THIEF: Definitive Edition

This game continues the path that thief 3 took, and limits you even more. You can't even jump, only in context specific situations. It's not a bad game per se, but it just feels so constrained compared to earlier versions. Every little action causes a long animation, which is pretty cool the first time. But when every consecutive action takes a few seconds, it feels more like you're playing an interactive movie where you sometimes get to push a button or hide from a guard before you continue the linear path. The game looks pretty good though. If they would have combined the gameplay of thief 2 (or even 3) with the looks of this game, they would have had a hit on their hands. Very mediocre game in itself. A very bad thief game.

This is a great, though uneven, game that suffered mainly from the high expectations of Thief and Dishonored fans. It doesn't always reach the heights of its predecessors but is still a blast. First, the bad. This game isn't sure what it wants to be. The story is incoherent. Some characters are annoying and poorly designed (though fortunately Garrett is fine). Fans of Thief lore will be confused by a rebooted setting with a mish mash of confused references to the original games. Some of the levels are overly linear, and somebody spent a lot of time and energy creating a third-person climbing mode that is barely used and has no purpose in the game. The audio is mostly excellent, but subject to glitches which hurt immersion. Now the good: The game has a highly refined, fluid movement system that makes navigating the environments pleasurable. The "swoop" mechanic is more intuitive and enjoyable than Dishonored's "Blink". The light-based stealthing works well. It looks great. An incredible amount of talent and artistry has gone into the environments and atmosphere. The city hubs are large and multilevel, filled with secrets and hidden treasures. I loved skulking about through the dark, hunting down the numerous hidden locations and soaking in the atmosphere. These areas are mostly quiet, focused on exploration and puzzle solving, a nice break in pacing away from heavy stealth sections. There are also a number of fun and clever side missions including the Bank DLC, which is definitely worth your time. The main campaign missions are hit and miss. There are a few standout levels: the house of blossoms, with its descent through layers of history to a forgotten underground library, the Architect's house and Baron's Mansion, classic Thief home invasions, and the Asylum, which is scary and well-designed. Add to all that a superb PC port by Nixxes, and a really impressive set of options to customize how the game looks and plays, and the whole package delivers.

Gave this a star, but really, there isn't a star in this review at all. It disappeared into the Maw, along with the good old ways. And nah, I'm not a pagan. =) Nor am I a devout Hammerite. ;) But to call this game Thief is an insult to the original series. To remove Stephen Russell from voicing Garrett is an insult to the original series. Everything that made the original games so atmospheric, so alluring and fun, is sadly omitted in this game. This is what happens when you do everything wrong with a reboot. But as a wise thief once said: "I guess if you're rich enough you can build any sort of madhouse to live in." Deus Ex: Human Revolution did so much right, so good reboots(or prequels) CAN happen. This game could have been so good, but "what could have been" was stolen from us. Its world is cramped, where the original was open. Your feet are attached to a rail, or uncontrollable cutscenes, and all I can remember is how free you were in the original. Free to jump, and free to fall, to your death if you weren't careful. That does not happen here. You can't jump unless you are supposed to and that isn't freedom at all. Not to mention the stupid writing which is obnoxious where the original was..well original, at least. Christ on a crutch, they changed everything! Erased an entire steampunk/fantasy world and reimagined it a bleak and watered-down copy with the best parts missing. Nevermind how cheap the price tag is. It is the time lost playing this, that is the true loss here, not the money. Time you will never get back. This is not a "Good old Game." It was never good to begin with. The only good thing that came out of this s**t is that Stephen Russell got a part in Dishonored 2. Thank you Arkane Studios for honouring a great actor, but of course, you of all people knew that Russell could deliver. ^^ So play the original three Thief-games instead and have fun. I know have, countless times, and I can't praise them enough.

Let's be clear. This isn't just a bad Thief game, a series which this stinker has almost no connection with anyways beyond some aesthetics and name. It's also a very poorly designed stealth game in a game where stealth is the only thing you do! Enemies do not chase you beyond certain areas. You can literally throw bottles at enemies heads and they will return to their patrol like nothing happened. It's bad. On it's own merits without being compared to it's own predecessors or Dishonored, or Splinter Cell or anything. Once you realize that the stealth doesn't matter. How can you carry on? When you play this game, you are pretending to play a stealth game. Everything is window dressing over pure mediocrity with no stakes involved whatsoever. It's mindblowing that this game was made by the team that developed Human Revolution, but it's not when you remember that oh yeah, the story was enjoyable, the praxis system was fun, it offered the ability to go loud or sneak. Now strip all that except the stealth system and you have Thief. One of the worst stealth games out there.