Zero Punctuation: Thief: The Dark Project

[LesIsMore]

Wow, that came out of nowhere - and it was a blissful change of pace as well. Thief II firmly sits in my top 5 games of all time, and replaying it a few months ago was a marvelous descent into old-time quality gaming.

And he is right - PC gaming doesn't matter anymore, at least to me when I realized that an Xbox 360 could play virtually every game out there. Slight hardware issues were a minor storm next to not having to upgrade every six weeks to deal with graphical upgrades.

 

[DorianSilver]

That was so sexy.
Day Of The Tentacle, System Shock 2, or Alice next plz.
I need to pull out my Windows 98 and get back into good gaming.

 

[Zeraki]

Err I don't think I have ever heard of this game.

Bah who cares about old games?

I think it would be safe assume that you're a graphics wh**e who only buys video games for how pretty they look, and nothing else. A lot of gamers care about older games, mostly because the majority of current generation games can't hold a candle to most of them. But with an attitude like that you don't strike me as a real gamer.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Yahtzee's Psychonauts review inspired me to try that out and I am forever grateful that I did, but I don't see that happening with this. It's not a knock on Yahtzee, but I simply do not like stealth games. It seems though that if you DO like stealth games that this one is the one to go for.

 

[Andy Chalk]

It seems like I'm the only person who actually liked the zombie levels.

Nope. Down in the Bonehoard and Lost City were two of my favourite Thief levels. I was actually disappointed by the fact that "dungeon" levels were cut out of Metal Age, although not nearly enough to make me love it any less.

Thief is my Mona Lisa, my War and Peace, an absolute pinnacle of design and execution in an art form for which I have a very deep appreciation, admiration and respect. And I think it represents something sadly absent from contemporary game creation: A willingness to take risks in dedication to a unique creative vision. Casual button-mashers won't get much out of it, but for people who take their games seriously, for whom story, immersion and depth of experience really matter, it was, and is, an amazing thing.

And for those who haven't had the opportunity to play it, it seems to run fine under XP. Not sure about Vista, and some people have reported complications (although relatively simple workarounds are available) but I've installed and run it under XP with no modifications at all. And even now, more than a decade later, it's still an amazingly compelling game. Not one to be missed.

 

[Jabbawocky]

Jeez I have this game packed away in a dusty box some where, although I might actually be able to understand the concept of stealth now, unlike when I was 12 and thought that sword fighting was what the game was based on. No wonder it was really difficult. Good review.

 

[Ormick]

I'm gonna go get this game now. Sounds like a fun one.

 

[KDR_11k]

I'm not particularly partial to stealth games (IOW I want to kill whoever suggested throwing stealth into every random action game ever) but Thief confused me more with its undead or whatever levels, after many, MANY, tries I finally get through the first level without being spotted when suddently... I'm at the bottom of a mine shaft or something with some zombies around and no clue as to what I'm supposed to do. Not that I really suspect I'd have played any further if the level had been regular stealth but it still confused me.

 

[Brotherofwill]

Haha I think it's kind of funny that he mentions the fantasy of turning invisible and going into a girl's changing room, that's exactly what you can do in MGS 1.

Nice review, I really prefer his positive and inspiring ones

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I dunno. I'm just I'm just diametrically opposed to Yahtzee on some things. Thief was boring as hell for me, I'll admit it had some great game/writing and effects in there; but there was always that little bit where you made a mistake and then thousands of people descended on you and kicked your ass back to Reload central and...

It was just too much like being at work.

 

[Archaon6044]

i've only played deadly shadows, and i thought it was freaking awesome, though some levels (like the Cradle) were pants-wettingly scary.

if it's the worst out of the 3, i'm gonna try and get me hands on the other 2 as well.

review was great! i do always try and take the sneaky way in games if one is available

 

[fat american]

while that was a good review he needs to play the first halo. I think he might actually enjoy it. Every now and then I go back to play it just because of how simple and fun it is. It's one of those things I can't figure out why I like it I just do. I'm surprised he thought it had regenerating health.

 

[Enigmers]

I think I saw my brother playing this a few times, but this was back when I was genuinely scared of stealth games (The "!" sound when you get caught in Metal Gear Solid would make me jump every time.) so I wasn't too keen to try it, but it looked pretty interesting. I think a friend of mine has this game somewhere so I should do my best to sneak into his house and steal it from him.

 

[Abedeus]

i've only played deadly shadows, and i thought it was freaking awesome, though some levels (like the Cradle) were pants-wettingly scary.

if it's the worst out of the 3, i'm gonna try and get me hands on the other 2 as well.

review was great! i do always try and take the sneaky way in games if one is available

Same thing I thought. I consider Thief 3 a really great game.

Thank God the best Polish magazine CD-Action had all of the Thief games on cover CD/DVDs.

Jeez I have this game packed away in a dusty box some where, although I might actually be able to understand the concept of stealth now, unlike when I was 12 and thought that sword fighting was what the game was based on. No wonder it was really difficult. Good review.

Yeah, it's one of those genres you have to grow up to. I tried to slash my way through Thief, then I noticed (after two years ;d) that it's easier to sneak from behind, stab and drag the body.

And then pee on it.

 

[Inriri]

Does Yahtzee ever learn to keep his thought straight, or does he need to learn to shut his fucking yap. In SH5 he claimed that fans need to shut up, now he claims that game companies need to listen to fans, if this doesn' scream that his a fucking hypocrite I don't know what does...

You're either a troll, or way too thickheaded. Developers need to listen to fans to correct stuff, and not listen to the ZOMG-KAWAII-SEPHIROTH-SHOULD-BE-IN-EVERY-FINALFANTASY kind. Y'know, the kind that makes horrible fan fictions with self insertions.

 

[Heroic One]

That was a pretty good summary of the nineties.

 

[TwistedEllipses]

Very unexpected choice.

FLEE FROM MECHA-GANDALF!

 

[KeithA45]

I wasn't too much of a fan of this video (except his early mention of murders and the blood note on his wall lol) but I did like how he finally reviewed a game that's he's mentioned in previous reviews (no idea which one specificall). It inspired me to check out the Thief series in the near-future

 

[Kanashe]

Does Yahtzee ever learn to keep his thought straight, or does he need to learn to shut his fucking yap. In SH5 he claimed that fans need to shut up, now he claims that game companies need to listen to fans, if this doesn' scream that his a fucking hypocrite I don't know what does...

You're either a troll, or way too thickheaded. Developers need to listen to fans to correct stuff, and not listen to the ZOMG-KAWAII-SEPHIROTH-SHOULD-BE-IN-EVERY-FINALFANTASY kind. Y'know, the kind that makes horrible fan fictions with self insertions.

And when they listen to fans they end up in mediocre repetivive bullshit like Nintendo, and LucasArts, thanks but NO thanks. For me it's better when Developers say to fans "fuck you, and eat a bag of dick" and do stuff their own way

 

[Inriri]

And when they listen to fans they end up in mediocre repetivive bullshit like Nintendo, and LucasArts, thanks but NO thanks. For me it's better when Developers say to fans "fuck you, and eat a bag of dick" and do stuff their own way

That would be listening to the latter. Can't fix shit without an outside opinion