[Tulpa]

thief 3 was pretty mediocre except for that one level, the cradle, which is probably the most atmospheric of any of the thief games.
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[Mikey]

Well you were wrong >:(


But seriously, aside from the sort of dumb "hub" in the city and maybe a slightly lesser level of challenge, I'm not sure why that game always seemed to get so much flak from the Thief faithful. Oh, I guess the faction stuff was sort of dumb too but it was easy enough to ignore.

I think that game really rewarded you for poking your nose into things and allowing yourself to soak up the atmosphere, so I'm willing to forgive it whatever small sins it committed.

[parker]

Of course the official site would have screenshots of the options menu in the image gallery




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[Tulpa]

remember when video games didn't come with minimaps by default?

Thief's in game map was great for how infuriatingly vague it was.
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[parker]

Surely they'll be a mod where you can open up the map to a vague crayon sketch of the layout with some hard to read notes scribbled on it, or possibly just a bunch of question marks next to garrett's note of "have no fucking clue what's in here to be honest"
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[parker]

"My informant among the mansion's servants tells me there's a cutscene at the end of this corridor"
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[Mikey]

Oh, being able to turn all that crap off goes a long way to making the game more palatable.

[parker]

Fans of anything are all insane. They showed early concept art where garrett had black nails and raccoon eye shadow and people freaked out over goth garrett and they had to say "no that was early stuff we toned him down" then people freaked out saying there were selling out and making him more appealing etc and they were like "no that's not what we meant either what do you want please just like us." Don't ever be a fan of anything and if you have fans don't ever acknowledge them.
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[Iacus]

[Dracko]

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[Iacus]

"because for the only one who can save us, not being found, is what he does best"

Is it me or is that some really awkward wording?
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Guayaba 2600

[Mikey]

Very much so, yes.

[Tulpa]

Yeah that line is very groan worthy and the whole video is a bit embarrassing

very tellingly from the makers of dxhr, game looks practically ubisoftian.
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[Iacus]

Thief looks Ubisoftian indeed, but as far as I know, it's not being made by the DXHR team, which is probably working on a next-gen sequel to that.

DHXR itself is not ubisoftian at all, and I still think they made a pretty fantastic game, given the contraints of AAA development (without the typically astronomical budgets of AAA, even)
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Guayaba 2600

[CubaLibre]

Well I wouldn't exactly call it Ubisoftian - it deserves better than that - but it's definitely Deus Ex as filtered through 2013 design tropes, which is like a 90% net negative.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[Iacus]

90% is pretty harsh.
Not sure what you guys miss so much about the previous Deus Ex (assuming mostly the first one) that you can't find in Human Revolution or that Human revolution doesn't improve upon. It's not like Deus Ex was perfect in every way.

We can all agree that the boss fights sucked (I haven't played them in the Director's Cut, but I hear they've reworked them completely) but other than that I can't think of any of the major flaws that modern games are usually guilty of.
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Guayaba 2600

[Dracko]

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[parker]

I'm stealing this right now because whats yours is mine eidos lol. If I end up liking it am I going to be accused of trying to score precious Hipster Points by being controversial. Or if I hate it will I be accused of just shitting on AAA videogames to fit in and I need to lighten up and be more accepting of dumb videogames. Or can I just express how the game makes me feel and have it taken at face value
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[Winona Ghost Ryder]

For a AAA game it's getting devastating reviews in the press (i.e. 6's & 7's).

[GcDiaz]

Except Joystiq, 4/5. Giant Bomb is already tweeting in advance that the game sucks and its review will reflect that.
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Steam/PSN/Xbawks: GcDiaz

Let's bring sexy back!

[parker]

That's too bad, I was hoping we'd get a surprise winner here. At this rate we're never going to get these kids more subconsciously accepting of the idea of crime either as a viable career or revolutionary praxis.

Let's take a moment to remember some robbery games that never made it this far

Project Dagger
Career Criminal
Hei$t
Picassio
Underground
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subversion_(video_game)
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[Winona Ghost Ryder]

Microsoft's start up studio Black Tusk was working on a game internally codenamed "Shangheist" that even had a teaser at E3.

Then it was cancelled last month so the studio could work on Gears of War after the rights were bought from Epic.

[Dracko]

[Mikey]

Woof. I had expected disappointing AAA excess, but not for it to be a train wreck

[DJ]

So anyone gonna actually play it or do we not even bother with that anymore?
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[DJ]

(not it)
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[parker]

Settle down this torrent is slow as hell and I don't even think it's out for legitimate human beings yet
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[Mikey]

Yeah I've got this, I will probably give it a whirl this weekend

[parker]

Not a single person has said the word taffer but everyone says fuck and shit.


So far it seems like an ubisoft remake of Deadly Shadows, with the city hub place a bit bigger but just as empty feeling and still just basically going down whichever alley leads to the loading screen you need, and the levels themselves not bigger or as open, at least so far. It even has the ghostly blue glow on doors to symbolize a loading screen but instead of Garrett living in an apartment and talking about his landlord he's batman and lives in a clocktower hideout. NPCs still don't notice you stealing right out from under them. The story is mid 2000s videogame levels of idiocy. I just did a part where garrett goes to meet the client he stole the first thing for and mid conversation he just passes out then wakes up and is like "what happened" "you passed out" "so what do you want" and they continue talking like nothing happened. The female thief partner exists briefly just to act completely idiotic for no reason and get killed (OR DOES SHE), why couldn't she have just acted like a normal real person and the job have gone bad just because of bad luck or something, then maybe you could actually buy Garrett being bothered about it, instead who gives a shit when she was acting like a badly written idiot to begin with. Thief 1 and 2 told neat stories with 30 second halfassed animated mission intro scenes, and these guys have millions of dollars and all the fancy motion capture equipment and what good does it do. Sometimes when your doing the mission though it can look and feel like playing thief so I'm hoping those open up and I can just try and forget about the rest. I actually like the forced chased sequences. It would be neat if the game were more open and they were things that just happened on jobs sometimes no matter how well you planned, instead of being scripted. It blares this music which I know is supposed to be a big no-no in thief game, sound design etc., but it's better music than any of the stock hollywood epic score cutscene music and it's exciting so I don't care.
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[Mikey]

I will say that I really think all AAA games (which try to cater toward the broadest audience possible) should have the amount of difficulty adjusters/etc and customization options this game does. I was able to tweak out a whole lot of things that would have bothered me a great deal. Otherwise so far I agree with a lot of what Parker says. The music is pretty tight, too. I also like the strong sense of embodiment, although at first the camera bob seemed so strong that I was picturing Garret doing a bit of a Scooby Doo Gang creep through some dude's attic, which was kind of lol

[evekii]

[parker]

The story is awful but how is it game reviewers recognize that here but not in something like Bioshock. I don't understand the thought process of these people.

For some reason I wasn't able to figure out til late how to do sidequests, I think I tried talking to Basso after the first time I met and nothing happened. But anyway I got it now and it's the best part of the game. I had a bunch of them saved up so it turned the city hub into a giant version of the thieves highway mission from thief 2. A lot of the times they're just empty apartments your going through looking for some secret switch or thing or something and the tough part is just finding out how to get into the building, but you got to use your noggin on some of them and they're more interesting than anything to do with the main missions. The actual story missions never really open up. I'm a little over halfway through them I think and none of them have been as large or open as Dishonored's first assassination mission if I remember it correctly. The bank heist and asylum missions just seem like pitiful simplified versions of the classic ones. Other than the escape sequences that I like there is really nothing this game does that thief 2 or even 3 doesn't do better. The AI is no better, the sound and level design is worse, the hub is basically just a slightly bigger version of 3's but just as much a pain in the ass to deal with.

But it is the hitman absolution of thief games and I don't know if I have some sick fascination with playing these cheap knockoff hollywood narrative driven simplified version of old videogames whose strengths were nothing to do with any of those things or what but I liked the part where you rescue Basso from a burning building and stick around to try for some legendary safe and Basso is all "IT'S TOO RISKY" and Garrett says "IT'S WHO I AM" and it's a trap and you get a crossbow bolt through the hand mid-safe cracking and guards swarm in and you got to get around them and the mission objective isn't "escape" it's "finish cracking the safe" because that's WHO HE IS. That's about the most coherent series of events the game has been able to manage though.

This dumb revolution story, they never explain a single thing about either side of it, and after a certain part the rebels just replace the guards as the hostiles wandering the streets and missions for no reason, even though you just helped their leader out. This revolution thing doesn't even figure into the goings on hardly. Neither does stealing really. Mostly Garrett is just trying to figure what happened in the purposefully obscure and confusing prologue so we can have a plot twist at the end, because game designers think stumbling around in a confused haze for an entire game for a "surprise" at the end is the best thing ever. I never want to play another amnesiac/dupe/mind controlled whatever ever again.
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[Mikey]

I'm finding myself enjoying this, or rather, mostly what I'm enjoying is finding the secret loot scattered around the levels. My game-induced kleptomania at least makes sense in this particular context.

[Glam Grimfire]

IT'S WHO I AM
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##SKELETON PARTY (new article as of 04/26/14)Grim

[parker]

Garrett's actual reason for saving the city is so there will still be something he can be alone from and moody about
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[parker]

What happened to the sloop sellers
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[Mikey]

I'm at the Asylum level, because I was basically waiting to see how this one would shape up compared to the Cradle. Not as good, but still pretty good. Is there anything to look forward to after this level, setpieces, narrative surprises, cool secret treasures to hunt? Otherwise I might put this one down and be done with it.

I have to say though, I really love the sense of embodiment. That swoop is an immensely gratifying little maneuver, and I love the way Garret puts his hands all over everything. Some of the secret loot has been really fun to find! But man, just too much Deus Ex and Assassin's Creed in my Thief game, I think. Though I do appreciate the ability to be as purist as possible.

[parker]

I thought it was nice that it actually was a real thief stealth game and not assassin's creed or even dishonored or whatever. When you're just doing actual stealing stuff it feels like a real thief game just with bad level and sound design. But I had all the dumb shit turned off that I could. And actually it probably could have used more assassin's creed in the hub design. It's too much of a hassle to get to places. You never get to freely run along rooftops like in the tutorial. If anything there's too much bioshock in the game. Feels like whoever wrote the story just got done playing their new favorite videogame ever bioshock infinite.

The only level that comes closest to a classic thief level is the mansion level, I believe it's right after the asylum. That and doing a bunch of side missions in the hub at once are when the game was best. The bonus bank heist is more along those lines too but I'm pretty sure the bafford mansion from thief 1 was more challenging. And bigger. None of the levels come close to even just the first couple of levels of thief 1 or 2.

I wasn't sure but I think it was supposed to be a surprising plot twist thing that your playing a sequel and not a reboot. there's always a garrett, there's always a city, etc. this garrett's eye is magical instead of mechanical and there's a keeper library underground and an old abandoned hammerite temple "where people used to worship old gods" and at the end your messing around underground and it talks about how the city is built on top the bones of other cities over and over.
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[Mikey]

Played a bunch more of this - you know what, I sort of wish there were some more setpieces where you have to run for your life. They're mindless but pretty fun. I also did a loooong sidequest and if I never have to trudge all the way to the Siren's Rest and back again it'll be too soon.

I'll retract the Assassin's Creed comparison, I'm playing with a lot of the stuff turned off (including aerial/combat takedowns) so that pretty much mops that up. I probably could have stood to turn off Focus too but sometimes I'm too damned unobservant and it really helps.

[CubaLibre]

Been playing an acquired copy of this game. Has some kind of weird memory leak where performance gets worse every time a map loads, and after 4-5 map loads the game is unplayably choppy and has to be restarted. So that's annoying.

Here's the problem with the game. At first, when you are dumped into the hub city it actually seems pretty labyrinthine and eminently explorable. And to a degree it is. But you find quite quickly that there's really only one way to go anywhere, sometimes two ways, and everything else is just a "nook" off of the main path. If there's a nook, you'll find a shiny in it. The nooks are sometimes pretty craftily hidden or require some thinkin' about your quasi-platformy abilities to get to, but they're still just nooks rather than legitimate alternate paths that wrap around on each other.

So when I started the game I instantly ignored where the game wanted me to go and explored everywhere I could first. This is a certain kind of gamer's instinct that I think ought to lend itself well to a legitimate Thief-type game. And it really did feel like there was all kinds of shit to explore, even if they were just reward nooks and didn't wrap compellingly back into the stealth gameplay. BUT: when you explore in this manner, you just feel like something's... off. That there should be more. A hidden button opens a sliding floor panel revealing... nothing. A guy's diary reveals him as some kind of thug/thief/fence but his apartment just contains the standard flatware loot. You start to wondering if you're missing some kind of really deep, incredible secrets that span the whole City...

...but then you realize that as the game dribbles sidequests to you, they send you to all these places and spawn in the stuff unique to the sidequest. In other words, you've explored mostly for no reason. If you'd have just waited, a sidequest would have sent you there anyway. So actually, the superior way to play the game is not to explore the City at all, to simply shuttle yourself to the waypoints and only explore when told to. EXCEPT there are still SOME reward nooks that are actual "secrets" that the game will never send you to. So it's sending you these mixed messages. Am I supposed to explore on my own power, or with permission, or not at all, or what? It kind of sucks.

It's not a terrible game, but it's not a good game either. And it's no kind of inheritor of the Thief name.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[Jigsaw]

Sounds kind of a lot like a certain recent Tomb Raider game, doesn't it

edit: although that game is perhaps more legit terrible in certain ways, I guess