonky at times. But always entertaining! You're such a great proponent of the outrageously b0rked Invisible War physics on grounds of it being entertaining, so why not apply the same set of priorities to the Thief 3 AI?

Re: Wall-climbing gloves. You have a good point about them serving to highlight non-climbable walls and how the difference can be a bit arbitrary, but on the other hand it's a frickin' brilliant way to open new areas of levels you've already visited. Suddenly the city areas you knew so well can be traversed in a completely different way - it's like you suddenly get a key that opens a bunch of new doors, only they're really awesome doors.

[DDL]

I just want to know who omitted the (entirely possible even within the goddamn unreal 1 engine, ffs) simple check of

Code: Select all

If(carcass.killerbindname == 'YOU, YOU DUMBASS GUARD')
     DontBlameItOnGarrett();

But then, maybe that was the point? "This damn master thief never kills anyone, so the worst we can pin on him is 'theft from the rich', which the general populace doesn't go for at all...hmmm...*swish THUNK* LOOK! Garrett just killed this poor innocent shopkeeper here! Death to the thief!"

[Jonas]

I love you, man.

Platonically.

[that guy]

Rope arrows were awesome though

[Jonas]

There are rope arrows in Dark Messiah. They're alright.

[Jetsetlemming]

I found rope arrows to be entirely untrustworthy in Thief 1. I died many times in the one level where you have to go into the crypts just falling off the stupid rope.