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Lacking

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 12 / 49
Date: May 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Sadly the game isn't a patch on the original Thief games! Graphics are awful. If you own Deus Ex 2 you'll know what I mean. Eidos really screwed up and I refuse to purchase another product from them again.

The game runs poorly, much like Deus Ex 2 which is known for technical problems. Even a friend with a AMD 3200+ couldn't get the damn thing to run higher than a rate of 20fps :(

The game crashes on my system all the time, I have XP Pro and more than enough RAM (1GB) to run this game. Considering Far Cry ran like a dream on this system and it looks much better than this tells you enough.

The gameplay is slow and boring, and the LOADING TIMES completely ruin the game. A third of the way through the level, a loading time ruins the immersion and makes you feel like you're in another mission. I hope a patch will fix this, but Deus Ex 2 was also ruined in this way and had no fixes to rectify this problem.

Thief 3 gets the thumbs down from me.

ION STORM-NEVER AGAIN!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 19
Date: June 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

If any of you have tried to play Deus Ex 2: Invisible War (also an Ion Storm product) and had your computer crash constantly to desktop, stay away from this game. Seriously, you'll be throwing your money away. I've got an Athlon 2000 CPU and a Geforce FX 5200 (w/ the 256 MB chip) and have never played 2 games so piss poor in terms of stability. The producers say that the game should run smoothly at medium settings w/ the FX 5200. For the record I have everything set at the lowest possible settings and the game has crashed over a dozen times so far and I haven't even finished the first mission! There is a patch out now which I installed. Fixed nothing. Actually I spent quite some time trying to tweak things to get the game to run because I loved Thief 1 & 2 (not Ion Storm products). All to no avail. I'll personally never buy another game produced by Ion Storm. They should get out of the gaming business. There are way better developers out there. People who have played Max Payne 2 (excellent) know what I'm talking about. Or Splinter Cell-PT for that matter. Both ran excellently on my machine. Incidentally I've been playing vid games for years so I do know what I'm talking about. As for the positive reviews here, I truly don't know what to make of them. Maybe these people have the latest $400 video cards. I don't know. But if you've got what I have. Good luck. You're gonna need it.

Just got Thief3 [...]

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 22
Date: May 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I am so disheartened right now... I'm also about $[...] shorter after my purchase of Thief 3 earlier today. This feels very similar to when I played Deus Ex: Invisible War. I'm sorry but I HATE Thief Deadly Shadows. I have been playing it for hours now and I am just depressed. I put Thief 2 back in and immediately felt happy once again. Here are my complaints so far about Thief 3 Deadly Shadows:

1. SYSTEM HOG!: (just like Deus Ex: IW) I have a pentium 4 2.5 Ghz with 512 RAM and a Ti4800 card and this game is still very jerky!

2. GRAINY GRAPHICS: (again just like Deus Ex:IW)
3. NO SEPARATE RUN COMMAND
4. NO LEAN FORWARD COMMMAND
5. NO SWORD: he's got a little dagger now
6. LOAD ZONES!!!!!!!
7. NO ROPE ARROWS
8. NO SWIMMING

Thief 3 is not smooth like Thief 1 and 2. I haven't yet had fun with Thief 3 and I've been torchering myself for hours now with it. If you are thinking of purchasing this game wait for a demo, I wish I had. I have never been so disappointed ever in a game like this before.

Game would not load for me

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 24
Date: November 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I didn't get to play thief, the game would not completly install. I kept getting an error with the third data file. I e-mailed the manufacturer but did not recieve any response so I have to rate this game with 1 star for the lack of support from the manufacturer.

Ion Storm Totally Blew It

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 9
Date: August 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

First off, I can agree with some of the positive points made by the other reviewers, but being a hardcore fan of the first two games, I must say that I was apalled at how much of a let-down this game was. It seems that by trying to make this game remarkabely better than the first two, Ion Storm completely ruined it in the process. First off, the engine is shoddy. Granted, there was much need for improvement from it's predecessors in order to catch up with the rest of the cideogame market, but this one doesn't seem to work at all, and it's almost impossible to see anything. I actually think Thief 2 looked 10 times better where gameplay is concerned. The level designs were too tight and uninspired: I felt claustrophobic half the time, and it was almost impossible to sneak past anybody, because the levels conisisted almost entirely of small hallways. Because the game was made with the option of playing in third-person (which is stupid and completely ruins the realism of having to peek around corners, etc.) playing in first person seems disjointed and awkward. In fact, playing the game in general felt disjointed and awkward, and that is what I feel is the crushing blow to this game's complete failure. Playing it's predecessors was easy, fluid, smooth, and enjoyable; but it was almost impossible to get anything done correctly in this one. (I tried to pickpocket someone and ended up killing them instead.) It's choppy and frustrating. The rest of my complaints are as follows: The blue highlighting was incredibly confusing, the scripting and story in general was embarrassingly under par compared to the originals, it didn't hold true to the series in several parts, (Garrett, who's supposed to be a total narcissistic loner, was all too willing to work for other people, and since when are Keepers violent???) using the blackjack and dagger (lame, bring back the sword) wasn't nearly as comfortable, many of the things that made the first two games so legendary were completely missing (swimming, rope arrows, lots of secrets, little hidden switches... in fact, small things in general were non-existent. Someone's purse was bigger than their head), the portal thing was frustrating, eliminating that large, open feeling the other games had, and then there was just some stuff that made absolutely no sense. (I shot an arrow into a wooden door frame to distract a guard - something that would've worked in previous games - and instead, it flew through the wall, making no sound and leaving no trace toward it's existence.) FLAT OUT, THIS GAME SUCKED. I'd much rather play Thief Gold of Thief 2. I just like to think that if Looking Glass hadn't shut down, this travesty never would've happened.

Great game!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 27
Date: May 25, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Love this game, graphics are awesome although they don't run very well. Been playing this for three days solid and got about three hours sleep!

"Dumbing down" the Thief Games for "Console Kiddies."

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 7 / 26
Date: May 29, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I, originally, had no interest in a game called "Thief." Sounded anti-social to me. But when I got a copy with my new sound card, I installed it and gave it a shot... what the heck, right?

And I fell in love with it. Thief... then, the expanded version, "Thief Gold," and then Thief 2... made for a truly AMAZING experience. And, unlike most games, it was not a violent, mindless game... quite the opposite.

Well... I bought this game a couple of days ago. I tried installing it on my main computer, running Win98SE (which runs 100% of every other program I've ever owned or tested). Guess what? Thief 3 is the FIRST GAME I'VE EVER TRIED which does not run except under WinXP.

Supposedly, it runs with Win2K or WinXP. So, having 2K at work, I took it in and gave it a shot. No go... even though this is, allegedly, "supported." Why not? Now, bear in mind that this is a high-end professional workstation, not an old machine and not a "kiddie computer." But... it doesn't have the right "pixel shader" revision built in. So... it won't run.

Get it? There's only a small subset of the PC marketplace that can even RUN this program... people with VERY new, high-end graphics cards (even the Geforce4 won't work), the most recent drivers (nVidia 6-series drivers at a minimum, or the equivalently most recent ATI drivers... and NOTHING ELSE WILL WORK). And you MUST have Windows XP or else you might as well rebox it and take it back.

Or... you can do what Microsoft apparently convinced Eidos to do... trade in the PC version for the X-Box version. I remember when the PC version was "suspended" and the product was formally announced as "X-Box ONLY." Well, they didn't really... REALLY... change their minds on this.

They removed one of the most commonly-used elements of the original game... the rope-arrows. They have such simple level design that there aren't really any multi-level structures! Oh yes, and they have so far stated that there will be NO SDK (software development kit), so you can just take it for granted that there will be no "fan missions" released on the internet. (For those of you who don't know, it's "fan missions" which have made Half-Life stay on the sales racks for the past... what, five years?... continuously!).

In other words... BE WARNED. Despite the fact that this ad says that it will run in Win98.. IT WILL NOT. Despite the fact that this ad says that it will run in Win2K... IT WILL NOT. Despite the fact that the ad says nothing about it, if you don't have AT A MINIMUM a GeforceFX 5900 Ultra with the LATEST drivers, you will not be able to play the game.

Bottom line... wait to see if ION Storm and Eidos fix these problems. And until they do... DO NOT BUY THIS GAME.

Mine is going back first thing in the morning.

Awesome graphics...but boooring...get Splinter Cell instead!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 13
Date: July 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I love the simplicity of skulking around in the dark during medieval times. I like having a bow to fight with. Beyond that, this game is just too repetitive.
You get new missions and all you can do is sneak, find loot by stealing it or picking locks on wooden chests, achieve the required goals, then get a new mission that has you doing the same crap all over again! I MEAN HOW MANY CHESTS CAN YOU PICK OPEN BEFORE YOU GET BORED TO TEARS??? The weapons perform poorly too! I aim perfectly for the heart, shoot a guy with 3 arrows close up and he still kicks my butt! Then I can shoot another guy in the leg and he dies instantly! LAME!!!!!

The concept is fun, it just lacks something to make you want to continue playing the next repetitive levels. The voice acting is pretty lame too. I would go so far as to call it banal.

I am glad the developers stepped away from aliens and nazis. I swear if I have to kill one more darn Super-Armored Alien Nazi Storm Trooper with twin machine guns for hands I will scream!

I don't want to imply that you should not play this game. It does have it's moments. I would recommend you wait until this game costs around $15. If you want a true sneak and loot challenge..go for Splinter Cell. The character has many more abilities and the game is actually entertaining.

buggy and not at all like the original

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: October 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Thief I frankly scared me to death the first time I played it. I would be creeping along and all of a sudden some monster would jump up and kill me, and had been following me for some time. Thief III has better graphics, more variety, but never approached the thrill of the original.

Frankly, this game is too easy. You are more like a super hero than a thief, what with all the gadgets that allow you to escape or give you one shot kills. Guards corner you? Well just climb a wall and wait for them to leave. They can't climb, and there's walls everywhere, so once you get the climbing gloves you will never be worried about the guards again.

Finally, this game crashed hundreds of times while I was trying to work my way through it. I have a high-end system, and I know how to tweak it. Thief III has no good support, lots of laggy glitches, and inexplicable crashes - all day long. Forget it, because even though this game is fun to play, its not fun to reload and play and reboot and reload and play etc, ad naseum.

Get thief II - Goldedition and play the first Thief - its classis and it doesn't crash, and its picking hard to beat.

Controversial game-- brilliant, but still disappointing

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 13 / 17
Date: November 21, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is not consistent in its quality. Many of the in-building missions are just magnificent, both in graphics and in gameplay -- at first -- the guards talking about you etc. But soon one notices that ALL guard creatures do exactly the same things, just in different words. This is made worse by the fact that there are no traps or security systems whatsoever, like in Thief 2.

The cave missions suck in terms of graphics, and diversity. Each room looks like the previous one -- and you can and will get stuck between two rocks at some stage... just like your opponents get stuck ...

The city is tiny and crude -- huge downgrade from the large and mighty city of thief 2. Also, when I killed the female thief in front of the cathedral, I proceeded to kill her male companion -- and, wow, a duplicate of the 'dead' lady runs from behind a corner and says "at least it wasn't me!" Depressing...

You enter missions by clicking glyphs -- eg the cathedral looks like a small cottage, but when you click it, you enter a mission with a huge cathedral and courtyards -- realistic, hah.. The city is like a fake, cardboard village.

The best item of thief 2 was the rope arrow -- now you have an unrealistic solution, climbing gloves... While climbing can be somewhat fun, you can escape all guards by jumping on the wall. Garret's hand gets tired of holding a light bow, but apparently not from hanging indefinitely to a brick wall with his fingers! You can't even navigate round a corner whilst on the wall and overall, it's really clumsy to climb around.

No special missions like shadowing, which we had in thief 2. Only open lock, get in, steal stuff, move stuff, turn switch, and in every darn mission -- lack of imagination????

What you have is the very basic elements of old thief games with nice lighting effects, but buggy graphics close to Garret in the view from behind him. (Ok, the possibility to choose between views is still good.)But why couldn't they implement the best extra elements from thief 2 or replace them with something else? Now the whole game is lacking something. The story is probably the most immersive so far, but it seems that the story doesn't really begin until half of the game has been wasted with 'fetch this'- missions. Voice acting is often appauling, and while pagan 'bes' are funny, they will get on your nerves.

On the whole, it's not a bad game at all -- but what is good, is almost always inherited from the basic concepts of old thief games. The best extra elements of thief 2 have been left out completely. Unfortunately this is much more repetitive than other thief games -- a lot of it is because of the stupid inclusion of the boring City.

+ graphics (but not consistently good)
+ story (but starts too late)
+ good old TM Thief formula never fails
+ moving light sources
+ volume of steps changes according to distance (but some spoken lines seem same volume close and far!)
+picking locks is more realistic than before

- repetition to the extreme -- eg all guards are the same
- I'm stuck in a chest, or between two stones, or in a sealed pit in Pavelock prison and I can't jump out.
- It is sometimes very hard to simply pick loot -- you have to get it dead centre, which may take a minute.
- I'm a master thief who goes to the shop to buy my equipment
- I'm the best thief in town and still I pay rent to my landlord to live in a pathetic dump.
- wait for tiny cramped city area to load, take two steps, and wait for next area to load...
- the unrealistic "fog" between area -- did thief 2 have loading times to move between places inside missions?
- occasionally pathetic voice acting and lines: "die, die -- now you are dead" or "I am still searching -- now I stop searching (so you can blackjack me safely)"

Now, I only gave 3 stars to the game.

But I could give 234 stars to the level Shalebridge Cradle,a dark dark abandoned lunatic asylumn/orphanage. And it is not a typical level of Deadly Shadows...

I consciously tried not to be afraid. But I've never feared more-- this level's audiovisual structure makes you feel like a paranoid lunatic yourself!! You just can't help feeling that something will strike you -- but there are only relatively few enemies, (which are some of the most freaky, twitching, mad, ghastly, sneaking creepers you will ever witness). The majority of the sounds are "ghost sounds".

You are guaranteed to tremble 5 minutes after putting it away. And this is something you have an urge to do so very often. To be honest, I don't know if I will ever have the guts to go back again myself...

After playing through over a dozen of missions where the slightest sound instantly revealed an enemy, here this developed instinct is constantly made use of with the freaky ghost sounds. And the sounds seem to come up very irregularly and with varying volume, which increases the fear/uncertainty factor.

Nothing as intense and horrifying exists in the world of gaming -- it is a prize for navigating through 2/3 of the otherwise repetitive missions. Regardless of whether you have the courage to complete this mission, you must try it-- this level cannot be missed.

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