Thief (2014 Reboot/Sequel)

[Mhaedros]

This was in the last issue of the Gamer's Gazette, thought I better post it here as well for more coverage

Thief

Thief 2014

There are some obvious comparisons to be made between the new Thief reboot and Dishonored, Arkane Studios’ hit-game from 2011. One is a first person stealth game about a thief in a steampunk city, in the Unreal engine, the other is a first person stealth game about an assassin in a steampunk city, in Unreal engine. Oh, and more importantly I really like both of them. At least that was my initial feeling, but then I emerged from the Clock Tower on my second mission or so, and suddenly it wasn’t all that likable anymore...

Thief, the reboot of the popular games from 1998, 2000 and 2004 as well as the spiritual younger brother of Dishonored, is a Square Enix creation. Square Enix isn’t the best of news according to many people which is why I was a bit scared to buy Thief in the first place, though also because it has not received the best of reviews and hands-on examinations, but I thought why the hell not, and got it anyway. I’m not regretting that. What I do regret, a bit anyway, is that I still haven’t played the original Thief games, so I really don’t know much about the lore, about Garrett, the protagonist, or about the City. I do however know it’s a game about stealing, and that’s something I should think is easy enough.

Garrett, the master thief with a leather fetish

The game is about Garrett the master thief. He steals in order to buy tools which he use to steal more. He steals from the rich and the poor alike.

Well, at least that’s what you would think it’s about, but apparently there is a whole other story going on. The City is near the brink of civil war, the lower classes have had enough of the Barons’ industrial revolution and the tyranny of the city watch. It’s your basic “power to the people” plot, with a bearded hero and a number of fanatic followers. And a plague of course, what is a fantasy victorian city without a horrible plague killing everything?

As if a revolution and a plague wasn’t bad enough, Garrett is hunted by...dreams, in want of a better word, where his ex-protegée, Erin speaks with him. It’s all very emotional and whoever thought about putting the protagonist in a dream world in order to talk to people in a stealth game before?

Garrett and Orion, the bearded hero of the people

Garrett begins his journey at the beginning of a robbery. There is a 30 minute prologue which is relatively easy, and then the real game begins, but where I would have hoped for a large, open world map to explore and lots of houses and NPCs to steal from I got a near empty box with a few lifeless dummies staring at each other, at most walking around in pre-destined routes, always with the same dialogue, never with their lips moving. What makes it worse is that none of the NPC’s, save the guards of course, do anything to try to stop the thief taking all their stuff! I once walked into a shed, took everything the couple who lived in it owned, and walked back out, without a reaction from anyone! Frankly large parts of the game feel completely unfinished and lazy and as if that wasn’t bad enough, there are multiple cases where guards start glitching, get stuck in lampposts or just fly around in circles.

It does have some better parts though, especially if you play a stealth playthrough like mine was. I tried to make sure never to be seen, and I never killed. Which on the one hand makes the game extremely easy, because it really isn’t difficult to go through the game without killing anyone, it just requires a bit of patience and some reloading if you should get killed. On the other hand though, it feels good when after five reloads you have finally managed to sneak through a light room with two guards and a maid without getting seen, stealing all their belongings as you go along. It makes you feel like Garrett, and that’s a good thing.

Garrett has a variety of different kinds of arrows to his disposal

Something that does annoy me about the game is constant cutscenes with horrible voice acting. I had to turn the subtitles on just to hear what people were saying, and my audio was about as loud as it could be. Cutscenes destroy pretty much all the pride you gain by being sneaky, you make it to the room where the thing you’re after is hidden and...a cutscene, a group of guards break into the room and then… a chase over the rooftops? What were they thinking?! And for an open world game there are ridiculously many loading screens. There are loading screens for walking through gates, there are loading screens for going through piles of rubble (all of which are identical Square), sometimes there are even loading screens for going through windows!

Garrett has a number of tools to his disposal, including a blackjack, a bow, a grappling claw and other things, like vast amounts of arrows and flashbombs.

The whole openess of Dishonored and the earlier Thief games is almost completely gone. Before you could shoot your rope arrows anywhere and climb up it, but now there are pre-destined pillars you shoot them at. In Dishonored there were countless ways to face your target, now there’s usually a single path to follow. The only choice you really get is if you want to play as a thoughtless killer or a stealthy thief, and that doesn’t make for replayability.

Despite all my gripes with the game I still think it’s worth playing if you enjoy stealth. It has a replay missions feature, so you can try a different approach. Want to kill everything that moves? Go ahead! Did you (like me) completely miss the whole collectibles part of the game until mission 3? Go back and find them all!

​Basso, the shady fence who gives you jobs and stuff

I don’t really have much to say about graphics to be honest; It’s what you would expect from an AAA game in 2014, nice modelling, nice texturing, nice animations (though I have a creeping suspicion Garrett is just a flying camera with hands).

As I already mentioned the voice acting is something that should have been done better. It’s probably not the highest priority of everyone, not me either, but it’s terrible when you have to watch a cutscene with no idea what anyone is saying. Garrett’s voice is for the most part fine, but when it comes to the bearded hero I mentioned earlier...


Well, what to say. Is it a bad game? No. It’s not bad, though some people won’t agree with me here of course. Did I enjoy playing it? Yes, I most certainly did, because I like stealth and I think there’s a certain thrill in sneaking your way through a game. Would I give it game of the year, a 9 out of 10 or any other high praise? No, because it feels unfinished, and though some parts are great, others are just pure bad.

​7/10

[Sir Adrian]

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