Thief 4 - First Screen?

Hmm.. well personally I'd rather have a sequel than a reboot.

A reboot just gives them an excuse to take the game further in a different direction from the originals, which I fear they're going to do anyways.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,401
Location
Florida, US
I would rather a sequel as well. Garret, The City and all the factions were so well set up already.
 
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
1,830
I've still got much to play in order to catch up with this series. Whilst I only ever played Thief Gold years ago (must have been 2004) I thoroughly enjoyed the "first person sneaker" experience, as I used to call it. I remember some of the later missions took me a long time to beat and the great atmospheric tension of exploring the Cathedral maps.

Whilst I purchased the bundled pack with Thief II+III a couple of years ago, I'm yet to have another real good go at them. I think I encountered the multi CPU core issue, fixed it - but didn't end up playing for that long. I'd definitely like to return to it at some point.

So what's the general consensus on the 'Watch? Which Thief game is your favourite and why? :) I'd like to hear some stories and experiences.
 
Joined
Jul 12, 2009
Messages
1,975
Location
Australia
Thief games never quite worked for me. Too limited in scope and gameplay for my tastes.

I admired the execution though, and recognised them all as fantastic games.

My personal favorite would be Thief 3 - because of the strong atmosphere, and especially the attempt at having a "city-layer" and the more freeform approach to everything.

I'm definitely hoping Thief 4 will go even further in that direction. I'd love a "cerebral" version of a Grand Theft Auto mission structure - but with a serious and fitting Thief tone. The more RPG elements the better, naturally :)

But having a large city available to explore and interact with, complete with fleshed out NPCs and an overarching quest/motivation would be fantastic. Kinda like Assassin's Creed - but less about fluff and production values and more about clever and challenging gameplay. I'd also like an evolution in stealth gameplay - as we've been kinda stuck since the original Thief. AI is probably key to achieving this, and definitely a more long-term and realistic consequence-system would be in order.
 
I think Thief 1 is my favorite but, jeeze I really loved 2. They both had such great atmosphere and tension. I tried 3, and generally liked it but I never finished it. I'm not sure why.

My first time playing T1, I didn't quite get the idea of being stealthy. I wanted to be stealthy but I felt like I didn't have a reason to because I could just run through the first level or two bonking all the guards on the head. It wasn't until, forgive me, my memory is a little hazy, about the third level with the zombies that I had a reason to stay hidden. That was the moment when I fell in love with the game because I was actually afraid of those zombies. From that point on I was Garrett, master thief.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
1,021
Location
Pearl Harbor, HI
Thief3 is definetely my favorite, felt more "RPG'ish" than the previous two, superb level design and the themes were more varied than in the previous games. Don't think i finished either T1 or T2 actually, but they were quite fun up to a certain point where i just didnt see myself coming back to it. T3 is one of few games that i've finished twice. Hope they'll make it similar to T3..
 
Joined
Apr 18, 2011
Messages
3,263
Location
The land of rape and honey
Thief 3 is my favorite as well, the perfect balance of depth and accessibility along with some great RPG elements as you said.
 
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
1,830
I'd probably go with Thief 3 as the best all-around game of the series, but I sure missed the rope-arrow feature - it was only a small aspect of the original games, but it was a very creative feature for the player to use. Other than that small gripe and a few others, I really enjoyed Thief 3.
 
Joined
Nov 18, 2010
Messages
1,022
T2 still is my favorite out of the three.

While I loved the first one for its sheer immersiveness and the fresh background, T1 had those subterranean monster levels I thought were sort of breaking the dense atmosphere. T2 was far more stringent regarding atmosphere and level design, and the Children of Karras were so chilling. I still remember one of them patrolling the gardens while I/Garrett crouched in a corner, hoping to remain undetected, and then the darned thing suddenly stopped praying and fired at me … I nearly crapped my pants. Of course, that was before I found out how easy it was to destroy them once Garrett had the right equipment for that ;).

While I liked T3, it was not as solid an experience as Metal Age one for me; this time not because of a jarringly different level that stuck out like a sore thumb as in T1, but because the stealth aspect was (at least partially) lost. You could do a lot of things with speed instead of stealth, just running from level to level instead of sneaking - it just wasn't necessary in the city which I thought was a pity.
 
Joined
Aug 31, 2006
Messages
3,754
of any my rememberings and favourite fall in line with Jaz. thief 3 was fun but i always find it funny how people look so fondly at it but bash deus ex 2 when they both essentially did the same to their original counterparts and thief had 2 game prior to boot. i enjoyed both however.

also i don't know why people compare thief to assassin's creed. the third one maybe but at its heart assassin's creed is not a tactical stealth game like thief, its a action adventure platformer that has its origins in tomb raider more than thief. assassin's creed is probably one of my favourite non rpg franchises and its production values are far more than fluff. honestly i'd keep buying the games without the immersive gameplay simply for the wicked combination of jespyr kid's music and melissa kaplan's voice--heaven...i guess in a few weeks with how the new deus ex pans out will really answer our questions as to whether or not squaresoft will have been a good influence or not. and thankfully with stephen russell voicing booker in bioshock infinite my hopes and demands that he be in thief 4 seem all the more likely.
 
Joined
Oct 26, 2006
Messages
1,386
Location
California
curious said:
also i don't know why people compare thief to assassin's creed. the third one maybe but at its heart assassin's creed is not a tactical stealth game like thief, its a action adventure platformer that has its origins in tomb raider more than thief.
Click to expand...

Assassin's Creed shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence as the Thief games.

As far as the first three Thief games go, I've yet to play much of Thief 3, but what I did play didn't grab me the way the first two games did. I loved how unforgiving the earlier games were, even in the beginning. Thief 3 seemed relaxed in comparison.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,401
Location
Florida, US
JDR13 said:
Assassin's Creed shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence as the Thief games.

As far as the first three Thief games go, I've yet to play much of Thief 3, but what I did play didn't grab me the way the first two games did. I loved how unforgiving the earlier games were, even in the beginning. Thief 3 seemed relaxed in comparison.
Click to expand...

I liked that you go Rambo-style in T3, if you choose to. T1-T2 felt way too restricted, oh i killed someone - mission failed, oh someone saw me - mission failed. Meh, let the player see how that particular situation progresses instead of giving him a "game over". Unforgiving yeah, but not in a very creative way.
 
Joined
Apr 18, 2011
Messages
3,263
Location
The land of rape and honey
vurt said:
I liked that you go Rambo-style in T3, if you choose to. T1-T2 felt way too restricted, oh i killed someone - mission failed, oh someone saw me - mission failed. Meh, let the player see how that particular situation progresses instead of giving him a "game over". Unforgiving yeah, but not in a very creative way.
Click to expand...

Except that's not an accurate description of Thief 1-2. You didn't fail fail missions for things like that. Well.. you could fail for killing someone, but that was optional through adjusting the difficulty level.

If I want to go "Rambo-style", I'll play Call of Duty. :)
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,401
Location
Florida, US
I have tried the first two games but I lost interest for some reason. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I find the first person view restricting and confusing. I have no reason to doubt their quality though so I am generally in favor of a proper stealth game that would take their approach and modify it a little…

Of I course understand that's not what the fans want and I don't necessarily want that to be a 'Thief' game either, but everyone seems to be so much in favor of the comfort and safety of a sequel or a franchise (one of my most hated concepts) instead of the potential excitement of discovering something new, that the continuous distortion of classic series becomes an ideal practice.

(Also, I expect it's been mentioned plenty of times already but the ridiculous title "Thi4f" leaves me expecting something dumb, obnoxious and outdated.)
 
Joined
Sep 18, 2009
Messages
693
JDR13 said:
Except that's not an accurate description of Thief 1-2. You didn't fail fail missions for things like that. Well.. you could fail for killing someone, but that was optional through adjusting the difficulty level.
Click to expand...

They have plenty of missions like that. Like some mission where you follow someone and if you're seen even once its game over immediately. There are also missions where you can't kill anyone, even on the easier difficulty settings. I played both games on medium difficulty, sometimes easy. And imo, this shouldnt be a choice of difficulty level at all.

If I want to go "Rambo-style", I'll play Call of Duty. :)
Click to expand...

Personally i hate games that forces me go Rambo style all the time, just as much as i don't like games that says "game over" when i kill someone, that's why i play RPG's..
 
Joined
Apr 18, 2011
Messages
3,263
Location
The land of rape and honey
vurt said:
They have plenty of missions like that. Like some mission where you follow someone and if you're seen even once its game over immediately. There are also missions where you can't kill anyone, even on the easier difficulty settings. I played both games on medium difficulty, sometimes easy. And imo, this shouldnt be a choice of difficulty level at all.
Click to expand...

I'm starting to question how much of those games you've actually played. ;)

I don't recall a single mission where you couldn't kill anyone on the normal difficulty setting. It was only on "expert" that you weren't allowed to take any lives.

Anyways, that's the whole point.. you're a thief, not a warrior. There are plenty of games where you can run in swinging your sword if you want.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,401
Location
Florida, US
Read a walktrough if you don't remember, IGN has those for example. Just checked, and for Thief 2 you can't kill anyone for the first three missions on Normal difficulty settings, there are also some other missions on normal difficulty that has restrictions, like you can't get caught or it's game over etc. But yeah, most missions does let you kill though.. For Thief 1 i'm quite sure it's the same, been way too long since i played that one. But again, it really shouldnt be a difficulty setting, i still want the game to be very unforgiving, especially if killing..

You're a Thief and i think it's up to the player if he wants to play a cold blooded murder/thief or a sneaky Thief. I don't like restrictions or when the devs decides how i should play the game or what person i should be, it's not very creative imo. Plenty of movies and books does that in a much better way and is a better medium for that kind of linear and hand-holding entertainment.
 
Joined
Apr 18, 2011
Messages
3,263
Location
The land of rape and honey
I have the official strategy guide, and I just double checked. Like I said, there's not a single mission in the original game that has that restriction.

I don't remember Thief 2 as well as the first game since I haven't played it in nearly 10 years, but a quick check at the Thief Wiki proves that you're wrong. There are only limitations on how many guards you can kill on some levels. For instance, on the third mission you can't kill more than five guards on normal. Only on expert difficulty are you forbidden from killing anyone.

The restrictions are part of what made those games unique compared to anything else back then. It sounds like you would rather have had them be like every other mainstream game. It's safe to say we have different views about what's creative.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,401
Location
Florida, US
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom