chris_lee88's Full Review: Thief: The Dark Project
When the concept of Thief was made, many were confused. In a time where SiN, Half-Life, Quake 2, and many other high-powered action shooters were kings, why would anybody bother to play a game where you AVOIDED confrontations? Where your character WASN'T Rambo and had to avoid combat because he was unskilled in that? I was at first very intrigued but lost interest because I thought the game would be over-ambitious and become a botched shooter. Boy, was I wrong. Thief came out later that year, and had it not been for Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat, it would be even more memorable than the king of 1998, Half-Life.
It's concept is very simple. Since the beginnings of humans, there has been always a wealthier and better supplied individual or group. And there was always a skilled person that could secretly acquire those goods and do whatever they wished with it. They were called thieves, burglars, highway robbers. Condemned by society, they had to work in shadows. Thief, for the first time in gaming history, lets you play one. In the game, you're almost put in impossible odds. You, one man, must infiltrate a unmapped region, swarming with trained guards who are very good with the sword, undetected. But Garrett is no ordinary man. He lives in a twisted neo-medieval world where there's strong evidence of the super-natural and magic being commonplace in a distinctly middle age era. He has the ability of completely disappear in shadows, and is phenomenally skilled with the bow, the sniper rifle of his age. Utilizing his talents, Garrett is the most successful thief, sought after by thief guilds and authorities alike. But he is also enigmatic, always a loner and a stag, and has a dark cynical look upon life. He has no family, no friends, and no social interactions of any kind other than his employers.
The gameplay is revolutionary because it so effortlessly depicts what a thief would go through. Sound is more important than sight. Footsteps and voices can either save or kill you. Your best friend is darkness. There is a crystal that indicates your visibility. When it's pitch black, a guard can brush right past you and not notice a thing. When natural darkness can't help you, water arrows can put out open-flame torches. When it's not possible, you may use your arrows to deliver a lethal blow. Most preferably, using a blackjack to sneak up on unsuspecting victims and hiding their bodies is the least-risky and efficient. Your last resort is the sword, which you should never use against humans. I use it openly on monsters, like burricks, crab-men, spiders, and such. They don't call for help or warn the whole building like humans do. A lot of FPS' employ sneaking elements in them, like No One Lives Forever and Deus Ex. This goes to show how the industry has been affected by the introduction of stealth. With gamer demands calling for more realistic games, stealth becomes a necessity, and the importance of Thief shines even brighter.
The game is tense, a thinking game. I choose not to wander around too much, so I will always resort to a guide sooner or later. Otherwise, I would be lost too much. The game is difficult, and I should tell you that there's no shame in using a guide to point your ways through. The game is still just as tense and fun. Even more so because you're not stressed out about getting lost. I must say, the game is very scary. The action is slow and unfolding gradually. Slight rumblings and footsteps alert you. A guard could be approaching you from the back and you would not no it until it was too late. You're constantly checking all degrees of vision to make sure that you know everything that's going around you. For example, I will tell you the scariest encounter I have had yet in Thief. In the Lost City level, where you have to find talismans in a sunken city full of lava, I had just gotten the Water Talisman and was going to find the Fire one. I went into a ruined building, and looked out the window. I heard clicking and growling, like that of an overgrown giant cockroach or spider. I surveyed the area outside the windows to try and find out where the sound was coming from. I shrugged it off, thinking it was some kind of monster in an isolated spot that couldn't harm me. I turned around, and to my utmost horror, a crab-man had snuck up behind me, flashing his ugly smashed face and razor sharp pincers. As quickly as I froze up and yelped, a duo of surgical swipes ended my life. No way was I going to play anymore that day. I instinctively pressed ESC and quit the game. My chest felt like it was given a cold jolt. It was a terrifying feeling, but also a great feeling that you could be that invested and involved in a computer game that it scared you, more than any book or movie could. Just shows how personal computer games can get.
I've had the game for a year now, and I still haven't finished it. Why? Because I'm too scared to, happy? My over-active imagination flares up in the stressful situations in Thief. This is a good thing, but most days, I just want to revel in more tame games, like Civilization II, or StarCraft. It takes a lot of personal investment to play Thief. Fear or failure, detection, and all that comes into play. That's what makes succeeding in this game all that much more of a relief as it is an achievement.
Bad things are graphics. The Dark engine loves sounds, but the characters models and environement rendering are pretty bad. Make no mistake, this takes nothing away from the game, but every game has to have a complaint, right?
Replay value, there's lots of. Difficulty levels don't make monsters faster or guards stronger. It's the same game, except with more detailed objectives. Examples like "Steal a lot of money, kill no one, exit the building as well". This should give more than enough reason to give it one or two more spins.
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