No more wasting my actual life running around getting lost for the 9th time. No more semi-claustrophobic feel to Manor missions. Nor having to deal with something like ill-placed zombies everywhere with limited resources to deal with them. In this Thief game you’ll get to fully appreciate parkouring about the rooftops and hideaways as your playground. You fully utilize your environment for stealth, like crouching on top of a chandelier to either drop-attack a guard, or vanish like you were never there. This is one of three games that made me feel like a genuine thief, literally sliding from shadow to shadow. The dour visual vibe is perfect; it doesn’t overdo it. The pan at the beginning of the game out towards the water I found amazing. Romano Orzari does a fantastic voice acting job. I fully enjoyed the inclusion of “powers”. Because what thief wouldn’t eventually develop hyper-focus or safer landings. Plus, there’s always been a supernatural aspect to the Thief universe. The story might be considered basic. But when you give me this much rooftop highway, who cares. I played this in the middle of Covid, so the plague and civil unrest plots in the game hit harder. I can’t believe this great game didn’t get better press, reviews, and following. I hope a 2nd one is made soon.
StarCrawlers’ gameworld feels fully realized, having quite the lived-in vibe about it. I even liked the game’s given professions; from traditional soldier types to rogues, all the way to void users. I highly enjoyed exploring the skill trees. Characters also get a unique talent during exploration. I.E., the Smuggler can appraise gems giving you more credits, the Engineer can bust open broken doors, bypassing a go-around. The humor in this game works. There are many that try to give the player a laugh, but come off as pretentious or annoying. Even the semi-meta nature of some jokes don’t go overboard. The game also pays homage to geek culture throughout, such as a silouette of Fett or Doctor Who reference in dialogue. I’m not usually one to be graphics focused, but this game has a going-inside-a-painting vibe. I never expected to pause in awe and just stare at a scene, like an internal cave waterfall. I also appreciate the quality of life settings, which sometimes breaks a game for me without them. If I had to pick a negative, it’s that the Faction Alignment can be unforgiving. I’d love to go in there, quest a bunch for corporate jerks, get the faction-unique reward, and switch allegiance against them. And you can do that, but it’s punishing, and your Faction Allignment list can get messy. Overall though, I appreciated this aspect. I could go on with more positives, such as the fantastic replayabity, or that it’s the first game I’ve experienced where you absolutely can *not* get stupid rich 1/3 of the way in, or that my nephews and I have literally played “live action” StarCrawlers. So the tl;dr is: Buy this game, you won’t be disappointed. PS: When I joined GoG, it was on sale; so I waited until it was full price. That’s how much I love this game. Maybe a part of me was hoping Juggernaut was gearing up for a sequel; a single player this time even- and then StarCrawlers: Chimera came out. I’m quite happy about it.
