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Thief: A world where nature and metal are in a constant struggle. The Metal consists of the Builder and his clergy of Hammers; the Nature, of the Trickster and his woodsy minions, the Pagans. Throw in an unwitting populous, the inept city guard and a secret order named “The Keepers” trying to hold everything together. This is the magic and mystery that is the Thief universe. You play the role of Garret, twice savior of The City, nay - the very world. Back for another round, because of his many talents… such as his ability to conform to shadow, and his raging kleptomania. Armed with his bow, blade and the ever-useful blackjack, one can assume he lives a dangerous, yet expensive, life. And always interesting. First discovered as a petty pickpocket by one of the Keepers, they attempted to groom him for the order. Uninterested in their manipulations he left the Keepers to forge his own destiny. After being suckered into working for them more than once he holds a curiousity of what exactly their prophecies, written in their precious books, say of him. And now he’s going to get his chance to find out… With that out of the way we start in
the third installment in the series - Thief: Deadly Shadows.
With it’s greatest potential realized as a game of stealth and
patience, at least on the harder skill levels, some still may find
that fighting their way through the game on easy to be more fun. Yes
if you are expecting a pure action game you may be a little let down
at this offering, but it has plenty of adrenaline in its tension -
Watching guards movement patterns and skillfully slipping by unnoticed
and running like hell if you can’t.
Overall the AI is quite unique and also most impressive on ‘Impossible’, compared to ‘Easy’. The guards often hear you scuffling around and will stop a moment and try to hear you again. They’ll often proclaim too much coffee or rats when they fail to catch another trace of you. They even talk to one another in passing. Or cuss if they happen to bump into one another. If you’re spotted they also bark to alert other guards to your presence, though there is one bug with the barking they can hear each other but not always identify each other as guards so as one AI can hear another and will bark accordingly. I was able to reproduce a bug where 3 guards got stuck in a loop of “hearing things”. If they see you too well, be prepared to fight it out, or run, as fighting more than one foe is not an option on the harder skill levels. The guards will get tired in chasing you in the event you are noticed - They need to take breathers every so often, and its usually linked to their stature and if they are wearing armor. The voice actors have done a good job, as there is a good variation in the voices. Most notably, Stephen Russell (the voice of Garret and a number of other lesser characters) although Garret does seem a bit less sly this time around. Visually everything is quite pleasing so your setup is likely to be determined by the eye of the beholder. Personally, I find having the ‘bloom’ option on adds atmosphere. Unlike the engine’s previous showing Deus Ex: Invisible War here bloom is used much more responsibly, as it mainly gives light a dreamlike haze. As an alternative option you can have it off and turn up multisampling which is a sort of cheap version of Anti-aliasing. Real AA does not appear to work on my 9700 Pro using cat (omega) 4.5 and i have also noticed a few graphics anomalies. Textures lit incorrectly and light showing through walls, some alpha texture snow. They are rare but still worth mentioning. If the game runs sluggish on your setup it also has an option to use the lower quality textures (X-box textures). As for sound it offers all the fancy EAX 4.0 features. HD, and multiple EAX environments, though I had to manually enable multiple EAX environments in the user INI for my card. It also supports DirectSound by default and Dolby Digital for you Soundstorm owners. The sound is sharp and clear with no jittering and all the 3d effects originate appropriately. There is no real music, and the ambient sound is top notch. It really conveys the feeling of your virtual environment.
The level sizes are somewhat larger than Invisible War but very much smaller compared to massive level offerings in games such as Far Cry. This is a game based primarily on stealth however, so the levels sizes are not as much of a factor. I’m not even sure why they needed to be split as the engine doesn’t even miss a beat when half of the guards in the section are chasing me. The only real advantage would be the short load times. There is something to keep in mind is that when you leave a section: If arrows are in the air, or you were spotted just before going through, they will be in the place where you left them, and guards will still be aggravated when you return. So be prepared to duck, run or perhaps be prepared to take a different route when you reenter a section. The combat is slash and dodge with your blade so you will might feel quite limited here, compared to the previous two games. Where combat is more of an option in DS, there is no ability to block with your dagger as you could with the sword from the previous two games. However there are new ways to deal with opponents in this incarnation… You can also backstab and blackjack while they are unaware to disable them if you don’t fancy direct combat. Ranged combat with your bow is also always an option. Blood looks convincing without overdoing it, it collects on the floor and will be noticed. In fact, even just missing guards will be noticed. Bodies tumble and fall although I feel this was a bit exaggerated, as I’ve never seen a person fold over backwards when being knocked out. However, I’ve seen very few games without some quirks in their ragdolls. As usual, you can pick up the bodies and toss them in a corner if you desire. The physics of objects is quite appropriate. Bumping into a chair may cause a bottle to fall off. Everything moves as you would expect, though Garret is unfortunately unable to put down anything softly and this may bring up nostalgia for the earlier games. Garret also still slams doors, apparently, wanting to get caught. Not very "thief like". Something you may not have noticed is that you now have an actual body: It’s so unobtrusive that you may not even notice it till you have to look down from a balcony. In general the interface is quite unobtrusive as well. It fits in thematically includes a compass and of course, how visible you are via the classic light gem. Your characters movement is dependent on the item you’re using. For example you’re somewhat a little more awkward with the bow at the ready and heavier with the blade or blackjack. In fact there are quite a few movement features you’ll need to get used to, including the fact that sidestepping does not make you move faster. A lot of effort was put into making Garret move as realistic as possible. I’m also going to talk about the
FMV sequences between levels - They range from awesome to awful. The
awesome are the level introductions as they have a definite style.
The conversational ones however, are terrible. Garret’s model
reminds me of Kermit the frog. His eyes are too high on his head and
his nose is huge. I have a feeling they were made more last minute
than the level introductions. I personally would have preferred these
conversations to be done in game.
Conclusion: There is quite a bit about this game that I could have detailed extensively. There is quite a bit to do and explore in the City. If you enjoyed the first two games you may be a bit let down at some things not making a return appearance. It is an enjoyable game and not overly frustrating even on the hardest skill setting. With the new AI I found ghosting (no knockouts or kills) to be the easiest course of action on Impossible - oddly enough. Though I cannot highly recommend this game as certain aspects are unpolished and levels often feel more cramped than they need to be, it is a fun and enjoyable game and definitely worth your $50 – It’s just not game of the year type material.
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