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Initial thoughts on Thief III

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 73 / 76
Date: May 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

First thoughts on Thief III, which I played for about 3 hours last night.

Fun, but not quite as fun (so far) as the first two. On my system, it's a little laggy, but that's probably because my video card is about middle/low end, as far as their specs go (NVidia 5500 FX) and I don't have the money to upgrade to the top of the line vid cards they want. Graphics are not as fabulous as I've heard, but again, I've got a middle of the road vid card, and I can live with it.

I dove right in without reading the manual, so of course, the re-mapped weapons keys came as an unpleasant surprise. I had gotten so used to hitting '4' to get my water arrows in the first two games, but that's '8' now. They also swapped the blackjack and sword (dagger) keys, so I kept pulling out the dagger instead of the blackjack. And honestly, I don't miss the sword, but then I never used it in the first two except to cut down wall-hangings. I never kill guards, and only the occasional spiders. But, these key mappings can be easily changed, so I'm not complaining too much.

Pros/Interesting positive changes:
The training mission rocks for getting you up to speed quickly. It explains all the buttons, and many of the changes between this and the first two games in terms of actions and dynamics.

The dynamic lighting is nice. You can now extinguish candles and other lights (but, strangely, not torches) by walking up to them and 'using' them.

I haven't tried out the third-person mode yet. "First-person" is not what people traditionally think of as first-person in games - it's just like the camera is mounted on Garrett's forehead. I like it, as it lends a little bit more realism to things - you can look down and see his feet, turn and see his arms. It takes a little getting used to, but I like it.

Garrett seems to comment a lot more in this game too. If you pick up an item and try to put it down in a spot where it won't fit, he'll say "uh-uh". He'll make little quips about locations like he did in the first two, but it seems like there's more of those.

Lock-picking is a lot more involved and a lot of fun so far.

There are pieces of loot that are special - they're worth more than regular loot, and are often figured into the objectives. Loot glint is actually helpful, although I can understand the complaints that it makes things too easy. But at the same time, they made loot and non-loot look a lot more alike in this game, and they still managed to hide some loot in out of the way places where you can't see the glint from normal eye-level.

The City mode is a lot of fun. I already ransacked Garrett's landlord's apartment. Just a word of advice - don't blackjack someone in the middle of the street in front of three witnesses. (*whistle* I hit the wrong button, so sue me. I was trying to pick his pocket)

With a few notable exceptions (see below), the physics are a lot more realistic. Almost everything Garrett touches can be moved - he can knock over chairs, knock swords out of sword racks, push large tables and crates, knock cups and plates onto the floor. On normal difficulty, the guards will come if they hear the noise, but they don't seem to notice things being out of place. I imagine on the higher difficulties, they'll start investigating.

Everyone complains about there not being any swimming and the substitutions of climbing gloves for rope arrows. I haven't missed either so far. The loading zones are mildly annoying, but not too bad - they kind of sub-divide missions into smaller chunks. I really didn't mind them too much.

Nitpicks/Little funny issues:
The bright blue "use" highlight is annoying. I can deal, but it's still annoying.

I miss the briefing movies. There are cutscenes, but when you enter a mission, Garrett just reads the text while it's on the screen. No pretty movies.

The physics of the unconscious/dead bodies is really funny. I blackjacked a guy and he bent over backwards in a position that probably should have left him paralyzed. It's now possible for Garrett to trip over the bodies and make noise. No longer possible to "stack" bodies in quite the same amusing way as the original, although that's probably for the best. (No more setting it up like the servants were messing around....)

I managed to make a guard kill himself - I blackjacked him while he was carrying a torch, and he fell on the torch and died.

There's not really an option to quietly set things down either, which is somewhat annoying. (Maybe there is, but I just couldn't find it?) I picked up a cup up from a table without realizing it wasn't loot (still getting used to the loot glint vs. the bright blue "use" highlight.), and when I hit the button for drop - he literally dropped it, it rolled off the table, clanged onto the floor, and attracted a nearby guard.

Overall: Fun, so far. I still prefer the first two, but then I'm only one mission into this one. It felt like Thief, though, which was the most important thing to me. More later!

On Par with the series

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 23 / 24
Date: June 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Thief 3 continues Garrett's never-ending need to pay the bills. Taking place a couple years after Thief 2 concluded, we find Garrett unwittingly involving himself in a plot that might mean the end of time. The Age of Darkness, when light shall become shadow and life shall become pain.
IonStorm took over the Thief 3 project from Looking Glass for this installment, and with them, comes a new yet familiar view to the series.

Gameplay: TTDS starts you off on a training mission that walks you through the aspects of the game. Like the previous titles, Garretts friend is darkness, and the use of a highly modified UT2004 engine allows for some impressive shadows. Now, unlike the previous titles, shadows not only look more realistic, but they move as well. Garrett has lost some familiar equipment from the previous series. Constantine's sword is gone, replaced with a dagger. Might be a bit of a turn down from the purist perspective but apart from the inability to block, melee is melee. Rope arrows are also missing due to an inability to code them to work with the engine, which is a shame, but they have been replaced with climbing gloves that allow you to scale certain walls. All in all fairly clean importation of thief 1+2 standards.
What's poorly done, however, is the new enemy AI. It seems the coders spent more time on the graphics, which though nice, are not what makes a Thief title worthwile. The enemy is more responsive to its environment, knowning that there are crates, stairs, etc in the room, but they do nothing about it. You might hear, "I better check behind those crates" if you alert one, but they will never check them. The AI gives up far too soon, even on expert difficulty, and makes for a VERY easy game. Also, the AI seems to be far less responsive to sounds cues from the previous games. I've been able to run up to a guard on a tile floor and blackjack him before he ever got into high alert (weapon raised) posture. Enemies might also respond to other missing AI but again, do nothing about it. Quite sad, as I was looking forward to the enhanced AI which was touted pre-release able to relight torches and make a run for the money. Add all this to the fact that any sort of alarm system, the greatest challenges in the first two games, and TTDS ends up being quite a cakewalk.

Graphics
Not bad not bad. The engine is gorgeous, I'll give it that. Not all the textures are hi-res, but it is made up for with the beatiful lighting effects. Torch flickers and moving shadows just made me stare at the screen when I first loaded it up. These effects do come at a great cost. Very few graphics cards are supported and we're talking top end-boards here. ATI owners need to be aware that they need to run 4.4 Catalyst drivers or else they will have some horrible light glitches. Nvidia owners who own the FX 5200 chipset line - all 5200s and 5600s that those cards have poor pixel shading renderers and you will get horrible framerates. (I own one myself but was able to get by on the lowest settings). Again, very beatiful, but beauty was never Thief's selling points.

Sound
The sound is superb. Very thief-esc with voice actors that you have grown to love over the years. The ambient sounds and music set the mood as always but as I stated in the gameplay section, there is something lacking in the AI's sound detection. I think it's been dumbed down a tad and they have gotten rid of the large disparities between the louds and softs found in the previous titles. Some may actually enjoy this more, but I used to love seeing a tile floor and actually fearing it in the first two.

Overall
Well, it's not better than the first two, but it's definately not worse. The freestyle mode between missions is fun, but not needed as items are obscenely easy to come by as I beat the game on expert setting with full inventory and nearly 50,000 gold to my name. This game could have used some more optimization on the graphics end, and larger porting options besides the WinXP only setting as many gamers still use 98 on their rigs, but still fun.
The "immersiveness" (I'm tired of that word) of Thief 3 was almost non-existant until a certain point of the game, and had I written this review before then, it would have done much worse. However, I must say - there is a level in this game that scared me, scared me good. :) It's worth the buy, especially if you're a fan, and it will not let you down on the story. Though produced by a different company, they are true to the story started in the Dark Project and the conclusion will definately brink a smirk to a taffer like you.

Thief finally perfected!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 23 / 25
Date: August 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I remember reading the reviews for Thief 3 in Computer Games when it was still being developed- I thought it looked awesome but then promptly forgot about it, figuring it would probably never come out in my lifetime, because game companies tend to do stuff like that. You may have noticed it.

Well anyway, the other day I saw a friend of mine playing Splinter Cell and I thought of how cool it would be to have a Thief game with graphics that good- the graphics, physics, and all that were pretty poor in 1 and 2. Then I saw Thief 3 (sanctioned name is "Thief: Deadly Shadows") and I was surprised with how great the graphics looked, so I bought it.

The first thing I noticed, before I got it home, was that it was oddly specific about what kind of system it will run on, even so much as to include a list of supported video cards on the back of the box, but my PC passed (for the most part). It comes in a pretty sweet case, like a double-wide DVD case. It's a 3 disk set so the install takes ten minutes or so. The manual seems to be pretty good, although I haven't really used it for anything yet, just glanced through it.

As I was installing, the game confirmed my suspicions about how restrictive it is with technical specs- the autostart screen includes a little tool to check to see if your video card will work before you even bother installing.

So I got it installed and checked out the video options- they're pretty sparse. They range from (I think) 800*600 up to 1600*1200 but there isn't a lot you can mess around with, just the res, the brightness, the shadow detail, and "bloom".

One thing that really annoyed me, READ THIS IF YOU PLAN ON BUYING THE GAME, is that when I went to change the controls, as soon as I clicked on something to change it, the game crashed to the desktop with no error message. I messed around with this for quite a while- updated my sound drivers, my video drivers, even uninstalled / reinstalled the game. Finally I admitted defeat and went to the Eidos website to try to figure it out- turns out since the game REALLY hates joysticks, gamepads, etc, not only will they not work but having them plugged in will cause the game to crash at that menu. So before you go to change the settings, make sure you unplug your joystick. I think I'll just leave mine unplugged whenever I play.

The game itself rocks. From the third person perspective it really does seem a lot like Splinter Cell. The graphics and physics rock- you can move everything (within reason) and everything casts a shadow, so you could conceivably move a barrel in front of a light and then creep around behind it and not be detected. The models are smooth and round now, and they move like real people. Get this, the models even have REAL HANDS. This is a MONUMENTAL BREAKTHROUGH in the Thief world.

Also, Garrett's arsenal is signifigantly improved- you have all the standard arrows (broadhead, fire, noisemaker, gas, water, moss), and the trusty blackjack. The broadhead arrow will now kill guards immediately if you hit them in the chest or the head- mind the trajectory though, as I found out, you can AIM for the chest but if you're too far away it'll result in a leg hit which will then bring about a very lengthy, angry search. His old sword has been traded in for a dagger- this serves as both the last-resort hand-to-hand combat weapon, and can also be used sort of like the blackjack, stealthily killing an opponent unaware of your presence. I've never had to use the dagger for that yet, since it really does pretty much exactly the same thing as the blackjack except for some blood (which you have to clean up with a water arrow) and a cry, which can alert other guards/enemies. One good thing about the sneaking up behind people bit is that you no longer have to aim for the head or the neck- as long as you're behind them and you're close enough, you're guaranteed to hit the guy in the perfect spot and knock him out / kill him.

Garrett still has the explosive mine, flash bomb, gas bomb, health potion, and holy water flask, but he also now has an oil flask. If you throw it, it creates a slick on the ground that causes enemies to fall over. And get this- you can use a fire arrow to light it up if you really feel evil. I can't wait to mess around with these- you can wait for someone to slip and then incinerate them, you can spill it across a doorway and then light it on fire and enemies won't follow you through it- should be fun.

Garrett now also has access to more tools- he now has an implant in his eye that allows you to zoom your vision in and out. There's the lockpicks (I'll talk about those later) and wall climbing gloves, that let you climb stone or brick walls. There's also a "Keeper Door Glyph", which I have yet to encounter but which appparently "reveals doors to hidden Keeper areas".

Lockpicking has been enhanced quite a bit, but the change only makes it harder. You start out with as many as six lock barrels, and you have to find the "sweet spot" of each barrel, wiggle the pick around, and get that barrel open before you can move on to the next.

Thief 3 also lets you make some of your own decisions and enjoy an out-of-mission world. You have an apartment where you can store stuff, and a whole open-ended city where you can sneak around, pick pockets, buy and sell from fences and the black market, and listen in on what's going on. That's what drives your missions later on in the game- like Freelancer, you have reputations with the Hammers and the Pagans, and you get missions from one or the other based on your status. This also determines who is friendly toward you and who will attack you on sight. The treasure you confiscate comes in three types and no fence will buy all three, so you have to play the market.

I've only completed the first mission (training) and the first half of the second mission, but so far it's been awesome. You can finally do all the stuff you wished you could do in the first games- I've yet to see a single thing you could do in the real world that Garrett can't do in Thief 3. The guards seem a lot more perceptive- I'm playing on "easy" and it's still pretty tough, I can't even imagine how brutal it would be on "hard". I can't wait to get to the open-ended part, I can see myself not moving from my room for weeks.

So, the rundown:

PRO

Awesome graphics

Really good models / textures

Superb physics

Great lighting (expected in a Thief game)

Open-ended gameplay!!

Dramatically improved AI

New weapons/tools

Truly an immersive game that you get totally wrapped up in, just like the first two.

CON

Really really specific about what kind of hardware you run it on (see below)

Crashes if you have a joystick plugged in

Lockpicking now takes a while (not really a problem with the game, it does make things more realistic I suppose)

Pretty graphics-intensive (I have to run it at 1024)

Not a lot of graphics settings to mess around with

Ion Storm successfully continues a beloved franchise

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 15 / 16
Date: November 02, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Thief 1 and 2 are some of my favorite PC games. There's just something about the sneaking that seems like a welcome change of pace from other action-based games on the PC. When I first heard that Looking Glass Studios, creators of the first two games, was closing down, the only thing I could think of was "Oh man, I guess that means no more Thief games." Fortunately, Ion Storm has made Deadly Shadows.

I was pleased that for the most part the gameplay stayed the same as the first two. There may even be more emphasis on stealth this time around because in Deadly Shadows you have a dagger instead of a sword, which only does minimal damage. All the arrows are back, from the godly gas arrows to the seldom-used but sometimes useful moss arrows. Thankfully if you are stealthy you can kill people with just one arrow in Deadly Shadows, rather than turning them into a porcupine like in Dark Project or Metal Age. Your have your trusty blackjack again, this time with a neat system that lets you know when you're close enough to successfully use it on someone (Garrett raises the blackjack over his head). Also, you can "back stab" your opponents with your dagger, though it seems useless because it makes noise and is essentially the same as blackjacking your opponents. One quibble I have with the gameplay is that there are no longer any rope/vine arrows, which were replaced with climbing gloves in Deadly Shadows. Unfortunately, you don't really need to use them that often and the animation and control for them seem a bit clumsy. The AI has improved, but the guards are still pretty oblivious to your existence unless you take some sort of action. Also, there isn't too much variety to the guards. It almost seems like they used the same AI for every enemy and just changed the skin. But, enemies do notice when doors are opened, loot is taken, or their buddy isn't patrolling anymore and will come looking for you. The true experience comes when you play Deadly Shadows on hard, as there are more guards and they are MUCH more perceptive of their surroundings.

Another change is that you navigate your way through "The City" from mission to mission. While it's kind of fun at times, it seems that it should be bigger with more areas to explore. (Like "Life of the Party" in Thief 2) It also gets annoying to traverse the city and avoid the city watch when you are a ways away from where you need to get. Then again, I guess it makes it more realistic. You also will have to sell everything you steal to a fence located in each district of the city and buy your equipment from them too. Unlike the previous Thief games, your items and weapons carry over from one mission to another. This is a double-edged sword at times, because while you know that you can pretty much have everything you want for each and every mission, you might find yourself hoarding good items like gas bombs/arrows. Your map has changed slightly in that you no longer know what room you are in when you check it. Personally I like this modification because you find yourself doing more exploring rather than looking at your map to see how to get somewhere the fastest way. After you have explored a sufficient amount of the mission you're in, you can tell where you are on the map and how to get back to places you were with ease.

The graphics for Deadly Shadows are excellent. The character models are much more detailed than they were in Metal Age and the animation is much more fluent. The only real problem I have is that the plants and bushes didn't get much attention, but these are minor things when compared to the overall graphical presentation. Of course, the lighting effects are the most important graphical aspect of the game, and Deadly Shadows delivers brilliantly. Literally everything in the game is affected by light. Some of the enemies carry a torch while patrolling, which is really fun just to watch the way it affects the surroundings.

The Thief series is all about atmosphere, and Deadly Shadows is the best yet in that department. Each level is a little eerie, but the sound amplifies it and makes the experience much more engrossing. I have never played a game where the sound plays such an integral part in the overall experience. I played a few missions with the sound off after I'd played through them normally and it's like playing a completely different game. This game was made to be played in the dark with the sound up and the experience is unbelievable when played like that. "The Shalebridge Cradle" is one of the creepiest and most exhilarating experiences I have ever had in a video game.

Overall Deadly Shadows is a great game that most fans of the series will love. A technical problem with Deadly Shadows is that it's pretty choosy about your hardware. You need 512 RAM to play it smoothly and your graphics card has to be pretty recent as well. But, if you have a gaming PC and are looking for a good game to add to your collection, Thief: Deadly Shadows is definitely one you should consider picking up.

OMG

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 22 / 28
Date: May 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is amazing - just got done playing it at E3. I was worried about the PC version, but now I see there was nothing to worry about. The hires textures were AMAZING and it is one of the most beautiful games I have ever seen. Ion Storm learned their lesson with Invisible War, and only a blithering idiot would think this is has been dumbed down for Xbox fans. The game is great too- almost forgot about that! The AIs seem super smart - scary-super smart. I've never felt so much tension just hiding against a wall while an NPC goes by - wonderful game!

Fun and addictive

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 17 / 20
Date: June 20, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Thief: Deadly Shadows is an excellent addition to the Thief series. The opening chapter also serves as a tutorial, which should suffice for those new to the Thief series games (of course, Thief 1 and 2 are still worth the investment).

The gameplay differs slightly from Thief 2. The stealth is the same, but it adds the ability to wander through the city at your leisure, sell your loot and buy gear whenever you want from "fences," and a few new toys (holy water to kill undead and oil flasks to make people slip - oh the laughs). Additionally, there are places where you interact more with other characters in a friendly way, immersing you into Garrett's world as as a thief.

Why not 5 stars? My computer exceeds the recommended requirements, but I still cannot use the full video enchancements without major choppiness. This is a disappointment for me. In addition, the game has crashed on me a few times. Be sure to save frequently to avoid hassles with this (Quicksave F10 works well for this). Hopefully Eidos will release a patch to fix these problems.

Overall, this is an excellect game that may keep you up late at night. The storyline is excellent and the stealth unmatched by any other game. If you meet the recommended system requirements and enjoy sneaking around, this game is for you.

What...No Buricks?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 13 / 15
Date: July 07, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Noting that there are no less than 43 prior reviews at the time of this writing espousing an equal number of varied opinions, some brilliantly even eloquently written, and most covering the entire spectrum of the game, the writing of yet another review by yet another fan masquerading as a self-appointed critic becomes then either an egotistical self indulgent and mindless exercise in redundancy, or for the less cynical: a genuine attempt to address one's impressions not only to the game's intended audience and buying public, but to the developers and their business managers who are certainly watching, and possibly closely reading both general and specific reactions to their product in an attempt to assess the practicality and profitability of producing yet another future installment in this continually excellent gaming series.

Yes, I, as others, bought and played all of Thief, Thief Gold, Thief II, and a few of the user designed missions and enjoyed them thoroughly. In fact, of the hundreds of titles I own and have played, the Thief series is among only 2 gaming concepts I have ever repeat played. (The other is the Monkey Island series, of which I am equally fond). So, after learning that a new developer had bought the rights to the game from the now defunct Looking Glass Studios (How they went under after the launch of several hugely successful games is beyond me) my interest was more than a little kindled, yet apprehensive for it is normal to view any such radical transition with a little trepidation. But being such a longtime fan how could I possibly resist?

I have now completed my initial run of the game, at the "expert" level, and I offer my impressions now that I have given myself enough time to objectively reflect upon the experience. I can condense my review into a single line: If you are a Thief fan, then by all means you will not be disappointed. Alternately, if you are new to the franchise, then, if at all possible, hunting down cheap used copies of the original Thief, Thief Gold, and Thief II will only add to your enjoyment of this marvel of aesthetics and narrative within an imperfectly engineered vehicle.

All what has been said before on both sides is true enough, whether it is the glorious dynamic lighting that is both spectacular and evocative at the cost of choppy frame rates at times, or the enemy AI that is totally unintelligent and imminently predictable, or the smaller mission areas requiring lengthy loading transitions, etc. These I will not bore you with, save to say that yes, if you want to experience the game as it was intended to be, then you will need top-end system board, graphics and sound card, plus maximum possible RAM, in the XP platform, period. And even with these, as in my case, the game crashed to the desktop no less than a dozen times, but in 25 years of dealing with computers I have yet to own a completely trouble free system or program.

However, what sets this game apart from the mountain of gaming trash currently on the market, and the reason for this review, is the excellent narrative and plot driven action it offers that is true to the design and principles that made the originals such a resounding sucess. Writing is the key to any good story whether is be a book, show, film, or in this instance, game. A game is only as good as its plot, and here it is coherent, focused, and sensible. It advances your understanding of both what is happening at the moment, and the totality of the culture bound within the game world. Nothing is gratuitous for it seems that the developers purposely restrained themselves from straying into what could have very easily become over indulgent whimsy, ala Matrix.

But pedants will always look for and dwell on the smallest of faults. Unfortunately in a society that caters to the cynical, this is misconstrued as a sign of intelligence or taste. In truth I too missed the animated mission briefings, and I hope that these will return in the future as well as more of the cut scenes and some of the other elements that apparently the new game engine could not incorporate such as my dear rope and vine arrows. I too also have mixed feelings about running about the inappropriately named "City" to different fences offloading my loot, but I would like to see this "town" again as part of a larger, real "city" that would incorporate the self same streets, alleys, and rooftops we all came to love in the original 2 installments of the series. But more to the point, I missed my beloved noxious belching Buricks who were such a brilliant original invention in the beginning of the series.

Again, this game is most certainly worth your +,-$30 investment for it will yield many hours of gaming enjoyment, and at times sheer unadulterated bone chilling terror (Yes, the level named "Cradle" is probably the spookiest, most disturbing gaming experience I have ever had, and do not wish to repeat, and if your sensibilities are similar you will do your best to achieve your objectives and exit it as quickly as possible, and to blazes with any extra loot!)

All in all I would rate it at close to 90% and kudos to Ion Storm for being faithful to the form as possible within the obvious technical limitations necessary to expand the platform to include XBox, and finally for such an outstanding job. Just please bring back the Buricks and it will be perfect!

Beauty!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: January 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I recently finished playing this masterpiece, and I'm still rueful about it. I absolutely loved it, I always knew I would anyway being a die hard fan of Garrett.

So what I found in this game: the price sure was an issue for me when it first came out, but they weren't stereotype about it this time, the screenshots were an actual part of the game. I don't blame Eidos and ION Storm for making this game not so easy to purchase. These graphics come at a great cost, and plus you get what you pay for, including the make up for the extra slight expense for the graphics card and the like.

This game's got a bit of a give and take in it. The sword; vine and rope arrows; scouting orbs; flares; invisible potions and burricks have been removed but a dagger replaces the sword; climbing gloves make up for the old vine and rope arrows; and there are flasks of oil and holy water as far as inventory and tools are concerned. The game's also got extra features: shadows and change of perspective which enables first and third person viewing. The physics are precise. Bodies actually roll if thrown down a flight of stairs and objects crash to the ground if you go bumping into them, though I do slightly doubt the ragdoll physics (It makes you feel you're in a yoga class). Lockpicking's now a little more complicated and it's got more of a realistic feel to it unlike its prequels where you just switched between the triangluar toothed pick and the square toothed pick. This time though, the mouse is needed to control the picks until it "jabs" the "sweetspot" of the lock.

Deadly Shadows is now a little more open instead of the usual "one mission leads to another" technique. This time, the game offers sidequests and Garrett is now free to roam the City, looting and selling to his fences. The City's also divided into four places- South Quarter (Garrett's residence), The Docks, Auldale, and Old Quarter; and eventually all areas are accessible depending on your progress throughout the levels.

Also, this time Garrett's got a Faction Status. He can ally with the Hammerites and the Pagans through doing these sidequests or they'll continue to be hostile to you and won't allow you to enter their territory (Hammerite Cathedrals, Pagan woods and the like), which in a way will make the game more stealthy.

The atmosphere is still as detailed and realistic especially this one level which stands out the most in my mind- Robbing the Cradle. Garrett still retains his signature cynical voice played by Stephen Russell and continues to bring out the dark and dismal feel to the game.

I really recommend this game, it still lives up to its prequels but its more improvised this time.

Solid previews

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 17 / 25
Date: May 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Normally I wouldn't write a review of a game until it is released but in this case I feel the need to balance out the ratings because of the negative reviews (...) that have been posted here. If the game is going to be so bad then why has every major game site raved on about how good their hands-on previews have been? Not to mention all the positive coverage from E3? Personally (...) Also, just because a game is released on a console as well as the PC does not mean it is going to be awful - anyone who played Star Wars: KOTR, or Splinter Cell Pandora etc etc can testify to this. As far as I'm concerned, if Deadly Shadows can recapture even part of the atmosphere of the early games then I will buy it.

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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