Thief Preview: Will it Steal Our Hearts?

[WarpZone]

The whole point of the original Thief game was that it made the player feel like a clever bastard in a town full of chumps. "Must just be the wind" was part of that. Thw town guard monologuing like a supervillian with ADD and Tourettes syndrome was part of that. You only ever entered combat as a last-ditch effort to salvage a failed mission.

You certainly did not have a slow-motion bullet time combat system that turned you into the ultimate Assassin. What's next? A camera that zooms out to show off your character's awesome takedowns and finishing moves? Maybe an NPC support character prattling into your ear? How about a minigame where you put stuff in your house? I mean, if you're going to add bullet time and turn Garret into an expert killer, why stop there?

Sigh. At least it sounds like they did the darkness mechanic properly. Though I'm skeptical that it will be intuitively obvious which side of the room is "dark enough" at a glance. I mean, just look at those screenshots. I don't see any border, do you?

 

[Signa]

What's next? A camera that zooms out to show off your character's awesome takedowns and finishing moves?

I'm pretty sure that's what picture #2 is showing off. Fuck. I don't think I want to play this anymore.

 

[synchro_w]

ok. i read this far & immediately i knew "dumbed down for console kids" -
"...slow down hand-to-hand combat in order to pick specific parts of your enemy's body to target...".

i played all 3 of the originals, was blown away by the first, the 2nd even more tho the 3rd had nice grfx but lost its depth, length of gameplay, size, etc.

so i absolutely KNOW one thing that Garret NEVER DID was HANG AROUND FOR HAND TO HAND COMBAT! ARGHH! DUMBASSES!
WHY? BECAUSE HE'S A THIEF. his skills are so finely tuned he doesn't have time to become an assassin [expert level never allowed for ANY killings]. they will ruin this. it made the game so intense knowing that if those 2 guards chatting away notice you creeping around the corner, you'll need to run fast & get out their reach. Garret wears very light leather for silence and stealth. maybe if he uses a bow or X-bow [gas arrows were great for knocking out a group of guards, water arrows for dousing torches..until a guard notices & relights it..or not...as i said, it was all very tense & scary] but i never sword-fought with Garret. he took way too much damage vs armoured guards who also cried out for help! you block then run like hell - like ANY thief from ANY age would do! there's no honour! you're a bloody thief! a taffer!

i rem my cat jumped on my shoulder at 2am whilst i was hugging a wall inches behind 2 guards to get to the shadows & i threw myself off the chair backwards! so funny! totally immersive! i sometimes felt i had to lean around a corner before i walked into a street after a non-stop 7 hour session! now that is creepy.

but, naw. it's just gonna be another 4-6 hour spin off..but , ooh ooh!! hey!! IT'LL HAVE MULTIPLAYER! [what a horrifying thought - i think i may be sick]. they would have to get some of the original 'Looking Glass' team in because very often - with ALL 3 OF THE GAMES - the movies before a mission would REALLY set the mood. the artwork was very VERY creepy as Garret is used by... spoiler stop... & those guys KNEW this whole weird medieval/steampunk world they'd created. TOP GAME i ever played. System Shock 1 was 2nd.

we all know this will be a tiny SP game to lever in a friggin MP game.
i'll prob borrow it. in the first paragraph they mention combat with guards? THE FIRST PARAGRAPH?! that just about sums up what they got in mind.

dammit, was really looking forward to a GOOD Thief sequel with decent AI, not scripted events. this will be 'assassin's creed' with stealing. guaranteed. pfft.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

I hope they don't do Deus Ex: HR style finishing moves.

Right, so I'm just gonna stealthily PUNCH THIS GUY'S FUCKING FACE IN AND JUST LET HIM DROP TO THE FLOOR!

 

[WarpZone]

Now, to be fair, melee combat did EXIST in the first two Thief games. Because you can't just jump back into the shadows, boy!

It just wasn't the FOCUS of the game.

I don't think it is possible for a modern game to not make combat the focus. I think AAA publishers are too stupid and cowardly, and AAA developers are too desperate and whipped-into-submission for an actual worthy sequel to a game like Thief to be born. Only an indie dev would take the risk, and of course they wouldn't be able to secure the rights to the word thief, so it'd be called something else and only a handful of people who knew or cared what the original Thief was like would even hear of it.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is the ur-example of the new "normal." Thief will have third-person fatalities because it would be unthinkable for a modern AAA game to ship without them. And if an American AAA developer were to somehow get their hands on, say, the Amnesia license, I'm sure they would turn it into a first person shooter with online multiplayer.

This is the age we live in. This is the industry we're stuck with. And industry reviewers are complicit, and therefore part of the problem.

And by the way, don't think for a second that anything they showed in this video was necessarily even slightly real. This is another Vertical Slice publicity stunt. It is completely rational to treat this as Aliens:Colonial Marines all over again until someone proves otherwise.

Unfortunately, that can't happen until the game actually comes out, so we're pretty much boned.

If you pre-order this game, you are encouraging them to ignore your input.

They can have my nostalgia money when they make a worthy follow-up to a game I used to play. Not before.

 

[Norrdicus]

I hope they don't do Deus Ex: HR style finishing moves.

Right, so I'm just gonna stealthily PUNCH THIS GUY'S FUCKING FACE IN AND JUST LET HIM DROP TO THE FLOOR!

Oh, you mean finishing moves like this?

Spoiler