Thief Review - The Meh Project

AzrealMaximillion

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O maestre said:
martyrdrebel27 said:
Astalano said:
This review is meh. Doesn't tell me anything about the game.

Seriously, every other review on Thief is so ambigious as to why it's 'bad'. If it's such a mess explain why. That's the point of a review.
I was thinking something similar. I didn't like this review, the way it was written, the way it based a piece of ridicule in the review off of a console specific feature (how does the Xbox version handle gadgets??) and in general, the review was just.. Meh. The phrase "secret hidden vault" just reeks of bad writing.

I've actually seen a number of poor reviews on the escapist, which is oddly out of place here, in my opinion.
really don't see if I can take the reviewer seríously he didn't even get the release date right... or was this released in 2013? and half of the review was about narrative, how about expanding the paragraph about gameplay, or going into detail with the mechanics of this game. I haven't played a thief game before so I have no frame of reference, and therefore need a more details, nevermind I'll see if I can find some sort of lets play
I agree. I'm borderline done with reviews written on websites as they've stopped being informative and are becoming more opinion based.

The point of a review is to first and foremost inform the potential consumer and lately on this site and many others, reviewers have forgotten this. This is also compounded by the rampant defense of "its he reviewers subjective opinion" as a valid excuse by other forum posters.

Video games are unique in that there are a lot of objective criticisms that can be made about them, more so than movies and TV. Reviews have by in large forgotten this and choose to state only their subjective opinion games. With no objective information to go off of the review is pretty much invalid.

It's the same situation that got Total War Rome 2 a 4/5 on this site when the game upon release was not mechanically fit be sold to people due to the obscene amount of bugs and game crashing glitches.
 

sageoftruth

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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.
Most of the charm really came from the NPCs in the earlier games. Garret's role was merely to cynically comment about the environment around him but said environment included a religious cult based on technological progress with verse-spouting sentry bots, and hilariously dumb guards, who were clearly educated in nothing outside of guard duty. I'd say it's a gritty reboot if the guards end up going from being hilarious to being just plain menacing.
 

ResonanceGames

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RJ 17 said:
So the new Thief is basically Dishonored with less focus on stabby-stabby and super powers? Pretty much what I thought it'd be.
No, that's not what it is at all. Thief is linear, full of cutscenes, 3rd person climbing sequences, tiny load areas, button mash sequences, and a tedious city hub that leads to all the missions. For all their superficial plot and setting similarities, Thief is almost the anti-Dishonored.
 

Krantos

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ResonanceGames said:
No, that's not what it is at all. Thief is linear, full of cutscenes, 3rd person climbing sequences, tiny load areas, button mash sequences, and a tedious city hub that leads to all the missions. For all their superficial plot and setting similarities, Thief is almost the anti-Dishonored.
Erm.. granted I'm only about 1/2 way through the game, so far that doesn't really match what I've experienced so far.

1. Thief is no more linear than Dishonored, even less so in many instances. And you can even go for a while without doing story missions by exploring the city and chasing down side missions.

2. The city hub is only tedious if all you want to do is the story missions. There is a ton of stuff to find and places to loot in it if you do a little exploring.

3. There are only 2 instances that I've encountered button mashing -Opening windows and crawling through certain passages. (Though, to be honest, this still baffles me since there is no need for it at all).

4. I've also only encountered three 3rd person climbing sections, each of which lasted about 10-30 seconds. I still don't understand why they were included in the game, but they're so infrequent it doesn't really warrant getting upset over.

5. And the only cut scenes you see are at the beginning, end, and once or twice in the middle of story missions. Average running time for these scenes are about 1-5 minutes.


Don't misunderstand me, the game has some problems, but it seems like people are giving it a much worse reputation than it deserves.
 

ResonanceGames

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Krantos said:
ResonanceGames said:
No, that's not what it is at all. Thief is linear, full of cutscenes, 3rd person climbing sequences, tiny load areas, button mash sequences, and a tedious city hub that leads to all the missions. For all their superficial plot and setting similarities, Thief is almost the anti-Dishonored.
Erm.. granted I'm only about 1/2 way through the game, so far that doesn't really match what I've experienced so far.

1. Thief is no more linear than Dishonored, even less so in many instances. And you can even go for a while without doing story missions by exploring the city and chasing down side missions.

2. The city hub is only tedious if all you want to do is the story missions. There is a ton of stuff to find and places to loot in it if you do a little exploring.

3. There are only 2 instances that I've encountered button mashing -Opening windows and crawling through certain passages. (Though, to be honest, this still baffles me since there is no need for it at all).

4. I've also only encountered three 3rd person climbing sections, each of which lasted about 10-30 seconds. I still don't understand why they were included in the game, but they're so infrequent it doesn't really warrant getting upset over.

5. And the only cut scenes you see are at the beginning, end, and once or twice in the middle of story missions. Average running time for these scenes are about 1-5 minutes.


Don't misunderstand me, the game has some problems, but it seems like people are giving it a much worse reputation than it deserves.

When I say linear, I don't mean the way the story progresses, I mean the missions themselves. Some of them so far have had a few minor different ways to enter a building (do you want to enter through the window or the greenhouse?), but just as often they are as funneled as Call of Duty. And that's not an exaggeration, there is a good chunk of the game like that.

And I should have been more clear when I said "cutscenes." Between the pre-rendered cutscenes, the in-game cinematics, and the weird first person animation sequences, this game pulls control away from the player all the time.

Is it an outright disaster on every level? No. I've had some fun with it, especially the Bank Heist. But I'd have to argue that people who say it's "just like Dishonored" probably weren't paying very close attention to the way Dishonored was designed.
 

Bostur

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I started playing by doing the bank robbery mission, without knowing it was a DLC mission. At that point I had high hopes for the game because that was great as an early simple mission. However after three chapters of storyline missions I got more and more disappointed. The areas are very linear and the world generally inconsistent. Sometimes objects can be interacted with sometimes not. It's not a good sign when designers need to mark the objects that they intend for players to use. Thief has spots of white paint on surfaces that can be scaled, because thats the only way to know where you are supposed to go and where you can jump.

This is not what a Thief game is about, it's about figuring out a route on your own, without being guided step by step. It's about making a plan, and then improvising when things go wrong. That not what this games does, it leads the player from setpiece to setpiece. It even has objective markers to make sure the player doesn't get lost. The story missions fail badly in terms of map design, and i dare say that Dishonoured is a more worthy successor than Thief is, even if it didn't attempt to be one.

Technically Thief works very well on the PC. It runs smoothly even on old hardware and looks great. I noticed a few glitches with NPCs spinning on the spot, something that may be fixed with a patch. I also agree with the review that the sound levels are off. Either you hear NPCs very loud or you don't hear them at all, sound should fade in and out properly, in a stealth game sound and light is very important. I also find that the music playing when Garret is about to be detected is too dramatic. Footsteps coming closer, or sudden light sources should by themselves provide the needed sense of danger, if done correctly.

The overall mechanics work reasonably well, it's a shame with the poor level design because this could have been so much better, as they even occasionally demonstrate.

I don't mind the storytelling. It seems competent and up to par with other games. Then again I'm rarely into games for the storytelling.

ResonanceGames said:
When I say linear, I don't mean the way the story progresses, I mean the missions themselves. Some of them so far have had a few minor different ways to enter a building (do you want to enter through the window or the greenhouse?), but just as often they are as funneled as Call of Duty. And that's not an exaggeration, there is a good chunk of the game like that.
Yep thats the biggest problem with the game. It's mostly linear with the occasional fork in the path. In the old games the player may have been faced with 8 different windows to a building, with no correct or wrong choice. Here we have the choice between taking the window or the door, the vent or the door.
 

RicoADF

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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
 

Imbechile

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RicoADF said:
How has Thief been dumbed down?
-Small, linear levels
-You can't jump whenever you want
-You can't shoot rope arrows wherever you want
-Terrible AI
-Focus
RicoADF said:
It's not a dumbed down game at any stretch.
If the above is not dumbing down I really don't know what is.
When you compare it to the originals, I really don't know how you can say "It's not a dumbed down game at any stretch." with a straight face.
Did you play the originals, or did you at least watch a walkthrough on youtube?
RicoADF said:
Have you played it or are you just hating for the sake of hating?
I watched a walkthrough on youtube.

For the record, I played the originals for the first time in 2011, so no "rose-tinted nostalgia glasses" here.
 

KimonoBoxFox

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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.
 

renegade7

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Oh my...Yahtzee is not going to be happy.

Seriously, why are remakes a thing? The originals were fantastic. They didn't need remakes or reboots or whatever.
 

asdfen

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cant bring myself to finish playing Thief.
The most defying problem of this game for me is that it does not stand out in any way does everything a bit worse than titles that have been recently released as well as introducing ton of little things like loading times that distract from experience. There is also no incentive for me to play forward as story is bogus and sneaking is not enjoyable. I think I am just going to replay latest Hitman again to get my sneaking fix and leave this alone.
 

Ohlookit'sMatty

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If the game is a mess, why three stars? I've known for a long time that this game would be a disappointment // It's sad to see that I was right and it's worst to see all that made the Thief series taken away for a reboot // Why call it Thief if all you are going to do it use the main characters name?

-M