THIEF is the most disappointing game I've played in the last decade. It's a decent effort to breathe new life into one of the most niche classic PC franchises and one of the best, if not the best, stealth titles out there, but the entire experience feels lifeless and sloppy.
The story is a mess, with far too many references to past Thief lore, but not enough clarification in terms of continuity, making this a vague sequel, a route very poor and sloppy that should be avoided in any long-standing narrative.
More than that, it's riddled with cutscenes that never accomplish telling the story, which doesn't even begin rolling until the third part of the game. For most of the story campaign, events are slowly set up for a quick and unsatisfying payoff at the end, that becomes worse as a lot of the narrative relies in the relationship between the protagonist Garrett and his maybe friend, maybe lover, maybe kid-sister Erin, whose relationship never becomes clear and neither gets the necessary backstory or character development.
Garrett is particularly disappointing on that front; there are some faint glimpses of what once made him one of the most intriguing protagonists in gaming history, but neither the story nor the audience ever get a good handle on who he is and what he is like.
Things fair considerably better on the gameplay front, though it's far from flawless. The sneaking can still be a lot of fun, but there seems to be a lot less variety, especially on missions. Multiple entry-ways into targets don't start until half-way-through the game, but what truly guts the gameplay is that it practically renders Garrett's tools useless.
The famed bow with the variety of arrows can be mostly circumvented and most missions can easily be cleared by sticking to the shadows in a linear path, blackjacking the occasional enemy into unconsciousness.
Variety gets better in the open-city segments. Side-missions that focus on open-world thievery require looking for and creating new pathways into buildings, creating a better overall experience. Some new toys purchasable via vendors, like razors for cutting out expensive paintings and scissors for disabling traps definitely add a fair deal to gameplay as well.
Still, however, the various sectors of Garrett's once iconic City feel a bit empty and lifeless with the sandbox design embarrassingly obvious from corner to corner and failing to create the illusion of a living, breathing city that can't see the player moving in its shadows.
Combat has never been a strong point of the series, because it's supposed to be avoided at all costs, but it's especially lazy in this installment, where a sword or a dagger is entirely missing and countering an enemy on the way to a safe hiding spot is an impossibility. The dodge mechanic feels like an afterthought and it's so badly implemented that quick-loading the game if you trigger an alert is just the more convenient option.
True to contemporary gaming, THIEF features its own upgrade system that seems to be entirely useless and it's not worth bothering with in the slightest.
Despite all the aforementioned issues, THIEF could still be considered a fairly good game that offers enough content to suck out anywhere between 15-25 hours of your life. The side-quests are fairly similar, but maintain a level of entertainment and hunting down collectible loot is also quite addicting a task. However, the killing blow comes with the optimization and the bugs.
The game was completely unplayable for me, until AMD released the 14.3 Beta drivers that added Mantle and True Audio support in the game and are highly recommended for users with ATI graphics accelerators.
More than that, the game looks alright but nowhere near good enough for its insane system requirements. The 64-bit version is badly coded even for high-end machines and SSAO is completely broken. Other bugs include AI problems, random crashes, audio drops and, my personal favourite: restarting the final mission upon reaching the final boss for no reason whatsoever.
The sound is technically problematic. Besides the audio-drops, the music can get too loud and make both SFX and voice inaudibe. As always, the game features the hilarious audio loops and repetition of generic Arrow in the Knee lines, sometimes by two or more guards simultaneously.
The bright spot of the sound is the voice of Garrett, who is a worthy-enough successor of the original's Stephen Russel, doing his best to emote Garrett's few and dull lines and actually manages to deliver his lines much in the same way as the original voice actor. He stands tall over the rest of the voice cast, as well.
I cannot, in all good conscience, recommend Thief in its current state. Perhaps one day, if and when all the issues have been ironed out, it'll be a good purchase, especially during a deal. While it doesn't hold a candle to its predecessors -yes, even Deadly Shadows- from a purely game design standpoint, THIEF is a good game. But it has far too many technical issues for an experience that feels jumbled, lifeless and, honestly, just kind of a faded copy of a much better game.
The story is a mess, with far too many references to past Thief lore, but not enough clarification in terms of continuity, making this a vague sequel, a route very poor and sloppy that should be avoided in any long-standing narrative.
More than that, it's riddled with cutscenes that never accomplish telling the story, which doesn't even begin rolling until the third part of the game. For most of the story campaign, events are slowly set up for a quick and unsatisfying payoff at the end, that becomes worse as a lot of the narrative relies in the relationship between the protagonist Garrett and his maybe friend, maybe lover, maybe kid-sister Erin, whose relationship never becomes clear and neither gets the necessary backstory or character development.
Garrett is particularly disappointing on that front; there are some faint glimpses of what once made him one of the most intriguing protagonists in gaming history, but neither the story nor the audience ever get a good handle on who he is and what he is like.
Things fair considerably better on the gameplay front, though it's far from flawless. The sneaking can still be a lot of fun, but there seems to be a lot less variety, especially on missions. Multiple entry-ways into targets don't start until half-way-through the game, but what truly guts the gameplay is that it practically renders Garrett's tools useless.
The famed bow with the variety of arrows can be mostly circumvented and most missions can easily be cleared by sticking to the shadows in a linear path, blackjacking the occasional enemy into unconsciousness.
Variety gets better in the open-city segments. Side-missions that focus on open-world thievery require looking for and creating new pathways into buildings, creating a better overall experience. Some new toys purchasable via vendors, like razors for cutting out expensive paintings and scissors for disabling traps definitely add a fair deal to gameplay as well.
Still, however, the various sectors of Garrett's once iconic City feel a bit empty and lifeless with the sandbox design embarrassingly obvious from corner to corner and failing to create the illusion of a living, breathing city that can't see the player moving in its shadows.
Combat has never been a strong point of the series, because it's supposed to be avoided at all costs, but it's especially lazy in this installment, where a sword or a dagger is entirely missing and countering an enemy on the way to a safe hiding spot is an impossibility. The dodge mechanic feels like an afterthought and it's so badly implemented that quick-loading the game if you trigger an alert is just the more convenient option.
True to contemporary gaming, THIEF features its own upgrade system that seems to be entirely useless and it's not worth bothering with in the slightest.
Despite all the aforementioned issues, THIEF could still be considered a fairly good game that offers enough content to suck out anywhere between 15-25 hours of your life. The side-quests are fairly similar, but maintain a level of entertainment and hunting down collectible loot is also quite addicting a task. However, the killing blow comes with the optimization and the bugs.
The game was completely unplayable for me, until AMD released the 14.3 Beta drivers that added Mantle and True Audio support in the game and are highly recommended for users with ATI graphics accelerators.
More than that, the game looks alright but nowhere near good enough for its insane system requirements. The 64-bit version is badly coded even for high-end machines and SSAO is completely broken. Other bugs include AI problems, random crashes, audio drops and, my personal favourite: restarting the final mission upon reaching the final boss for no reason whatsoever.
The sound is technically problematic. Besides the audio-drops, the music can get too loud and make both SFX and voice inaudibe. As always, the game features the hilarious audio loops and repetition of generic Arrow in the Knee lines, sometimes by two or more guards simultaneously.
The bright spot of the sound is the voice of Garrett, who is a worthy-enough successor of the original's Stephen Russel, doing his best to emote Garrett's few and dull lines and actually manages to deliver his lines much in the same way as the original voice actor. He stands tall over the rest of the voice cast, as well.
I cannot, in all good conscience, recommend Thief in its current state. Perhaps one day, if and when all the issues have been ironed out, it'll be a good purchase, especially during a deal. While it doesn't hold a candle to its predecessors -yes, even Deadly Shadows- from a purely game design standpoint, THIEF is a good game. But it has far too many technical issues for an experience that feels jumbled, lifeless and, honestly, just kind of a faded copy of a much better game.
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