Thi4f becomes plain old Thief, reboot coming in 2014

[JumBie]

Consensus is:

If you just want to have fun, Thief can provide you with that.

If however you are very critical of the games you play, and you review the games you play just like any paid reviewer, than you start to notice that things are not up to par. I will leave it at that and not even bother going in to depth about it.

 

[etrigan420]

I have a feeling that I would buy this game, and for some reason believe it to be a successor to the original Thief games, and then be *really* disappointed.

It'll be $5.00 on the 2014 Steam Holiday Sale...I'll wait.

 

[motsm]

Depends. I played Thief 1-3. This games falls short in comparison big time. However, as a game, probably not the worst nor is it the best either. I might pick it up when the price goes down and the bugs (hopefully) are fixed,

The Wife

Looks like you quoted Generator, but for some reason my name is tied to it. I imagine you had us both quoted before you deleted part of it?

 

[Revolution 11]

Downloaded this game as part of AMD's free game GPU promotions, I like stealth, but never played the Thief series, so I am probably as neutral for this game franchise as you can get. Here's my thoughts.

This game sucks. Badly. And not for the reason you think. I played about 2 hours and I noticed both good and bad things. First the good stuff.

I like the customized options you can pick. You can change various parameters such as loot glint or map indicators or removing all UI elements to your heart's content. The texture quality ranges from alright to good, the lighting is good enough (though not as good as the old Thief games according to friends).

Now here are the problems. The most damning is the movement. I do not feel like Garrett, a agile and skilled master thief. I feel like the town drunk after 10 rounds of drinks and an amputated left foot. Movement is slow, clunky, and makes me grit my teeth every 2 minutes. Running however is fluid but that is useless in this game really, considering the impossible combat with multiple guys. The Swoop ability is inconsistent or I am just too dumb to get it to work when I need it.

Enemy AI is weak but what stealth game isn't. I just expected longer persistence in their patrol routines when alerted.

ArsTechnica mentioned that there is too much focus on magic and that the plot is basically weak nonsense. I can agree with that but the bigger problem is the characters. Garrett is not fleshed out enough unless you are using the other games as backstory (this should not be necessary).

Erin is the biggest flaw in this game besides the movement problems. She is bitchy, edgy just to fill the checkbox like Dante did in Devil May Cry's reboot, and just plain stupid. There is no backstory to her, no hint of the stated relationship between Garrett and Erin (just hostile snarky dialogue with no hint of warmth), and I just can't bring myself to care about her at all. Honestly, I was happy when she faced that significant event in the prologue (SPOILERS).

Gameplay = 7/10 if movement agility is ok, 4/10 if movement is clunky to you
Plot = 6/10 (Basic narrative structure but primary motivator in Erin is hamfisted)
Characters = 3/10 (Garrett is really a avatar, not a character and Erin needs to DIAF)
Graphics = 7/10 (graphics are alright, nothing to write home about in 2014)
Music = */10 (Didn't even notice the music which could be good or bad)

TL;DR = Game is ok, but clunky movement and horrible characterization of Erin ruin all suspension of disbelief

 

[PrincessFrosty]

I was starting to enjoy the game in my first hour or so.. but as you have stated it's now pretty much a rail sneaker.

As for the guy who said fans of older games are full of it. Sorry but Frosty is right, this game is inferior to the old ones in almost every way. The main reason this is not excused is better already existed before, use that as your foundation and improve. Instead they tore down the foundation and put a trailer home up and yes this is why "consolized" is an insult.

Funny thing is if they'd just invented a new IP for the game, instead of trying to boost the games appeal by piggybacking off the success of the originals, they wouldn't have thousands of rabid upset fans blasting the game for being crap.

It's crazy, it's not win/win, it's not even win/lose, it's just lose/lose. The fans of Thief lost out with an insultingly rubbish reboot and the devs/publishers are getting panned for it which I'm sure they'd rather not have on release day when they're trying to make sales to all the casuals.

Look at a really good stealth game like Dishonored, they managed to get a lot of the stealth elements dead on, they clearly wanted to make a game which played a lot like Thief and in fact they pay homage to it in one particular scene where you sneak in past a Thieves training guild, an undeniably respectful nod to Thief.

But the game isn't Thief, it's judged against Thief as a peer in the gaming industry but they're not upsetting thousands of fans by abusing a much loved IP. Ironically Dishonored (when played as stealth) is probably 100x closer to Thief than Thi4f is, as the ArtsTechnica review said, just go buy Dishonored instead, and if you already own it, just play it again.

 

[CPA]

yep 332.21 guess it was early Jan sorry

Well, rolled back to 332.21 and got about 30 minutes into the game and same thing happened. Not sure what to do now other than start searching around or wait for a patch.

 

[BSim500]

Look at a really good stealth game like Dishonored, they managed to get a lot of the stealth elements dead on, they clearly wanted to make a game which played a lot like Thief and in fact they pay homage to it in one particular scene where you sneak in past a Thieves training guild, an undeniably respectful nod to Thief.

Agree 100%. I started Dishonored with the predisposed biased mindset of it being a "poor man's Thief", but it actually turned out pretty good (very good in fact) and I was happy to be wrong. The only thing it lacked was "stealth in shadows" (instead relying on line of sight based cover). Other than that it "felt" more like Thief than "Thief4". (A bit like how Serious Sam felt more of a sequel to Doom 2 than Doom 3 did...) The problem with Thief is it really does feel like 2-3 half games "stuck together" (as one reviewer put it) probably because half the senior development team left at one point and the other half seemed to have some lesser watered down idea of "Call of Duty with shadows". "Thief" is so dumbed down on most missions there are no actual loot requirements beyond plot items. Go figure...

Deus Ex had huge levels. DX:Invisible War screwed it all up to fit into the XBox's 64MB memory, but Square Enix did a pretty good job of fixing most broken things in DX: Human Revolution. Many were expecting the same of Thief : T1&2 had huge levels, T3 (Deadly Shadows) was as nerfed as DX:IW for tiny levels to fit in the same 64MB memory limit. But instead of repeating DX:HR's success, it has somehow managed to make the levels even smaller, which is sad because both Dishonored and Thief 4 use exactly the same UE3 engine, and the former managed to pull off some much larger levels that ran well even on an old i3 and 7790 card, without the underlying prevalent feel the game tries to make up in cinematic gimmicks what it lacks in core gameplay...

 

[sze5003]

This game does not remind me of call of duty at all. What reviewer said its like cod with shadows? Its more like dishonored and Assassins creed without weapons, combat, and no free roam.

 

[Revolution 11]

I tried out the third Thief game, Deadly Shadows, in a demo and comparing that with screenshots of the first 2 games and my experience with the reboot, there are certain trends.

The darkness is less dark in Deadly Shadows than in the first Thief game. And it is even less dark in the reboot. Movement in Thief 3 is also slow but it did not become annoying in the length of the demo unlike the reboot which took about 90 seconds to notice.

 

[HeXen]

Agree 100%. I started Dishonored with the predisposed biased mindset of it being a "poor man's Thief", but it actually turned out pretty good (very good in fact) and I was happy to be wrong. The only thing it lacked was "stealth in shadows" (instead relying on line of sight based cover). Other than that it "felt" more like Thief than "Thief4". (A bit like how Serious Sam felt more of a sequel to Doom 2 than Doom 3 did...) The problem with Thief is it really does feel like 2-3 half games "stuck together" (as one reviewer put it) probably because half the senior development team left at one point and the other half seemed to have some lesser watered down idea of "Call of Duty with shadows". "Thief" is so dumbed down on most missions there are no actual loot requirements beyond plot items. Go figure...

Deus Ex had huge levels. DX:Invisible War screwed it all up to fit into the XBox's 64MB memory, but Square Enix did a pretty good job of fixing most broken things in DX: Human Revolution. Many were expecting the same of Thief : T1&2 had huge levels, T3 (Deadly Shadows) was as nerfed as DX:IW for tiny levels to fit in the same 64MB memory limit. But instead of repeating DX:HR's success, it has somehow managed to make the levels even smaller, which is sad because both Dishonored and Thief 4 use exactly the same UE3 engine, and the former managed to pull off some much larger levels that ran well even on an old i3 and 7790 card, without the underlying prevalent feel the game tries to make up in cinematic gimmicks what it lacks in core gameplay...

Thief 3 and IW used a "heavily modified UE2 engine and Thief 4 uses a "heavily modified UE3 engine. Thief 3 actually had several very large levels, it was just split into a loading areas. It also was one of the earlier games to use lip synced, motion capture. Could have shadows dynamically move based on adjacent light shadows, subtler variances in NPC's reception to sound made by player, Also to note that both DE:IW and Thief 3 was hailed by critics, received very good metecritic scores.

Either some players never gave Thief 3 a chance or has not played it in many years but It took me 20 hours to beat, not bad for a title with supposed "small levels" After replaying all 3 titles last year, I fail to see what makes part 3 any worse other than there is less empty space and it had some stiff animations and loading areas. I would certainly take high detailed, smaller maps over very large, empty ones. Very few games outside of maybe GTA4/5, skyrim and Oblivion has such large maps with "lived in" detail so budget and time is certainly an issue.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Isn't this the first True Audio game? Can anyone with a Hawaii based GPU comment on this? Does it work? Can you tell a difference?

 

[motsm]

Isn't this the first True Audio game? Can anyone with a Hawaii based GPU comment on this? Does it work? Can you tell a difference?

It doesn't have it yet, it's planned for a patch.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Bansihed made by 1 person is outselling Thief on Steam. That says abit.

 

[Jules]

Bansihed made by 1 person is outselling Thief on Steam. That says abit.

Thief is #1 atm.

Are you saying all the games below it are not any good?

 

[ShintaiDK]

Thief is #1 atm.

Are you saying all the games below it are not any good?

It was the other way around earlier.

Nope, I didnt say that. But budget wise and the sale amount is not impressive for Thief. Its just a medicore game at best to a high price.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/thief

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/banished

 

[Jules]

It was the other way around earlier.

Nope, I didnt say that. But budget wise and the sale amount is not impressive for Thief. Its just a medicore game at best to a high price.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/thief

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/banished

Cool, saw those already. I ended up watching some twitch stream and picked it up for 25 bucks with the dlc. Really enjoying the game

 

[JamesV]

Thief 3 and IW used a "heavily modified UE2 engine and Thief 4 uses a "heavily modified UE3 engine. Thief 3 actually had several very large levels, it was just split into a loading areas. It also was one of the earlier games to use lip synced, motion capture. Could have shadows dynamically move based on adjacent light shadows, subtler variances in NPC's reception to sound made by player, Also to note that both DE:IW and Thief 3 was hailed by critics, received very good metecritic scores.

Either some players never gave Thief 3 a chance or has not played it in many years but It took me 20 hours to beat, not bad for a title with supposed "small levels" After replaying all 3 titles last year, I fail to see what makes part 3 any worse other than there is less empty space and it had some stiff animations and loading areas. I would certainly take high detailed, smaller maps over very large, empty ones. Very few games outside of maybe GTA4/5, skyrim and Oblivion has such large maps with "lived in" detail so budget and time is certainly an issue.

Regardless how big the levels were, when you have to sneak by a guard to get to the next section, and you can't get on the clearly visible ledge to sneak by, or use a different route, that big level is actually a linear set of pre-planned encounters.

That is what fans of the first two hated about 3. Some of Thief 2's levels were small (just a house and the outside lawn), but you could traverse that entire area anyway you wanted; go into the basement, use a rope arrow to get to the second floor, etc, etc, etc. Thief 3+ is all about the pre-determined way you can go, with an occasional secondary path that is clearly marked. Context use points are a travesty in a game like this.

 

[Revolution 11]

Regardless how big the levels were, when you have to sneak by a guard to get to the next section, and you can't get on the clearly visible ledge to sneak by, or use a different route, that big level is actually a linear set of pre-planned encounters.

That is what fans of the first two hated about 3. Some of Thief 2's levels were small (just a house and the outside lawn), but you could traverse that entire area anyway you wanted; go into the basement, use a rope arrow to get to the second floor, etc, etc, etc. Thief 3+ is all about the pre-determined way you can go, with an occasional secondary path that is clearly marked. Context use points are a travesty in a game like this.

Stop convincing me to play Thief 1 and 2. I have enough games on my backlog...

 

[HeXen]

Regardless how big the levels were, when you have to sneak by a guard to get to the next section, and you can't get on the clearly visible ledge to sneak by, or use a different route, that big level is actually a linear set of pre-planned encounters.

That is what fans of the first two hated about 3. Some of Thief 2's levels were small (just a house and the outside lawn), but you could traverse that entire area anyway you wanted; go into the basement, use a rope arrow to get to the second floor, etc, etc, etc. Thief 3+ is all about the pre-determined way you can go, with an occasional secondary path that is clearly marked. Context use points are a travesty in a game like this.

There was always alternatives to getting past enemies in T3 but ropes and ledges do not exactly make a game superior, especially when you're dealing with security cameras and robots. T3 had a much more lived in atmosphere with NPC's that were not just chamber maids. Ropes and ledges does not make up for poor contrast, empty spaces and the plethora of other things wrong with T2.
None of which beats Dishonored in most respects anyway but T2 does not hold up well at all today.

 

[Sulaco]

There was always alternatives to getting past enemies in T3 but ropes and ledges do not exactly make a game superior, especially when you're dealing with security cameras and robots. T3 had a much more lived in atmosphere with NPC's that were not just chamber maids. Ropes and ledges does not make up for poor contrast, empty spaces and the plethora of other things wrong with T2.
None of which beats Dishonored in most respects anyway but T2 does not hold up well at all today.

You keep blathering on about "poor contrast". The game is meant to be played in the dark, and darkness and shadows are the key to the entirety of the gameplay.
Also, every single Thief game had a contrast slider in the options, in case the default settings were not properly calibrated for your personal environment.

In other words, if you had a problem with "contrast", that's on you.

As far as crying about "empty spaces", more nonsense. The levels were enormous and open for a reason; giving you options on how you wanted to traverse a particular area.

 

[BSim500]

There was always alternatives to getting past enemies in T3 but ropes and ledges do not exactly make a game superior, especially when you're dealing with security cameras and robots. T3 had a much more lived in atmosphere with NPC's that were not just chamber maids. Ropes and ledges does not make up for poor contrast, empty spaces and the plethora of other things wrong with T2.
None of which beats Dishonored in most respects anyway but T2 does not hold up well at all today.

I've played all three, and whilst Thief 3 was dumbed down quite a bit from Thief 1&2 in terms of scale, I agree if you grit your teeth and accept the smaller level "hubs" it wasn't horrifically bad. A few things were better (graphics, lighting, shadows, etc). Personally, I enjoyed the city "hubs" in between the main missions (more than I thought I would). I tried to do the same with Thief 4, but there are so many serious game-breaking annoyances it just isn't remotely enjoyable even ignoring level size issues:-

- I'm not epileptic but the way the screen flashes white every time your visibility changes drove me absolutely berserk. It's a 'feature' that basically says "You are too stupid to look at the light gem" - a level of utter patronising absurdity even Thief 3 didn't dumb itself down to...

- "Bonus mission objectives" for Mission 1 include "score 4 headshots!". Combined with the above, it pretty much sets the "hyper-dumbed down" tone for the whole game.

- Horrible sound balancing (many sounds at different distances all sound the same volume and continue to do so after you've moved behind a solid stone wall.) Someone shouting in your ear whilst picking the lock on a safe could standing be next to you or 30ft away the other side of a stone wall.

- There are no actual mission loot requirements beyond plot items...

- ... probably because "one-way checkpoints" cut you off from previous areas so if you missed some loot you cannot go back. Thief 3's levels may have been small but at least they were returnable.

- The FOV changes every time you crouch. Annoyingly so.

- Stupid button-mashing Quick Time Events throughout just to move a plank of wood or open the same window you just entered through

I really did try and give it a fair shot, and ignore "nostalgic trivialities" but Thief 3 (Deadly Shadows) is a relative 'paragon of intellect' compared to this joke:-

Average play time:-

Thief Gold = 21-23hr
Thief 2 = 22-29hrs
Thief 3 = 18-23hr
Thief 4 = 8-11hr

http://www.howlongtobeat.com

That's a complete joke considering it took the same 5 years to make as 60-hr gameplay epic Dragon Age Origins...

 

[TheSlamma]

I'm not gonna watch this video cause I want no hints but just the text alone has me interested.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/02/26/n...el=ref&ns_source=steam&ns_linkname=0&ns_fee=0

Thief has a brilliant options menu. Visual aids like loot-glint, objective markers and object highlighting can be disabled for a score multiplier. You can even turn off Garrett's new "focus" mode, and guard alert indicators, and then turn the whole thing into a sneaky roguelike by activating Iron Man mode. Die, or fail an objective, and the whole run comes to an end.

 

[sze5003]

Yea I want to turn off the flashing controller when I'm not hidden. Going to mess around with the settings on the ps4

 

[Fire&Blood]

Disappointed, I was hoping that actually playing it would align me with the better reviews it got but I was wrong. Steam was unusually slow, finally installed and started playing last night. I'm only in chapter 3 now but the flaws are in the game's core, I am open for the remainder of the game to change my mind but I don't see it happening.

I replayed the trilogy recently and just last week I cleaned the dust of Dishonored, it was a sin to have that one sit in my backlog all this time. So I bought the reboot and it looks like a waste of money and time.

I remember a while ago the devs said they took QTE's out of the game but they just converted them into mini cut scenes. Like I said, only got to chapter 3 and they are already a nuisance.

With the originals still fresh in memory, this is a far cry from the Thief series.
It's a linear game with a few multiple choice exams and illusions of a few more.
The AI hasn't progressed in a decade, it actually might have gotten worse.
It's a very good port, think Max Payne 3. I'm having audio problems, apparently it's common when using mobo S/PDIF to a receiver.

Visually it's an impressive game but the depressing game locations don't let it shine.The benchmark isn't depictive of actual performance for me, I get 30fps avg yet in game the average is a lot higher. I wouldn't slap a next gen moniker on it though, that should be reserved for titles that leave the old consoles behind.

As far as I am concerned, they would have been better off just modernizing one of the first 2 Thieves and I'm convinced they'll draw the same conclusion once the sale numbers come in, I don't think their plan to water down Thief for the mass market will pan out as they hoped it would.

The new Garrett voice did well though I still think that voice/motioncap synergy excuse was BS. I really hope the rest of the game gives me a reason to come back here and eat my words but it seems like wishful thinking really.

EDIT: If you do get this, do not install on an external drive, the sound assets won't work properly. I don't have in game voices, only cut scenes voices work for me. I don't have room on the SSD anymore, BF4 alone takes up ~40GB.

 

[sxr7171]

I'm not gonna watch this video cause I want no hints but just the text alone has me interested.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/02/26/n...el=ref&ns_source=steam&ns_linkname=0&ns_fee=0

Thief has a brilliant options menu. Visual aids like loot-glint, objective markers and object highlighting can be disabled for a score multiplier. You can even turn off Garrett's new "focus" mode, and guard alert indicators, and then turn the whole thing into a sneaky roguelike by activating Iron Man mode. Die, or fail an objective, and the whole run comes to an end.

Kind of like Hitman's score multiplier. But this is more customizable.