Tahaneira said:
Hazy said:
I am so happy to see this game getting slammed with mediocre scores. Maybe that will teach developers to stop bastardizing established franchises with "muh gritty grimdark reboot."
Uh... I'll be the first to admit I haven't played much of the original
Thief games, but they don't strike me as being light and cheerful. Hell, this Garrett sounds like he's less of a bastard than the original.
The original Thiefs were more 'magical' and 'religious' in focus, and the dark and grim came less from growly scowly dick dastardly characters and vague mystery plagues--and more from zealots torturing unbelievers into a state of living death in some coal mines, and evil hags using ancient glyph magic to steal peoples' skin to wear as a disguise.
It was overall a much subtler series with lead-ins to its 'omergerd the world is doomed if yer dun help' hook. Garrett just never gave a shit if it involved him being put at risk--think of him as a cynical Scooby Doo and Shaggy with rent to pay--as opposed to the generic gritty hero batman wannabe he is in this game (thanks Orzari, thanks Eidos).
"If we can get into the Mechanist Cathedral, If you fill it with plants, IF I can find, let alone activate the beacon, all without being detected--That's too risky. We'll be killed. ... Your plan is suicide. I'll think of a better way."
That line from the briefing of the last mission in Thief II probably describes Garrett's personality in a nutshell. He wasn't a bad guy, he was just... absurdly pragmatic.
"Well you've got the danger part right, anyway. Tell you what. You Keepers can plant a few shrubs about town, and I'll take care of ME. I'll find my own way home."
Garrett was always a sort of character who was the focus of prophecies, without believing in 'any of that prophetic hogwash'. The new Garrett just seems a bit too eager to take up the call, by comparison. Almost like they're trying to force a Robin Hood vibe onto him--which Garrett is 'totally' not.
RicoADF said:
Imbechile said:
Nobody wants to see the game be bad.
Everyone wanted the new Thief game to be as good or even better that the originals. Or at least close.....
But, if you've been following this game, it's pretty clear from everything we've seen and read the new Thief is a betrayal, a dumbed-down abomination for the masses.
THAT is why people want it to fail.
How has Theif been dumbed down? It's not a dumbed down game at any stretch. It's one of the few games that give you options on how you want to play your game, if you want it harder or less UI then you can have it, just change the settings.
The issues I've heard is technical problems with sound and that the missions are abit too linear and that's it. Have you played it or are you just hating for the sake of hating? Total Biscuit's review basically says everything I think of the game:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJS1yCSKlhs
A good example would be in the use of rope arrows. In the first two Thief games (quake-era engines, mind you), any wood surface in a map was an eligible location to plant a rope arrow--and you could use them to effectively plot your own course around a heist, drop mission impossible style onto guards, and the like. Here, it's "there are exact, specific beams with a rope around them, you must plant an arrow here to advance". A weird shaped key to a weird shaped lock, and little else-it offers nothing to add to the gameplay but a few seconds of delay, and a need to have rope arrows constantly on hand to get to otherwise inaccessible loot rooms.
Likewise, there is inevitably one direct route through each mission, rather than having several and objectives that need fulfilled at different intervals across the entire map, as in prior installments.
For instance, in the brothel, there is a very explicit office you must find amidst optional looting, and once you've entered the secret door in that office, the game says "point of no return, you must continue down this linear pathway and fulfill our game's cinematic urges".
One of the most egregious examples of railroading actually throws you into third-person to scale a building, Prince of Persia style (as if the game has entirely forgotten what genre it's supposed to be). It would be like if Shadow of the Colossus suddenly turned into an FPS mid-boss, or if Mario suddenly became a point and click adventure game for about fifteen seconds. You can't skip this, either. There is no optional route to avoid the magical pipe of third-person-parkour-cutscenery. To top it off, the game then asks you to go to a spot, press the use key, and sit on a processing line hanging from a meathook for another precious ten or fifteen seconds to further progress through the map while you wait for a few more linear corridors. NOT OPEN LEVEL DESIGN.
But I think that my least favorite thing about the new Thief, is just that the 'stealth' itself isn't fun. This is mainly on account of the Guards being generally too competent, and unlikeably generic.
Sure, you can occasionally feel witty hiding in one of the 'myriad' cubbards, and treat yourself to a little pre-animated takedown--but the guards have eyes in the back of their head, and offer no remorse for your slip-ups before entering into combat. By comparison, the old guards would often write you off as a figment that had spooked them from drinking too much, or ask Garrett from over their shoulder in the dark if he was their boss come to check up on them. Funny, and sometimes scary stuff as you evaded a close call.
These new guards on the flip side, just immediately look you dead in the eye and start swinging their steel the moment their detection meter fills, and there's just no fun in that, compared to stealing Old Benny's bar tab and leaving him in a ditch because you thought it was time he sobered up. Add the same knockout cut-scene that has to hold you immobile for three seconds from victim to victim, and the stealthing becomes a flat-out 'chore' that even the swoop mechanic cannot hope to remedy.
To contrast, your approach in the old Thief may have been slow if you were afraid of detection, but the bopping on the head was quick and didn't hold you captive for a round of applause each time. You could even learn to land knock-outs from a jump, lean out of shadows, or beat a guard senseless at a sprint across a carpet of moss from your moss arrows--which lead to some truly satisfying guard take-downs that were 'yours' to orchestrate without the game feeling the need to force it on you.
Old Thief was fun because it was 'deep', and 'exploitable'. The New Thief has to stop to remind you that it's attempting to be open and full of choices with all its might, and even has a hard time doing that right, pressing you through one contrived obstacle after another in a series of set-pieces intended to amaze, that just kind of blend together into a grey mess, instead.
