Thief™ 3: Deadly Shadows

Having spent time on the Through The Looking Glass (TTLG) forums during the initial days of the development of the 2014 Thief reboot, I read a lot about Thief 3, and did not have my hopes up that it would be a decent sequel. Most of the complaints I read about were related to the removal of the swimming ability, the complete alteration of Garrett's loadout, the relative smallness of the levels and areas, and other things. I decided to try it, anyway. When I finally got my copy on Steam and played it, I found it to be a different enough game that I felt like I was NOT playing a proper sequel to T1 or T2--at least not the same way that T2 was to T1. This was due to the use of an entirely different game engine. T3 definitely had its moments, though. Visually, it was an improvement over the first two--but things like that are not AS important to me as gameplay, and I found myself missing what was missing. It's still WAY better than the reboot, though, and better than many other games I've played for its relative openness. T3 was intended to be more open world, but this was unachievable at the time for the studio. The result was a lot more loading times for smaller levels that made me feel like I might have overlooked too much (again, compared to T1 and T2). There are supposedly mods for this game, or else links to those mods, available through TTLG that open the world up and make it smoother to play, but I haven't tried those, and I doubt they'd work on my Steam copy. In short, if you took my advice as given in the T1 and T2 reviews I left (they're the same review, actually), you can skip this one and live happily ever after. If you DON'T skip this one, don't expect more of the same as what you got in T1 and T2. It truly is like playing a different game that shares the franchise name; but you might still enjoy it. I'm still trying to decide if I liked it enough to play it again. I have no such problems with T1 and T2.

Ran without a hitch once I applied the Thief 3 Sneaky upgrade. Before that I couldn't even get it to run. Well worth the extra time it'll take you to hunt it down and apply it. The enemies searching you out are simply amazing. The vocals are some of the best I've ever heard, and so many different characters. Every guard, every pagan, every hammerite, has something to say, and the voice acting is done extremely well. The cutscenes set the tone, Garret's voice is just as you'd expect; the ambience of the entire game is through the roof! Keep in mind, the Thief games are quite long, and this one is no exception. Time for me to complete, 80 h10m, however, I do take my time. To set the darkness to near perfection find a wall that looks completely black and walk to it so that you are facing right up against it. Then slowly bring up the brightness untill you can just make out the patterns on the wall. If you'd like to view some game play (just to give you a first hand experience before buying) check out the link below. The video will contain no spoilers to the main plot of the game, but will give you everything you need to know as far as the game mechanics are concerned. https://youtu.be/1CCx8C4upto Just drag your cursor over the above link to highlight it, press Control c, then go to your internet browser, place the cursor in the search bar, and press Control v, hit return, and presto!

Thief: Deadly Shadows is a solid stealth game regaling us with another adventure about cynical, seemingly indifferent master thief Garrett. The new developers, Ion Storm, managed to retain one extremely crucial aspect: atmosphere. Traversing the steampunk-themed dark-engrossed City in a newly introduced free roam mode; mansions, caves, ships, asylums, ruins in a mission mode is as enthralling as ever was. Figure of Garrett is still amazes with its awesomeness. Non-confrontational gameplay, where you have to silently steal some objects in maze-like level full of secrets, is well-done and entertaining… if you are not acquainted with previous installments. Comparatively to T:TDP and TII:TMA the level design is just weaker. The missions are smaller, more linear (usually no more than two useful ways to reach destination). The secret system was removed and replaced with special loot which is a severe simplification. The count of usable items is just two times shorter than in TII. For some unknown reason they removed such applicable devices as invisibility potion, speed potion, slowfall potion, eatable fruits etc. But the gravest insult: they removes rope arrows! They replaced it with climbing gloves but didn’t provided *any* fun ways to utilize it. Another blunder of Thief III is that it doesn’t manage or even tries to offer anything new on a higher, general, level. Thief I introduced us to initial, magical-oriented, setting, Thief II replaces all fairy parts with urban ones. And in Thief III… we are back in Thief I, trudging the same old caves filled with monsters, zombie-infested ruins, ghost-haunted houses and, of course, mansions and cathedrals... again. Thief: Deadly Shadows is a strong game which enchants you with its dark brooding atmosphere, legendary protagonist and classic, finely tuned stealth gameplay. Yet if you are fun of TI and TII don’t raise your hopes up because Thief III, sadly, loses to them on all fronts.

The general pattern for game sequels is to improve on the technical level while failing on the artistic (gameplay/story) level. Deadly Shadows breaks this pattern in both directions. Artistically it is as strong as any entry in the series, but on the technical level it takes two steps back for every step forward. Moving light sources and shadows, but ridiculous ragdoll physics. Bigger world, but tiny levels. It's still a good game, but if played after Thief 2, it will inevitably disappoint.

...got stuck in the tutorial mission due to a bug that won't let me pick a lock to progress.