Best "thief" Game
DiscoZombie
Join Date: 2003-08-05 Member: 18951Members
Join Date: 2003-08-05 Member: 18951Members
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">try to be objective...</div> so I recently got Deadly Shadows, and I have to say I'm enjoying it a lot more than the first two. In the first two, I got frustrated about halfway through them and gave up... sick of waiting minutes to sneak by certain guards and especially robots, sick of feeling pressured to find all that loot and pick every pocket for 100% completion...
Deadly Shadows hardly got ANY notice when it was released, but I think it's awesome... they polished up several of the edges, and the slight open-endedness of it (the ability to parade around the city having fun with randomly generated NPCs) really keeps me going...
which thief game did you guys like best and why?
Deadly Shadows hardly got ANY notice when it was released, but I think it's awesome... they polished up several of the edges, and the slight open-endedness of it (the ability to parade around the city having fun with randomly generated NPCs) really keeps me going...
which thief game did you guys like best and why?
Comments
That was both amusing and scary.
Anyways i like deadly shadows better than the other 2, feels much more polished.
PS. 1337 posts, I want <a href='http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wubbage&r=f' target='_blank'>wubbage</a> and <a href='http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=CMNP&r=f' target='_blank'>CMNK</a>!!
Thief 1:
I think this is probably my favourite. I found the zombies and undead utterly terrifying, and some of the level design was amazingly creative (Constantines Mansion the second time around especially). It was choc full of ambience and things that fleshened out the world, and each level took a while to complete as I tend to explore quite a lot instead of heading straight for the objective. A lot of people didn't like the excessive amount of undead in this game, saying they prefered the sneaking aspect of Thief, but there's nothing to stop you sneaking past undead too. Sound engineering was quality, the cutscenes and artistic direction were inspirational, and the last level - although extremely easy (you could basically run through the whole thing and not get killed) was lots of fun.
Thief 2:
More of a focus on the sneaking-aspect of the game here, and so much less undead and more guard avoiding and such. The mechanical sentrys scared the hell out of me though so I still found the game pretty frightening. Again, there were lots of things in the game which elevated it higher than just being a series of sneaking levels, with books and notes and hints of past and future events. Not to mention all the secret rooms and such which were always fun to find. The pagan village level was just beautiful, one of my favourite levels in any game. Again, a very interesting plot and also some huuge levels (such as the rooftops) which were great to play on. The later levels lacked a bit in the level design because the team were rushed to get the game out of the door (I actually spoke to one of their level designers to get this information), and one level was too big for the engine to handle, so it had to be hacked down in terms of detail which led to a rather boring and messy map. Actually, I think it was two maps - the mansion which you had to sneak through twice in a row right at the end of the game before the last level. This level also had a fair few floating chairs and things too I think (another testimony of rushed level design). The last level confused the hell out of me when I first played it, it being so damn huge and unconventional. A good game, but nto as good as the first I thought. Still, it was definately Thief with the same ambience.
Thief 3:
However much I would have loved this game to have been a worthy end to the trilogy, I really feel this is a game that <i>tries</i> to be Thief...but doesn't quite cut it. It's still a good game, but it doesn't have the same ambience of the first two games. There's just too little, of everything. I personally blame the X-box. The levels, while there are some good ones (the cradle in particular, which even so is very...short), feel very small and almost linear in nature. No monsters in this game had me wide eyed and running with fear. The Keeper assasins, a chance to have some really cool foes to avoid, were a joke and extremely annoying. The stone gargoyles were meatheads, and not worth the time. While there were undead in the game, they were completely avoidable and it would be possible to complete the game without even coming across them at all. The Pagans lost all their mystical charm in this game too, which I feel was one of the best things about the original games. It's just...Thiefs little brother who's trying to act like his big bro but ultimately doesn't get it. The Pagan level was a joke - no creativeness in its design, at least, not nearly as much as in the first two games. Oh, and being albe to sneak past people on metal and marble was a bad design choice too, because that meant that ANY surface could be walked apon without distracting attention, losing some of the gameplay elements of the original games (and making moss arrows useless).
It just should have been so much more :/
So in conclusion...the first Thief IMO was the best, the second Thief was almost as good but not quite, yet still an amazing game. The third...a good game, but doesn't have the magic of Looking Glass's games.
-edit-
I just want to say that although the first two games had various bugs and messy aspects to their design, I didn't care a bit because they were still great games. Thief 3 has much better graphics and is definately more polished overall...but I don't think that makes up for what was lost. I'd rather have seen a slightly less polished Thief 3 with all the charm of the originals.
going by your reviews, I should probably try thief 1 and 2 again - maybe I didn't give them enough of a chance...
So right now, i'm going to have to say Thief 3. It looks great, plays well, has a great story and was a hell of a lot of fun.
You pretty much covered everything. :/
I think you're a little harsh on T3, though. I'm not saying it didn't have its faults, but it was a blast on expert - once you get the patch, anyway...some of the levels were lovely.
Well I am definately going to play it again. Bear in mind I am a HUGE Thief fan, so my expectations of Thief3 were probably something like Star Wars fan's expectations of Episode 1.
Oh I was wrong about being able to play Thief 3 without coming across undead of course...I had forgotten about the ship with the zombies on and the cradle. But the ship level totally sucked. Extremely linear, small, and the game built up a lot of expectations around that particular area which it just didn't deliver. Or maybe I've just gotten too good at avoiding confrontations. :/