Thief™ Gold

This is easily one of my top five favourite games of all time. It may be my favourite. Simply put, it is a pure stealth game. This is a game where, if you get into combat, you're pretty well screwed (and on the highest difficulty, you are actually not allowed to kill anyone human, though you can knock them out). Everything is about careful planning and good execution. The levels are about as nonlinear as I have ever seen in a game, and the challenges often have multiple solutions. After all this time I would still say this game is phenomenal. For an extra challenge, try to play the hardest difficulty without even knocking anyone unconscious (the 'Lydia style' of play, named for a famous Thief player). The only problem with this game is, after playing it, almost no other stealth game will feel worth looking at.

I do not care what anyone says, long before I ever hard of Metal Gear Solid... There was THE DARK PROJECT. Genre Defining, The Stealth Em Up as I called it was started HERE! I first got the game many years back, an long after its initial release - And from the start I was hooked! So what makes the game so special? Graphics are just the right side of "Good" given the age - Yes there is a lot of Polygons and stuff, but they work and work well... In fact if you were to put MGS next to TDP you would see just how far the Genre had come since those early days. The Story is excellent... There are dozens of locations to explore even if the Enemies are limited (But hell! That's a complaint with most games...) Its dark brooding medieval setting just adds to the atmosphere and makes this a perfect addition to anyone's game collection who fancies a break from the usual Blast Everything in Sight jobs. Issues: NOthing Major unless you play on a more modern PC - This game does NOT like Compatibility Mode so is useless on Windows 7 - Or was... Then came GOG! Now the game is playable once more and I am back to having the full collection (I have the Third on DVD Rom and the Originals on a Sold Out Double Sided Disc but can only play the Second...) - If you have never played before - Come and accept the challenge, Beating this game is hard... Mastering it is EVEN HARDER!

The Thief games are legendary, especially Thief: The Dark Project and Thief 2: The Metal Age. They are all known because of their revolutionary game mechanics and design, the first title being the one that came with special sound effects on different kind of surfaces, a large variety of tools, a lot of diversity (enemies, places, sounds) and so on. Before this master-piece were developed, stealth games never had this kind of features. Even today, Thief Gold (the newest version of Thief: TDP) is considered the best (or one of the best) stealth creations ever and almost 20 years had passed. I think no words are necessary to say from now, just take this awesome game and enjoy every detail. It's a experience you'll never meet again.

Even after all these years I can go back to this game. I still haven't faound all the loot in every level!

Thief is a classic, and rightly so. Alongside the stealth mission from Rainbow Six, Thief ushered in the modern first-person stealth alternative to the shoot 'em up genre, and laid the groundwork for future steath masterpieces like Splinter Cell, Dishonored, and Metro 2033. Thief is full of brilliant ideas and impressive ambition. Light and sound are intricate to the gameplay, and it featured some of the earliest attempts at creating enemies with graduated suspicion. It also innovates one of the first "vulnerable" protagonists; Garrett is not Doomguy. He's slow, his fighting skills are mixed, and this forces you to rely more on the element of surprise and your equipment than your mouse-clicking skils. Not all of the missions are particularly engrossing, although the later missions get really interesting, with objectives constantly changing and some really cool stealth challenges. It's fun screwing around with the AI enemies and spooling them up while keeping yourself hidden. Still, unlike Half-Life or System Shock 2, this game has not aged well. The controls are pretty clunky, leading to some frustrating gameplay, especially in the combat. Yes, as I just said, Garrett is supposed to be sub-par in a sword duel, but it can be to the point of tedium. The bigger issue is the graphics. While the game sports some really good sound design, the visuals are, frankly, quite ugly. Blocky, tired polygons litter the landscape, covered with grainy textures set within poor lighting. The level design can be quite clever (e.g. Constantine's mansion), but it never looks good or ends up being particularly interesting to explore. A wonderful game that played a critical role in the evolution of gaming, but it is a very dated product of its time.