Zero Punctuation: Thief: The Dark Project
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
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I know it's a cliche but .... lol!BlueInkAlchemist said:
(-- I did try and put an accent on the last 'e' in cliche but the forum syntax said NO! --)
I imagined you introducing some cheesy 80's action flick with the movie trailer voice....Blastcage said:
"They hadn't heard of the Thief! And now... they're gonna get EDUCATED!" ... cue big explosion and head shots!
Again I could punch him in the face for how he talks about Sonic/SEGA/Sonic Team but at least the rest of the review was rather reasonable, unlike most of his recent reviews where he just shits all over a game because that's apparently what the fans want even though Yahtzee always said he wasn't that kind of man. What a hypocrit...
Yahtzee, I think you need a break. You've gone from giving a strong balance of valid criticism and humour. To VALID criticism ignored and edited out to make room for fan service.
Before... Gears of war, I respected your veiws and trusted your opinion but now I find my self thinking that you've lost your way. I appreciate that people are drawn to your humour but still you pride yourself on being a critic and quite frankly at the moment you aren't doing your job.
Take a well deserved brek.
Before... Gears of war, I respected your veiws and trusted your opinion but now I find my self thinking that you've lost your way. I appreciate that people are drawn to your humour but still you pride yourself on being a critic and quite frankly at the moment you aren't doing your job.
Take a well deserved brek.
Now that I've had a chance to dive into the game again, I'm quite shocked at how fun it still is. At this point, it's only the graphics that are suffering from age. You could release this game now as-is (save graphics) and it could easily still receive top scores.
I find myself paying a lot more attention of the nuances of the finer parts of gaming lately, and even the writing is well done. Bioshock holds my #1 spot for great dialogue writing, but seeing Thief again, I'm finding that good dialogue isn't exactly new in games. I still think that Andrew Ryan had some of the best written lines in the gaming industry, but some of the fictional scripture, and the Hammerite and Pagan dialects are extremely imaginative and well written too. Things like these can make you dive deeper into a game than you might even realize with that extra added bit of realism.
I find myself paying a lot more attention of the nuances of the finer parts of gaming lately, and even the writing is well done. Bioshock holds my #1 spot for great dialogue writing, but seeing Thief again, I'm finding that good dialogue isn't exactly new in games. I still think that Andrew Ryan had some of the best written lines in the gaming industry, but some of the fictional scripture, and the Hammerite and Pagan dialects are extremely imaginative and well written too. Things like these can make you dive deeper into a game than you might even realize with that extra added bit of realism.
YAY!!! you actually reveiwed it... and liked it!
and to think that the only reason I mentioned it was because I came across an Oblivion mod that gave you tools from it
and to think that the only reason I mentioned it was because I came across an Oblivion mod that gave you tools from it
If you like Thief, we are making a Mod with the Doom 3 Engine called "The Dark Mod". It's a Thief inspired single player 'toolset'...and by toolset I mean that it will allow mappers to build their own Thief styled missions. We will release several demo missions with the mod, and have released two alpha missions already.
http://www.thedarkmod.com
http://modetwo.net/darkmod
Enjoy
http://www.thedarkmod.com
http://modetwo.net/darkmod
Enjoy
Great as always, but in my opinion the original Metal Gear games beat Theif to the punch with stealth games.
Of all the great Zero Punctuations, this is my favorite now. It would be sweet if you reviewed more older games, but I totally understand why you don't or can't. I really appreciate this one. So, when are the Dungeon Keeper 2, Magic Carpet, and Descent reviews?
Kidding! I'm kidding! Oh and the Deus Ex mini-review was also concentrated awesome. Had that stuck in my head for hours.
Kidding! I'm kidding! Oh and the Deus Ex mini-review was also concentrated awesome. Had that stuck in my head for hours.
Especially because of the First person perspective.popdafoo said:
Thief is the only series of stealth games who managed this perfectly. Chronicles of Riddick comes close but it's just not it.
I love the games to death and really need to find time to play them again.
I loved this review plus being a big fan of the Thief Series, I do agree with him that 3rd of thief game wasn't the same as the previous second as it lost many elements... and added terrible additions to it like having to walk to your next misson BLAH i'm not lazy I just don't like having to stealth or charge my way to my missions and back to the shop to sell up . By far the second was the best, epic plot enough said
People willing to buy it, Sold Out still sell it for like £5-10, very cheap and well worth the money
Thief 1 = A pure classic ^^
. By far the second was the best, epic plot enough said People willing to buy it, Sold Out still sell it for like £5-10, very cheap and well worth the money
Thief 1 = A pure classic ^^
I love the Thief series too. Though when I first had the chance to play with the first one, I found it boring and stupid. I was kind of new to gaming back then and I've only played with games like Doom, Blood, Shadow Warrior, Carmageddon and such, Thief on the other hand offered something different and I couldn't appreciate it at the time. Some time later, after I started playing with different kinds of games too (like RTS or role playing games) I stumbled upon the demo for Deus Ex and Thief 2. They changed my perception about first person games because they've shown me that FPSs can have amazing stories and complex gameplay too, not just pushing buttons and shooting people/monsters. Soon I got my hands on the first two Thief games and fell in love. My #1 favourite is still Deus Ex but the Thief series is close behind, I can't have enough of them. The third had some minor flaws but essentially it was still a great Thief game, the story and gameplay was the same quality, just a few things were missing. And the maps were somewhat simpler and smaller. The factions were there as an option, you didn't have to bother with them - I did and liked it a lot. And I think the way the fences were done was great, it added a lot to the experience, same with Garrett's home. And yeah, The Cradle was scary as hell. That level is right up there with the best levels from the horror genre, I can put it on the same level with my favourite horror game, Undying. Oh, and like others have already mentioned, the voice acting in these great works of art was amazing, perfect casting. Stephen Russell is simply the best. I could go on and on about this game for hours.
Here's how I rank the Thief games: my top favourite is T2, then T3 and T1. There are many levels I love but aside from the Cradle maybe the "Life of the Party" from The Metal Age is the one I have the best memories of. It was a huge, really huge map, so many things to do, see and of course steal.
To those who missed these games: go and get them from somewhere, they are all great!
Here's how I rank the Thief games: my top favourite is T2, then T3 and T1. There are many levels I love but aside from the Cradle maybe the "Life of the Party" from The Metal Age is the one I have the best memories of. It was a huge, really huge map, so many things to do, see and of course steal.
To those who missed these games: go and get them from somewhere, they are all great!
Oy, Yahtzee! Due your incessant pestering I illegally torrented a pirated version of... I mean I properly purchased at a duly authorized, sales tax collecting retail outlet - this 'Thief II' game you keep slipping into my cocktail like so much Rohypnol. After all, you did turn me on to Valve's 'Portal,' though I came aboard a year passed the ship's launching. Late though I've come to the party, the light shone was true and the cake - as it were - was not a lie.
"So let's have at this Thief II the man's on about," I say to myself, "I've little care for tri-linear, anisomorphic rendering methods. I can suffer some poorly animated, low-poly count NPC's if the gameplay holds its water as well as he says."
Oh the tragedy! Before you fire off any more references to how great Thief II is might I suggest removing the rose coloured goggles and torrenting yourself a copy... Err... Contacting the manufacturer and requesting a fully licensed, new in box, original packaged disc at true retail value. For it is not the glimmering gem you recall it to be.
Now, call me cock-slapping nutballs crazy, but when I begin a game entitled "Thief" - and I don't care how many nondescript slashy marks you use to indicate its sequalage - I expect to launch into this new career by... Oh, I don't know; How 'bout we try some thieving? Yes, I'm a thief, okay. Let's steal some shit! Instead my introductory mission has little to do with the plunder of booty or even the pirating of software. Here I stand heaving about an unwieldy cache of swords, arrows, lock-picks, and flash bombs - not to mention an empty burlap sack neatly labeled "Loot," and what's to be my first foret into this new and exciting field of high-stakes professional burglary? Helping some love sick, turncoat, parole free the object of his heart's desire from a swath of assuredly despicable, though yet unseen, captors. All the while picking up nothing more than pocket change in the process?! Pshaw, I say!
The first level plays as smoothly as a burn victims complexion. Aside from dropping into the gameplay with a default keyboard layout that required me to rebind the controls before I'd even learned the abilities I was being forced to rearrange, I find myself polygonal face to polygonal face with an awkward "go and come and go again" assignment.
"Here," they tell me, "go clear the way for this 'scared straight' douchehole who, by the way, was in the same business as you right up until yesterday and even picks locks better than you do, but still for some reason direly requires your 'unique' skills and can't do this by his-damned-self. Oh, and when you've cleared the path for ol' Mr. Redundant over here, blow on this whistle to let him know the coast is clear for pussies like him to move about."
After no small amount of trial and error did I begin to comprehend what I was supposed to do and how I was supposed to do it. This despite the seemingly plain and clear list of objectives presented by the mission's briefing. The rest of the game left unconsidered, the first level is so damned unintuitive that they might as well have placed a giant talking arrow at the end of each hallway, voiced by James Earl Jones and engulfed in Moses' flame guiding me directly to each stop on my tour, and it still would not have made the goals any clearer to realize in practice.
Nonetheless I persevered, knocking out all the guards in my path, quenching the thirst of every shadow-casting flame that would otherwise expose my character's blocky sinews. At last returning to the beginning of the map; back to the first room I broke into that I might summon my cowardly apprentice, surely off wetting himself in a corner somewhere. I blew my whistle, signaling Dr. Do-Little to make his approach, but he did not approach, apparently not hearing my call. So I stepped outside the mansion and into the field from whence I first invaded this home and blew my bird-call once more. Yet he still refused me. So I walked up to the door of the small building wherein I had left him at the mission's onset and blew the accursed whistle again... Nothing! Finally I break open the door, walk up to the dunce, smack him in the nuts, and blow the whistle so close to his dumb fucking face that I can see the spittle gathering on the bridge of his nose. At which point he finally becomes convinced it's not just the sound of his tinnitus acting up again, and starts to move a little ass.
Now with Deaf-o on the run I get the exciting privilege of traversing the same halls of the same level that I just spent thirty minutes clearing - that I just back-tracked all the way out of - only to reach little miss save-me's door for the second time, turn around and run all the way back out again! Yay! Nothing like running the same level four times to make a so-called "sprawling map" seem that much smaller and more repetitive. By the time I realized the second level intended to set me at the similarly arduous task of running back to the same control room after opening each of twenty different garage doors one at a time I shut the game down, opened my control panel, and uninstalled it.
Did I overreact? I don't think so.
I've played 'Hitman' and I've played 'Splinter Cell' and whatever you may think of them I much prefer their brand of 'sneak.' Maybe being introduced to the genre by its significantly more polished bastard-children, those who bore the benefit of Thief's trials and unabashed, screaming, bleeding, flying, fucking failures, ruined me for this game before I ever drew upon it. Or maybe, and more likely, it's just a clunky, blind cornered, delayed attack, checkpoint-less, press f10-to-save, two hundred hour play time 'cause we make you run in goddamned circles, piece of diarrhea-green shit; With the only reason you think otherwise being a distorted view through the blurred veil of time, wrapped in the folly of youth whereby you recall it.
If you haven't lately, you might want to take a second glance at this 'Thief II' before you tout any more of its laurels. By my estimation it has not aged well.
roy
P.S.: Lord, do I hate the internet scum who claim the authority to re-review reviews as I've just done as though anyone cares to hear their ill-informed, arm-chair quarterback opinions. I am become what I hate. Oh, what's a boy to do? ...But shoot off at the mouth for kicks.
"So let's have at this Thief II the man's on about," I say to myself, "I've little care for tri-linear, anisomorphic rendering methods. I can suffer some poorly animated, low-poly count NPC's if the gameplay holds its water as well as he says."
Oh the tragedy! Before you fire off any more references to how great Thief II is might I suggest removing the rose coloured goggles and torrenting yourself a copy... Err... Contacting the manufacturer and requesting a fully licensed, new in box, original packaged disc at true retail value. For it is not the glimmering gem you recall it to be.
Now, call me cock-slapping nutballs crazy, but when I begin a game entitled "Thief" - and I don't care how many nondescript slashy marks you use to indicate its sequalage - I expect to launch into this new career by... Oh, I don't know; How 'bout we try some thieving? Yes, I'm a thief, okay. Let's steal some shit! Instead my introductory mission has little to do with the plunder of booty or even the pirating of software. Here I stand heaving about an unwieldy cache of swords, arrows, lock-picks, and flash bombs - not to mention an empty burlap sack neatly labeled "Loot," and what's to be my first foret into this new and exciting field of high-stakes professional burglary? Helping some love sick, turncoat, parole free the object of his heart's desire from a swath of assuredly despicable, though yet unseen, captors. All the while picking up nothing more than pocket change in the process?! Pshaw, I say!
The first level plays as smoothly as a burn victims complexion. Aside from dropping into the gameplay with a default keyboard layout that required me to rebind the controls before I'd even learned the abilities I was being forced to rearrange, I find myself polygonal face to polygonal face with an awkward "go and come and go again" assignment.
"Here," they tell me, "go clear the way for this 'scared straight' douchehole who, by the way, was in the same business as you right up until yesterday and even picks locks better than you do, but still for some reason direly requires your 'unique' skills and can't do this by his-damned-self. Oh, and when you've cleared the path for ol' Mr. Redundant over here, blow on this whistle to let him know the coast is clear for pussies like him to move about."
After no small amount of trial and error did I begin to comprehend what I was supposed to do and how I was supposed to do it. This despite the seemingly plain and clear list of objectives presented by the mission's briefing. The rest of the game left unconsidered, the first level is so damned unintuitive that they might as well have placed a giant talking arrow at the end of each hallway, voiced by James Earl Jones and engulfed in Moses' flame guiding me directly to each stop on my tour, and it still would not have made the goals any clearer to realize in practice.
Nonetheless I persevered, knocking out all the guards in my path, quenching the thirst of every shadow-casting flame that would otherwise expose my character's blocky sinews. At last returning to the beginning of the map; back to the first room I broke into that I might summon my cowardly apprentice, surely off wetting himself in a corner somewhere. I blew my whistle, signaling Dr. Do-Little to make his approach, but he did not approach, apparently not hearing my call. So I stepped outside the mansion and into the field from whence I first invaded this home and blew my bird-call once more. Yet he still refused me. So I walked up to the door of the small building wherein I had left him at the mission's onset and blew the accursed whistle again... Nothing! Finally I break open the door, walk up to the dunce, smack him in the nuts, and blow the whistle so close to his dumb fucking face that I can see the spittle gathering on the bridge of his nose. At which point he finally becomes convinced it's not just the sound of his tinnitus acting up again, and starts to move a little ass.
Now with Deaf-o on the run I get the exciting privilege of traversing the same halls of the same level that I just spent thirty minutes clearing - that I just back-tracked all the way out of - only to reach little miss save-me's door for the second time, turn around and run all the way back out again! Yay! Nothing like running the same level four times to make a so-called "sprawling map" seem that much smaller and more repetitive. By the time I realized the second level intended to set me at the similarly arduous task of running back to the same control room after opening each of twenty different garage doors one at a time I shut the game down, opened my control panel, and uninstalled it.
Did I overreact? I don't think so.
I've played 'Hitman' and I've played 'Splinter Cell' and whatever you may think of them I much prefer their brand of 'sneak.' Maybe being introduced to the genre by its significantly more polished bastard-children, those who bore the benefit of Thief's trials and unabashed, screaming, bleeding, flying, fucking failures, ruined me for this game before I ever drew upon it. Or maybe, and more likely, it's just a clunky, blind cornered, delayed attack, checkpoint-less, press f10-to-save, two hundred hour play time 'cause we make you run in goddamned circles, piece of diarrhea-green shit; With the only reason you think otherwise being a distorted view through the blurred veil of time, wrapped in the folly of youth whereby you recall it.
If you haven't lately, you might want to take a second glance at this 'Thief II' before you tout any more of its laurels. By my estimation it has not aged well.
roy
P.S.: Lord, do I hate the internet scum who claim the authority to re-review reviews as I've just done as though anyone cares to hear their ill-informed, arm-chair quarterback opinions. I am become what I hate. Oh, what's a boy to do? ...But shoot off at the mouth for kicks.