Thief™ Gold

Thief is an immersive game, the more immersive you make it the better. -Play with good headphones (2nd choice: a good surround system if you have it). -Play in the evening with the lights out -Play in 1-3 hour intervals or by mission, as the gameplay is excellent but the stress can get tiring after a couple of hours. -Minimize the chance of distractions -Get the gamma setting right. Keep it as dark as possible while still bright enough that it doesn't impact gameplay. -The graphics are dated, but you will notice less after an hour or so. -Use quicksave instead of menu save to keep immersion, but never quickload unless the game crashes (rare) or you die. Suggested game style for most fun: -Don't play higher game difficulties on your first try. They are called "Hard" and "Impossible" for a reason. When ready, move up (you choose difficulty by mission). -It can take a few hours to learn how to play well. It is worth the investment. A good suggestion if you're having trouble is to keep at the first post-training level until you finish it, then restart the game using what you've learned. -Keep playing as long as Garrett lives. Every level is winnable no matter t he setbacks, and the game is most immersive when you play through your mistakes. -Flight before fight, learn it and apply -Run->Hide->Wait->Try again -Avoid killing, but don't be afraid to fight back if cornered (ie: don't reload, try to survive no matter what) -(once comfortable) avoid blackjack Thief is a very replayable game, the difficulty modes add a lot to gameplay, and even after you finish on impossible, you can still try ghosting (alert no one and leave no trace except for missing loot), extreme exploring, or speed runs. Since the game missions are so nonlinear, every play will be different if you allow it.

I've been gaming since I was still on diapers and I can definitely name you my top 3 favorite titles ever, the golden standards I always use to judge other games, wich are Half-Life, Zelda Ocarina and Thief. The curious thing about Thief, is that I only just played it a few weeks ago, in this time and age of great, big budget games such as Skyrim, Mass Effect, BioShock, The Witcher 2, Deus Ex Human Revolution, even the recently released Dishonored (wich is awesome by the way), I'm still confident enough to name this as one of the best games I've ever played in my life. I'm a sucker for late 90's graphics, having loved my N64 to death, I have a special fondness for the crude nature of the 3D graphical prowess of the late 90's. But still, I considered Thief as a graphically inferior game. I definitely wasn't impressed by any of the screenshots and the character models were even more primitive than Super Mario 64. Then, how did this game won me over?. At first, it was the gameplay, I was intrigued by the slow nature of the game and the movement of Garret himself just felt right, I didn't get it at first, but after entering Bafford's Masion and wasting all of my water arrows (noobest of mistakes), I just found it thrilling to knock out as many guards as I could and move into the shadows undetected. Even if the name of the game is stealth first and foremost, the good folks at Looking Glass Studios managed to cram in some of the most interesting and varied levels I've ever seen from any game, even the objectives and foes themselves can vary a lot. Then, the story won me over. LGS managed to make a seriously interesting and subtle story by just looking your own surroundings (and reading letters), there's so much detail about the world you're inhabiting, despite it being blocky and having muddy textures, it really feels like a real place, a believable world. There are almost infinite ways of finishing a single level (wich can be quite huge... seriously, the levels are so big, it's normal to take you more than 1 hour to finish a single level, definitely more than that in late levels) and then, there's the increased difficulty objectives, the highr the difficulty, the more objectives you need to finish a level, opening up more areas of the level itself you might have ignored the first time around and even chaning some of the placements of items. I just love everything about this game, the atmosphere, the gameplay, the superbly crafted levels, the story, the incredible replay value (I cloked almost 40 hours in my first playthrough, I'm not kidding), heck, even the graphics!. For $2.50, I almost feel like I just robbed someone for getting so much from so little, even at the already low price of $9, I still felt like this game deserved more than that. In a nutshell, you'd be a taffer for not getting this game right now (make sure to grab the NewDark patch).

The story is fantastic. You start as an orphaned thieving wretch on the streets, learning the ropes from some mysterious ultra-thieves. Then things start getting creepy. Before you know it, your pursuit of retribution guides you onto the paths of long foretold prophecies. The stealth fighting and looting is extremely fun. You get a gem that tells you how visible you are. Having a weapon out lights it up. Standing lights it up. And light lights it up. So you'll be crouching in the shadows, watching patrol routes and finding ways to sneak to your goal. This game has tons of atmosphere. One of its creatures won "The Scariest Enemy in Gaming" award (I can't find a reference, but I remember reading it ages ago). Once you get good at the game, try it on its most difficult difficulty. That's the real way to play the game. You can't kill anyone and just about any damage is lethal. If you like to build and mod games, this game came with an innovative level editor. Unlike most game editors where you have to build everything wall by wall, Thief utilized an engine where you core out solid chunks of material and then add textures to the parts. If you're into game design at all, it's a fun tool to play with.

OK Thief games are just great, but I would like to empahsize how great GOG versions are: I have old copies of Thief 1/2 on DVD but it is difficult to use them. One problem is that the binaries are not compatible with multi-core processor (there is a workaround, but it requires some OS knowledge). But GOG versions work fine without any troubles: it is just amazing. I even play on 27'' screen with a 16/9 format image while I was expecting a 4/3 image. Definitively a great job from GOG.

Nah, this game owns. Get it. If you like immersive sims, if you like stealth, you need to get Thief.