The elements in this that most respect Tom Clancy (RIP) are simultaneously a positive and a negative; the former because of how authentic this is and the coolness factor, the latter because of how restrictive it is. A lot of this you are patiently sneaking, not shooting. And both of them just are not quite as engaging as its immediate competition. These are greatly improved in the sequels. However, using gadgets is addictive. The light and sound-based stealth is not quite what it is in the Thief trilogy; it's especially frustrating that this is extremely linear, unlike The Metal Age. Proceeding in this too often means "figuring out what they intended for you to do". Not only that, no, you spend much too long *just finding out where you're supposed to go*. The graphics are great albeit not quite as good as the Prince of Persia games that came out starting just one year after this one was released, and are also Ubisoft products. Movement is awkward, particularly jumping. As far as I can tell it's because they wanted to tailor it to implement the split leg suspension, which along with the signature goggles are the biggest contributions to pop culture of this franchise. Ultimately you don't end up using it all that much and I think they should have just made a separate function for it. The AI is great, part of why this is very challenging. Except for when it is really easy. The two weapons, fitted with silencer and flash suppressor, pistol and SC-20K(to know it is to love it) are a ton of fun to use(when the time is right), as is all the equipment. Diversions that can also render foes unconscious, a reusable reconnaissance camera, the Sticky Shocker, and that's not the only *launchable*(!) stuff you get to use. Optic cable for looking under doors, wall mines, lock-picks, flares, grenades, and I could go on. The tactical opportunities is another thing where this really shines. Night and Thermal Vision(and trust me, it is perfect) demand mention, as well.
I really try not to do negative reviews these daysm so I'm gonna start with some of the positive. While I myself am not a fan of the addition of the third person perspective(I feel it makes things too easy), I do greatly appreciate that the game literally never once forces the player to use it. It is 100% up to you whether or not you want to use it at all, and if you use it, how much. And it definitely opened up this series to new players. I don't particularly like the brief detour to Silent Hill; still, I can't deny that it is quite effective. It's really no wonder that the 2014 game features a clear homage, even though most of those are to the first two. I find they tend to just be a nuisance, but I really respect the addition of loose objects that you can accidentally bump into to attract unwanted attention. Given that this is not supposed to be about fencing and that you are supposed to be a thief not a knight, it does make a lot of sense to replace your sword with a dagger. Of course the fact that you can technically use it against swords at all does feel like a very silly compromise. I get that making this somewhat similar to Deus Ex felt comfortable for the developers and I'm sure it attracted people who otherwise weren't interested in this and certainly these had not performed quite as well as hoped. The graphics get a distinct upgrade. Its plot contains at least one really compelling twist. This does allow you to use stealth even in situations where similar titles do not. The ties to the previous entries are genuinely handled well. It completely defangs Pagans & Hammerites. The idea that the two factions could coexist well enough that they could have bases within walking distance, and that the former would be so close to The City, makes it feel like the people behind this one did not appreciate that the games that came before this one in this franchise literally featured world ending scenarios that revolved around the unceasing conflict between the groups.
This adds destructible buildings. Incredibly fun. I do think that the third one does better at not relying too heavily on it. As much as I enjoyed myself I did end up getting bored with it in this one, and that didn't happen there. Being able to fire your guns in freefall is a great addition. You can now parachute until you get into firing range, free fall and shoot, and then go back to parachuting just in time so you don't smack too hard into the ground when you reach it. Also, you are able to stand on the outside of any vehicle(whether it's got wheels, if it sails or even flies, yes, this includes any jet that you can get close enough to) and fire your guns. This goes for before you even take out the original occupant of the vehicle. In fact it can be part of doing that. C4 is sticky and you can plant all of the individual ones and then detonate them all at once. The grappling hook is significantly faster and you can now use it to tether together any two things, which allows you to break the heads off of the numerous statues and even using it as a wrecking ball, simply by sticking it to a vehicle that has the pull and/or speed to, well, pull it off. You can dual wield grenade launchers. The system for ordering in vehicles and weapons costs a lot of in-game currency. I prefer the way they handle it in the immediate sequel where it's infinite but you can only order one at a time early on. You have to earn your right to order multiple and then you can restore your ability to order things. This is also the one where some of the weapons are absolutely ridiculous and barely even resemble real world weapons and it’s glorious. If you're going back through the franchise this is a really great place to start. The first one by later standards is just a bit too small, slow and limited, despite it not being that when it first came out. Satisfying to get to fight a stand-in for Kim Jong-Il. They could have leaned more into the ridiculous things that he convinced his people.
You are deep in enemy territory during World War 2, you're on your own and supposedly your main weapon is a sniper rifle. It's not difficult to tell how this concept was popular enough that there are as I type this no less than nine games total in this franchise(three of them zombie spin-offs and one VR). Unless you're nostalgic, I would overall recommend skipping directly to the second in the series. But I am going to try to go into some of the positive aspects of this one here. The story is kind of silly; this thing of you are the first warrior in the Cold War fighting it before it technically even began. But I can appreciate that they felt the need for something to explain why you're alone. And it does genuinely make you feel like you are alone surrounded by a massive military force, even if you're not constantly facing armies. It is legitimately thrilling when you're dealing with a tank and you're on foot with relatively little in the way of weaponry especially when it comes to stuff that could even put a dent in that massive thing. This allows you to approach at least some missions with a great degree of freedom right down to the ability to set timers for explosives to ridiculous numbers if you believe that it will help you. Like Commandos 2 if you're good enough at the stealth you may be able to handle your goals with the specific tools you prefer to, rather than being limited to what the developers wanted you to, in certain situations. The game has a decent length; I certainly felt like I got my money's worth. I did find myself genuinely engrossed in the overarching story which is part of why I was slightly disappointed when I played the second one and it didn't really continue the story so much as just retell it. There's a decent variety of weapons. Before playing I thought that maybe you would only be allowed the sniper rifle, but the developers knew this would severely limit the gameplay and so they went in a different direction.
The sequels definitely deliver on the promise that this shows. But there is still a lot that this nails. Basically, imagine Grand Theft Auto if you replace almost all of the variety in it with more and bigger guns, military vehicles, etc. In this you’re essentially never doing anything other than violence and/or stealth. If your average GTA game is Michael Mann's Heat, then this is Arnold Schwarzenegger's Commando: bigger, dumber, louder, less character and depth, but really scratches that itch. The plot is basically an excuse for you to go around shooting people and blowing things up, but it absolutely owns it. There are some glorious moments of self-awareness. It really does deliver on using tanks, jets and the like. There are missions where you specifically are using them and they manage to make it challenging despite the armor and enormous firepower. I love the shamelessness of the infinite parachutes. I can't even begin to imagine how in real life one would even go about designing parachutes that so easily are deployed, discarded and then redeployed somehow, but it is incredibly fun. The rush of letting yourself drop far before you engage in the parachute is great. Some of the missions have incredible openness to them. There's a Prison Break where you can go in guns blazing using a heavy vehicle, you can sneak your way in with silenced weapons, or you can parachute into the area with the cells because it's that sort of prison - think Sona from Prison Break. The third person shooting is geared towards being fun first and foremost. They do quite well at that. The map has a lot of different areas for you to deal with keeping you engaged for a good amount of time. This is one of the few open world games that I chose on my own to play twice, not only once. If you are playing this to see how the franchise looked at the start, after playing any of the sequels, be aware a lot of the most fun stuff in those is not in this one. No wingsuit unlike the third one.
Somehow this improves on the first one. I didn't think there was much to even address. In this one you are almost never asked to play it any way other than stealthy. Every single level is incredibly well designed and almost all of them have a different goal that is driven by stealth: steal, eavesdrop, frame, etc. They are absolutely massive and open. There's so many different paths you can take. You will get lost, you will end up realizing you've gone in the wrong direction, adding to the difficulty that is part of what we love about this genre. The story is gripping. It really delivers on exploring what this world would look like if the fascistic Old Testament Hammerites were in charge, if the pagans were not at all able to keep them in check. The robots and cameras are incredibly disturbing and provide tremendous challenge. And despite how strong of a card the developers had with those they don't actually overplay it. Which means that every single time you encounter one of these mechanical monsters it makes a strong impression. You're given new tools that are a real joy to use. I love the eye. You can literally remove one of Garrett's eyes, toss it and then use it as a remote camera. This means that you can use it to see some of an enemy's patrol route without having to lean or otherwise potentially expose yourself. You pick the eye back up when you're ready to do so and you can use it as many times as you want. There are some excellent plot twists; you will not guess where it's going. And they manage to convey a lot in the world building instead of just exposition dumping everything. I will say I did not find the cinematics quite as gripping as in the first. Some of them just go on for too long and keep going after they've made the point they were trying to convey. I am thrilled that they maintained the distinct stylization with silhouette shots and such. Yes, I am aware that some of it was due to technical limitations of the time.
I wasn't certain if Frictional Games would be able to probably follow up Penumbra, since by the third one, it seemed like they didn't have that much more interesting to do. Thankfully, they had only burned out on that franchise, not on this overall type of game. In general, this features responses to all of the feedback they got. Every bit of constructive criticism is taken to heart; it has significantly less of the weird tendency of the in-universe people writing in excruciating detail about their death as they are experiencing it. The hook is much more compelling and you're immediately engaged with this. Penumbra starts by telling you that your character’s father disappeared decades ago and now you're investigating that. This one tells you that right before you intentionally gave yourself amnesia, you wrote a letter to yourself in which you express intense desire towards killing a man that you now no longer remember anything about. If that does not get you seriously invested, frankly, the game just is not for you - which is of course perfectly fine. Like Penumbra and later SOMA, it's clear that Frictional Games are not satisfied with scaring the audience. No, they want to get under our skin, and they are superb at it. This is one of those things where if you have to ask if this might be too disturbing for you, the answer is yes. Do not play one of these if that is the case; you will be scarred for life. Some of these I haven't played in years, and SOMA only once. And yet, I remember all of them in tremendous detail, more so than certain games that I did really like that I've played much more recently. Part of what works so well here is the psychological aspect, Yes, it does have intense gore and jump scares. But in addition this truly does make you feel trapped, forced to proceed in a direction that you instinctively know is going to hurt. The way that you gradually learn backstory is masterfully done. The plot happened before you come into it; you’re catching up.
There are countless bad adaptations including of Stephen King's works. I think it's much more likely that we get strong end results out of this approach, where they attempt to recreate the atmosphere, and not do a direct adaptation of any individual piece of work. This could easily have just settled for references to King and Lynch(there are a number of those, but it isn't limited to that) or surface level stuff, but it dives deep. The game has a killer hook; you really badly want to get to the bottom of the mystery that it presents at the start. And while I won't give away any details I will confirm that I was completely satisfied by the end of it. If you find yourself losing interest in the third level, I urge you to give it until you reach the fourth, where it becomes incredibly interesting again, and remains that way for the rest of it. The gameplay itself is engaging. Essentially it's a third person shooter similar to the first two Max Payne games by the same developer, but without the bullet time and diving, and with a smaller and more limited weapon loadout. In addition to the straightforward point and shoot, you first have to remove the possession from your targets. Sometimes certain things you literally only have to remove the possession. You do this by pointing a flashlight directly at them, and it works especially well if you “focus it” on them(taking time). This slows down (or even stuns, for some) enemies, which leads to you juggling enemies; pointing the light at one, then another, then another, to make sure none of them are able to get close enough to attack. Much like the Max Payne games, this features several incredible standout areas of certain levels, where you're able to do something that makes sense considering what the game has set up. And on one hand you kind of wish the entire game was like that. But on the other you realize it would not sustain an entire game. The atmosphere is amazing. It truly does feel like you're in small town America.
This is one of those rare instances where I would recommend the same game to long time fans and people who are barely familiar equally. And that goes for whether we're talking about Batman media, video games, or the various video games subgenres that this fits into. Whether you've been reading the comics for several decades or you’re barely familiar with the character. This manages a seriously impressive balance between the Nolan verse realism, which though the middle movie of the trilogy is truly amazing, did bother a number of fans who liked the more out there stuff from the comics, and, well, delivering for those fans. The stealth provides challenge without throwing you in the deep end or punishing the player overly harshly. If you make a mistake in one of the first three thief games and you’re not saving frequently, you might have to do a huge chunk of the level over. In this, it's never more than several minutes worth, and if you end up just having to take a break you can return to that area the next time you play. The combat is indeed easy to learn but difficult to master. Hypothetically if you're really not very good, you can get a lot of the way through this; it just won't look as cool, won't be as rewarding. If you want to get extremely good at it, even if you've played dozens of other fighting games before you play this, its sequels or something heavily inspired by it, it’s actually going to really challenge you. Perhaps the best thing about this is it just makes you feel like you are Batman, experiencing one of his adventures. Name your favourite thing about Batman and as long as we're talking solo stuff, this has it. In addition to what I've already mentioned, there's detective work, platforming, tragedy, a gothic feel, etc. The choice to bring in the cast from the animated series may have been fairly obvious but sometimes that is the exact thing you want to do. And just like on that show the actors really make these characters come alive.
I try to be open to games that do something very different from the genre, or even earlier entries in the franchise. My issues with this are not that it is unlike the first four. I 100 % respect the notion that maybe it was time to change things up. Certainly they had perfected it by this point. I do think that these changes were for the worse. There's less freedom the bread and butter of the series. On multiple occasions I found myself stumbling backwards into the ideal solution to certain missions whilst just doing basic recon, long before I was really starting to plan; or even just messing around, experimenting, doing something completely ridiculous. This never happened before this one. Certain of the changes just make things way too easy. I do appreciate some of the additions; it had gotten quite ridiculous by this point that every time the game wanted you to be able to hide in a certain area, there would be a closet that was man-sized. In this one there are variations on this, including, hilariously, a ball pit. Now you can hide in plain sight, by for example getting to a specific spot and pretending to mop. I would have loved if you were allowed to move at least slightly while doing this… I mean, how clean does that one spot need to be? But it does add another option. The plot arguably goes too sci-fi; one character is literally the size of the Hulk! I do think that the inclusion of a young woman that 47 is protecting was implemented significantly better than, for example, the 2007 movie adaptation that it was clearly inspired by. I mean obviously when something like that is released it brings in a bunch of new customers and you want to reassure them that this is not too different from what they just watched. There are more really cool settings, though personally I don't really like the choice to draw some of them out into multiple levels in a row. No, I wasn't fond of it in the earlier entries, either. I think a lot of the best levels of the stand alone ones.
