I was unfortunate enough to have missed out on the Thief series back when it was new, and just recently played through the first two games out of the three in the series. Thief II: The Metal Age is, without a doubt in my mind, one of the best games I've ever played. You play as Garrett, a master thief just trying to pay the bills and make a little extra cash on the side. For better or worse, however, Garrett always seems to end up involved in something much deeper than he'd like to be, and he just has to roll with it. I'd go more into the story, but I don't want to take a second of this awesome game away from any potential players out there. We live in a gaming society where everyone immediate thinks of guns when they hear the term "first person." This game is very, very different. While killing is definitely a possibility, it's noisy, and this is a stealth game. The Thief series encourages you to stick to the shadows and either avoid contact with enemies completely, or knock them out quietly. You can even distract them and make them walk in a direction that's far, far away from you. Thief II takes the core gameplay elements of the original Thief and Thief Gold and makes some noticeable improvements. The main thing I liked about this second game is that there weren't more than a couple zombies, which were abundant in the first game. When they showed up in the original Thief, the whole stealth aspect was kind of thrown out the window, and the game turned into a much more action-oriented experience. This game deals almost purely with humans, and strategy is almost ALWAYS a necessity. You can never just run into a room and expect everything to go your way, because you'll be seen and/or heard. You need to take a minute to plan your every move, and to make sure you stay virtually invisible if you want to succeed in your missions. It's an amazing experience that's impossible to describe in typewritten words. If you want a real first person experience, and not just another game lost in a sea of shooters, pick Thief II up. You won't regret a second of it, and you'll see that even to this day, we've never gotten anything quite like it.
