Zero Punctuation: Thief: The Dark Project

[CaptainPicard]

And now we watch thief sales rocket on steam.

It's available on Steam? *goes and purchases*

no its not, i just checked.


wow yahtzee, that was the best review ive seen in probably close to 3 months. maybe more. nice job. incidentally i loved theif deadly shadows, so poo on you. but i never did play the prequels, im going to go do that. any idea how? i might just have to bit torrent it if theres no other way.

If you had experience with the first two games, your opinion of Thief III would be different. It was an ok game, but, other than graphics, it pales in comparison to the first two games.

It's like if you only ever had McDonald's to eat your whole life and never knew that better restaurants existed.

 

[_Algernon]

The first two games or hard to find these days (but nothing online shopping, or, in a pinch, evil evil torrents cannot fix). The real trouble is getting the games to work on any recent hardware.

It is possible, though - having recently spent a ridiculous amount of time grappling with patches and frustration, I can tell you that this site:

http://www.saleck.net/Games/Thief1-Gold/Thief-HowToGetWorking.php

...is a sure bet. The instructions are simple and straightforward, and by following them I've already managed to get Thief Gold working perfectly (and in high-resolution *widescreen*) on two multi-core XP boxes. It should even allow Vista installs, if that kind of thing rattles your saber.

So, get to it! And if anyone is silly enough to read down this far, please disseminate this information, for the good of mankind!

 

[Stewie Plisken]

That was pleasantly unexpected. Love the series and The Metal Age was undoubtedly its high point. Great review.

 

[_Algernon]

Also, incidentally:

*TTLG hosts graphics tweaks to make Thief 1 look just a wee bit less crap - worth a look:
http://www.thief-thecircle.com/media/patches/
describes the patches, though most were lost weeks ago to a hardware disaster. Fortunately this site:
http://thief.nov.ru/catalog/index.php?parent=i68F876FD
has the same files backed up and readily available.

*The install-guide site [http://www.saleck.net/Games/] has similar guides for installing other Dark Engine games, including Thief 2 and *System Shock 2*, yet another sparkling milestone Yahtzee's brought up as an example before.

*And: "GORN TO THE BEAR PITS TOMORRER" made my fucking day. Thank you, you magnificent bastard.

 

[lizards]

Ah, now that was pretty good, higher quality than usual, with a plethora of unexpected sight-gags that were genuinely lol-worthy. e.g. Mecha-Gandolf!

So: Thief. Yahtzee makes a good point in that it was indeed an interesting game in that it took the tired old FPS genre in an entirely new direction. Maybe more games should stop worrying about minor quibbles like vehicles and sprawling worlds and instead investigate ways to change the central activity to things other than gun people down in fascinating ways. If there's a dividing line between clone and innovation, the central activity is a likely contender.

Granted, Mirrors Edge could be said to have tried to do that, and Yahtzee wasn't impressed.

ya but mirrors edged butchered the concept of the game completly

 

[Kaleid]

I bought Thief and Thief II off amazon a year and a half ago... I just wish they didn't lock up after 2 minutes... Really wish I could get it to run now... :/

Sounds like you're having an issue with Hyperthreading/Multiprocessing. I had that problem with System Shock 2 and Grim Fandango (I've had Thief 1 and 2 for a while now, installed them, but haven't tried running them yet). This site tells you how to fix that:

http://www16.brinkster.com/salvage/thief/darkengine.htm

I think there's an easier way, just edit the shortcut(s) to the game(s)

modify "Target" in your shortcut
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /C start /affinity 1 thief2.exe
to dedicate the first CPU core to the game (or "/affinity 2" for the second, and so on)

Where thief2.exe is the name of the executable file. Works for Thief 1, Thief Gold, Thief 2 and System Shock 2.
See this picture for example with Thief Gold:
http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/772/thiefgoldaffinitynd0.jpg

Thief: The Dark Project is one of the better games out there. Playing with EAX enabled (with a Creative card) in XP32 with a properly setup monitor with good contrast is still one of the better gaming experiences even today. Very good use of light/dark and sound. I'm very glad that the community still puts out plenty of fan missions.

Thief 2 I think should have had a bit more undead and the like, and casing the joint was a painful mission really.. still very good though.

How does Yathzee like Deus Ex 1? Thats another classic.

 

[_Algernon]

That affinity fix works for some, but there are still serious issues with many new graphics cards (Just about any GeForce with current drivers may be liable to cause crashes), among other problems, (widescreen support, resolutions over 1024x768) - see post(s) above?

 

[Ima Lemming]

I think there's an easier way, just edit the shortcut(s) to the game(s)

modify "Target" in your shortcut
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /C start /affinity 1 thief2.exe
to dedicate the first CPU core to the game (or "/affinity 2" for the second, and so on)

Where thief2.exe is the name of the executable file. Works for Thief 1, Thief Gold, Thief 2 and System Shock 2.
See this picture for example with Thief Gold:
http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/772/thiefgoldaffinitynd0.jpg

Huh, I'll keep that in mind. I actually got Grim Fandango to work just by setting the Compatability to Windows 98, but when I tried that with SS2 the game wouldn't boot at all.

 

[PeterDawson]

The Thief series did have oddly compelling stealth elements, so I guess they did 'do it right.'

 

[Jaythulhu]

Hahahaha, brilliant. I do love the retrospective reviews. I think they may help the current crop of ritalin-popping twitchkiddies to appreciate some good games, and understand why people over 25 consider gaming these days to be a murky torrent of poo, vomit and unidentifiable things that may be carrots.

What's next? Halloween Harry? Monster Bash? Space Quest? Ooh, ooh, I got it... Lesiure Suit Larry.

 

[Slackenerny]

I think they may help the current crop of ritalin-popping twitchkiddies to appreciate some good games, and understand why people over 25 consider gaming these days to be a murky torrent of poo, vomit and unidentifiable things that may be carrots.

These words made me smile.

 

[meego]

Thief 1. Yay!

 

[KapnKerfuffle]

Some of the most memorable moments of gaming ever in Thief. I may have to buy Thief again to stir up the hype for it so Thief 4 will get it's ass out there.

 

[ploik]

I laughed so hard at the John Ramero bit. I love your retrospectives!

 

[crimped]

game sucks, review sucks. Man yahtzee, where do you get the idea to review these shitty games?! heres an idea, pick a fucking game site and see what is out and POP-U-LAR!!!!
Ps - you dumbass.

 

[Allan Foe]

Good god, that was easily the worst ZP yet. Usually I don't just sit through the video waiting for it to be over, but this wasn't funny at all.

How quaint! Out of curiosity, what turned you off?
It was very funny for me (a person who played all 3 thief games), so I'm obviously biased.

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T3 wasn't a bad game by any standard, although level exploration wasn't as good and there were a couple of features this game could do well without, the sneaking and the great humor were still there!
Even if that game disappointed the fans of the first two, I highly recommend you make this trip just to see The Shalebridge Cradle, if nothing else. No horror game can compare it's experience to The Cradle.

 

[Tattaglia]

For the first time in a long while I find my self wondering: "What was just said?" Is it just me, or did Yahtzee's speech pick up the tempo a little bit more than normal in this one?

I noticed that too, but I think he just had a new microphone or something. 99% of the time I hear Yahtzee the first time, and rewind a bit to hear the last 1%, but this review was incredibly shit... so I didn't bother.

 

[NXMT]

game sucks, review sucks. Man yahtzee, where do you get the idea to review these shitty games?! heres an idea, pick a fucking game site and see what is out and POP-U-LAR!!!!
Ps - you dumbass.

I was about to explode all over you then I searched through your posting history and turns out you say the same damn thing for all his reviews. My conclusion is that you're a tard.

Excellent video. One minor quibble: don't blame Looking Glass for the forced stealth sections in games. THEY weren't responsible for that shit. Look no further than Hideo Kojima for that.

Quite right. If anything, Looking Glass failed to receive their just recognition. Maybe they wouldn't have tanked =\

Thief II is my favorite game of all time and will remain so until the end of days. RIP Looking Glass Studios.

 

[Hunde Des Krieg]

I love how everyone was predicting he'd review a brand new game, and he goes old school, Nice!

 

[out0v0rder]

edit never mind i suck