So…I’m not a fan of the series. Well, let me restate. Although I never played the first two, the concept of the Thief games always intrigued me. I just never got around to playing them. So Thief III is out now and I’m getting it today, hopefully. I’ve heard quite a bit good and a little griping. What do you guys think?
I think I’ll be stopping by Ye Olde Game Shoppe on my way home, that’s what I think.
I loved the first two games enough that my high-level IFGS (LARP) thief is based on Garrett. They’re much more to my taste than FPShooters, but then I’m a bit sneaky by nature.
The first game hooked me with its premise–finally, a game in which you’re not supposed to kill everything in sight. In fact, the most stringent play demands that you not kill at all in most levels. The second game was fundamentally similar, but the improvements in the AI were amazing. I distinctly recall standing on a ledge with an alerted sword-guard below, expecting him to just stare in frustration while I got on with things–it was quite a shock when he ran for his buddy with a bow.
Since you haven’t played them, Doomtrain, I’ll offer a few suggestions. These are based on previous games, but if they ditched the relevant elements, I’ll be surprised (and annoyed).
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Position your speakers carefully, since they will be your main tool in detecting the approach of enemies; make sure you can easily distinguish which direction sounds come from.
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Practice leaning maneuvers. Leaning around a corner to look at something helps you stay concealed, and leaning forward may get you in blackjack range of someone. Crouching is good, too.
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Your visibility will be affected by what you’re holding. You’re more visible with a sword or bow in hand than with your trusty blackjack.
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The tools of the trade are a thief’s life. Master them, especially all the uses of the arrows–they’re not just for shooting people. In particular, I hear that guards will notice bloodstains; water arrows will clean those right up.
Yea, I’m into the first non-training mission and it’s requiring complete reprogramming of my gaming circuits.
IMHO, this is the coolest game ever. Ok, some games let you pick locks/use lock picking skills. But do they allow you to actually pick the locks (using the mouse) and lean towards your monitor, twitching the mouse oh-so-carefully, and muttering, “C’mon, you bastard…c’moooo…click! WOOHOO!”?
The only problem I’m having is getting used to the movement in first person. It bounces up and down, kinda like real life I guess, but it’s just so…wobbly.
I’m right where Doomtrain is.
It’s astounding. The normal gameplay graphics look better than most pre-rendered cutscenes from a couple of years back. AI is really, really good. I love the physics engine. Everything about this game is highly polished and top-notch.
I’ve been a fan ever since I picked up the first one years ago and this does not disappoint.
Oh, and the new body awareness is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Looking down and seeing your feet is cool.
I’ll have more raving once I’ve played farther into it, I’m sure.
Oh, and did anybody else spend several minutes after you blackjacked your first guard picking him up and dropping him just to watch his body flop around and bounce off of objects?
Oh, incidentally, Balance, the viewpoint is pegged very closely to your actual body model, as a consequence of the new body awareness, so you want to be very careful about leaning and peaking–it’s possible to lean into a lighter area and get your ass spotted. It’s also possible to lean out of balance on a ledge and slide off (discovered this one myself).
Still better than just jumping out whole body, though. 
Incidentally, guards seem a heck of a lot less oblivious this time around. And being able to press up against walls to avoid them is a lot cooler than I was expecting.
Got my copy yesterday, only just started playing it today. Goddamn, but this is a great game. Thief II is one of my all time favorites, and so far, III is surpassing it in every way. God, this is a beautiful game. I love picking locks, although the first one took me almost ten minutes because I didn’t realize I could move the tip of the pick outside the circle of tumblers. :smack:
Anyway, can’t talk more: must play.
Oh, Doomtrain, you should pick up Thief I and II. They’re pretty primitive compared to this one, but they still hold up pretty well, IMO. And you should be able to find a bundle for fifteen, twenty dollars.
I may just. I’m not through the first mission yet. I keep having to kill people with my avenging arrows of righteousness, which I just know is sloppy work. I keep having to take breaks every couple hours, as I can only stay on edge for an hour or two…sneaking…sneaking…picking a chest…clobbering a guard.
Great game. I can’t believe the training mission. How cool is it to sneak through that dark room and steal a little bag right out from under the noses of three guys?!
The only thing I didn’t like about Thief I was the zombies. They were just annoying, and really seemed out of place within the genre and point of the game.
I haven’t played Thief II yet even though I do have it.
Does Thief III still have those damnable zombies?
I understand there might be a few.
I actually really like the zombie levels from the first thief. They were pretty atmospheric and you could do all sorts of amusing things with the undead beasties. My favorite was to get a nice trail of zombies following me, run into a room with Hammerites and then hide somewhere and watch the carnage. 
God, I played the first one so many times. Normal, Hard, Expert, Expert while ghosting (ie no knockouts, no being spotted, as few torches extinguished as possible, etc). Also played the second one a few times, but not as much as the first because I missed the gritty medieval flavor.
Is anyone playing the XBox version? I plan on picking up the game this weekend, and I’d prefer to get the Xbox version (simply because it’s more comfortable playing on the couch, in front of a big TV), but I’m not sure how different, playability-wise, it might be.
I loved Thief I. I never got into Thief II, unfortunately. I have it, and I tried playing it, but it seemd like it just threw you into the first mission, with no introduction, no story, no Garrett voice-over, nothing. I really liked the atmosphere of the first game, and the lack of intro took away from the whole immersion aspect.
I understand that Thief 3 has a level or two with zombies, but for the most part your enemies are human.
If you don’t like zombies you should start playing thief 2! There’s only 1 in the whole game, and it’s so avoidable that I missed it my first time through.
I read the game was designed with consoles in mind. This is why they offer the third-person view (console gamers are less comfortable with first-person view than PC gamers), and why the levels are so small (as consoles don’t have enough memory for really big levels).
I’ve read a few things about this third one that I’m not too happy about. First, your inventory carries over from one mission to another, and you can buy more equipment. This leads to people hording their rarer acquisitions, saving them for when they REALLY need them. In the first two games you were given fresh equipment every time, so you had no reason not to use everything you had. Second thing I don’t like is the small levels, which I hear are about the size of the ones on Deus Ex II.
Huh. I LIKED that they let your inventory carry over. Always seemed stupid to me that, if I beat a mission and still had four healing potions, my character would apparently just dump them in the sewer or something, since the next mission I’d have no healing potions, and no extra money from pawning them. Very unrealistic, especially from such a money-oriented-type character. More realism=good! as far as I’m concerned.
The levels are a lot smaller, but they alleviate this a bit by having most missions consist of two or more linked maps. I’m not best thrilled by this, but everything else in the game is so cool, I can overlook it.
Thanks to all for this thread. As someone who didn’t have much access to PC’s when some of these classic games came out, I appreciate being able to go back and get acquainted now.
I picked both I and II up at EB for $14 at lunch today.
Play the Thief games. Play as many as you can. I and II will look old, but the gameplay…oh the gameplay.
Then play Deus Ex, and Deus Ex 2 (but the first one is probably a bit better, though graphically dated). Ditto comments on gameplay.
Then play System Shock 2. Again, quite old, uses the same engine as Thief 2. But scary as hell. And, again, great gameplay.
Then curl up in a small ball on the ground, whimpering and clutching a blunt weapon in case the things come back. And suppress your keleptomania, and try to shake off the feeling you’re a cyborg and/or have psi orb somewhere.
Basically, buy any Thief games you can use, if you like them play Deus Ex and System shock.
There, look. I’ve stopped rambling…now.
Good to know! I was unsure of whether I’d ever pick it up, but I’m jonesing for a new game; this may be my Daniel-treat for June.
I really liked the second Thief game, except that I never finished it, due to one mission near the end:
[spoiler]Apparently you’re supposed to find some dude who’s making his rounds through a huge cavern, capture him, and carry him to the escape point. After wandering for literally hours through the huge freakin’ level, I went and read a walkthrough; even after following the walkthrough steps, I couldn’t find the dude. I think I must’ve blackjacked him early on and, having no idea that he was significant, dumped his body somewhere that I was never able to find or recognize it.
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I therefore never made it past that level and in frustration put the game down.
But other than that, it was a pretty great game. Sneakiness rocks.
Daniel
Veering dangerously close to a debate, here, but I’d advise staying far, far away from Deus Ex 2. Miserable failure of a game that managed to take pretty much everything that made the first game cool and replace it with something that was less interesting and not as useful. It was such a collossal disappointment that I had lost much hope for Thief 3 being any good, seeing as it was being released by the same people and had been afflicted by a few of the same market forces that destroyed DE2 (namely, simultaneous development for a console release).
The original Deus Ex, of course, is one of the best PC games ever made. Not much to look at, even when it was brand new, but a deep and thought-provoking plot wedded to some fantastic game-play.
Left Hand: Exact same thing happened to me on my first pass through Thief II. On the bright side, when I came back a few months later and started the level over from the beginning, I was able to beat it in about twenty minutes, because I knew the layout so well from running around and around and around looking for that one sumbitch I needed to 'jack to win the level.
OMG! How could I have missed this!?!?! The next installment of my fav series of all time is released and I have no clue?
I must fly to Ye Olde Computer Shoppe and lock myself away for the next week.
[door]
SLAM
[\door]
I can’t seem to find confirmed system requirements for the game. I’m hoping to wait for WoW before upgrading but this game might make me go on a spending spree. My current system is:
Win98SE
512MB RAM
1.0GHZ AMD Processor
Loads of HD space.
Think it’ll run without making me mad?
Forgot to list the video card. Duh !
ATI 9600 All in Wonder