I got Thief: Deadly Shadows yesterday. Nice game. But the plot is quite cheesy.
There are the Hammerites, some fanatical religious nutjobs. I did something bad to them, so they will attack me every time they see me. But they sent me a letter saying that if I kill some rust mites (bugs that eat metal), then they will become friendly.
What did I do? I broke into their temple and killed everyone, including the High Priest. Then, I stole their Holiest of Holy Relics, the Builder’s Chalice. Incidentaly, it was St Edgar’s day (the Hammerite’s patron saint).
So, I maimed, killed, desecrated and stole from them, but they will be OK with me if I kill some bugs? WTF? :rolleyes:
I think it was in a Baldur’s Gate game where I kept getting attacked by members of a secret society. I finally got to the place where I could join the society, did so, stepped outside… and got attacked by more members of the Secret Society.
“Umm, guys? I know the handshake and everything. Look! Secret decoder rings! Quit it, okay? Besides, you’re not worth much experience and you have no money, so it’s not worth killing y’all.”
That’s about the time I stopped playing that game, as I remember it…
After playing a lot of bad RPGs, I was pleasantly surprised in Arcanum when, after figuring out a lot (but certainly not all) of the metaplot, I ran into the head of the assassins that were after me, and explained how his order was being played as a bunch of dupes, he said he’d get the word out to his clan. For the rest of the game, not a single encounter with 'em. Before that, any time I’d walk anywhere, I’d get jumped. Any time I’d get into a conversation in a bar, I’d have about a fifty-fifty chance of it being one of those jerks. Was a refreshing change of pace…
Oh, and although the engine is very outdated, I still -seriously- recommend Arcanum as a great RPG.
In fairness to this excellent game, the plot makes more sense if you don’t play it like a bloodthirsty psychopath. I went through the Hammerite temple without killing a soul, so the Hammerites were willing to forgive the 1,500 gold or so worth of holy relics I pillaged from their HQ, and the overall plot didn’t give me any cognitive dissonance. Also, just to be anal, killing rust mites is hardly the “plot” of Thief III, just a minor sidequest that you can completly ignore, if you want.
One problem I had was with the equivalent quests offered by the Pagans: I could never find any of the glyphs in the city I was supposed to shoot moss arrows at, nor the elemental cocoons. I’ve almost finished the game, and the Pagans still try to kill me on sight. Which kinda bugs me, because I like their faction a lot more than the Hammerites, who are all buddy-buddy with me now.
Reminds me of Daggerfall. If you kill an innocent townsperson, you become wanted. But the fine was pretty marginal. If you killed two or more at once you risked getting a death penalty. But each time you payed the fine you had your record cleaned.
One town was really pissing me off, so I went and killed the first guy I saw. Then I ran inside where I knew that a guard was and payed him the ten bucks or so. Then I went back outside and killed another guy. Repeat until entire town is depopulated.
No, I finally got tired of it. I was one of the first purchasers, and it was nearly a year until they finally got enough patches out to make it playable. And then the sheer amounts of dungeons and towns traveling around, with sudden outbreaks of Lyncanthropy that had to be cured, unsolvble quests etc.
Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed the game and probably got hundreds of hours of play out of it total, I just never got close to solving the plot. Also the character creation schema was poorly thought out and with lots of exploits. You could make a basically invincible first level character legally.
Someone on another forum came up with the theory that the Hammerites are shit-scared of Garrett and the rust mite thing is a bluff. They know that he’s stolen from them numerous times, that he’s defeated a god and taken down a rogue sect that was on its way to destroying their faith, and (should you choose to play the game that way) murdered lots of thier order without them being able to do a thing about it.
Makes sense that they’d try to make getting back in thier good books as easy as they could for Garrett without making themselves seem weak.
I passed that game the way you pass a kidney stone. I played and played, and it got more and more painful, until finally, unable to take it any more, I uninstalled it. And received blessed relief.
God, that was such a bad game. Big, yes. Fun, no. It was like Everquest without the novelty of other human beings to interact with in the game world.
Overall, it’s mostly an improvement over the first two, except that the levels are a lot smaller (apparently because of console limitations). Graphics are excellent, the stealth gameplay is largely unchanged, good storyline, good voice acting, etc. No rope arrows, which is annoying, and you can’t blackjack guards after hitting them with a flash bomb anymore, but overall, highly recommended.
