Chukapi's Critique Corner - The Often-Disregarded Thief Reboot (PC, PS3/4, XBOX360/1)

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Chukapi
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Chukapi's Critique Corner - The Often-Disregarded Thief Reboot (PC, PS3/4, XBOX360/1)

Post by Chukapi »

I have been a gamer for over 12 years; dozens of dungeons have been crawled, many mighty dragons' souls absorbed, and numerous tombs raided. But never have I felt so conflicted about a game in my life until I played Eidos Montreal's latest development: Thief (Feb. 2014).

I can list several elements that stand out in Thief and make it an excellent stealth game. However, there are many little faults which often spoil the player's experience, like reaching for one last crisp and finding your hand in an empty bag.

Many die-hard fans of the originals disregard this reboot, but from what I understand some are blinded by nostalgia. It's perfectly reasonable for players to feel betrayed if a reboot strays too far from the original tone and gaming mechanics of its predecessor. But these sentiments should not cloud our judgement when it comes to defining a good game.

So, how do we define a 'good game'? Does Thief earn this often too-sparingly-given title? I will offer my honest opinion as a gamer and judge Thief on its own merits.

What makes Thief good:

1. The gameplay

Gameplay is the number one element that makes or breaks it in a game. After all, that's what we're in it for, right? The gameplay in Thief, I feel, absolutely steals the show. (See what I did there?) It's engaging, fast-paced, satisfying, responsive, and offers a good variety of playing styles.

Controls are excellent, environments are immersive, equipment is decent, and it has superb stealth elements.

I found the controls to be very responsive and smooth, so playing with Garrett -- our anti-hero of sorts -- is incredibly immersive. It feels like you really are a skilful thief sneaking around a grim, grotty city, picking door locks and pilfering the pockets of patrolling guards (who still haven't realised, after having their money stolen by me countless times, wearing their pouches on their bums isn't actually a clever decision).

I enjoyed the many ways Garrett can interact with the environment. You can douse lights in order to slip past guards, run atop roofs, help yourself to some local residents' silverware by entering through their windows, access new areas with your array of equipment, and so on. This type of gameplay is highly engaging and, to put it simply, very fun.

Plus, I'm a sucker for open world and looting. No wonder I've sunk over 500 hours in Skyrim.

Its stealth elements are excellent. From start to finish, I always felt very anxious anytime there were a number of guards in the area and I always did my best to stay hidden. There are a number of playing styles available to you. For example, you can be aggressive and kill every guard you see, you can use flash bombs/gas arrows to temporarily stun and move past guards, you can play purely stealthily and slip past all obstacles, or you may choose to perform nonlethal takedowns (both on the ground and aerial) to eliminate the possibility of being spotted. The stealthier I was, the more tense and pleasurable I found the game.

I quite like the variety of items, upgrades, and tools, even if I didn't use some of them much/at all. They offer a good selection of playing styles and allow you to proceed however you choose. For example, you can purchase a wrench which enables you to open grates and travel undetected through vents.

My only complaint is that gameplay sometimes becomes a little repetitive; sneak past these guards, steal this, sneak past some more people, pick the lock on this chest, climb here, and done. However, the areas and required play styles were varied just enough between missions to keep me engaged.

2. Visuals/graphics/designs

I often go back and forth about how I feel about Thief's environments. They are quite samey for the most part. But then there were times when I looked out of a window or across from a roof and saw all these really awesome views, and I thought to myself: "Wow, this is pretty cool." The visuals are, I must say, very immersive; they really help establish the game's tone. Dark, claustrophobic, deteriorating, and grim.

Outstanding graphics, awesome lighting effects, and a badass character model in exchange for frame rate.

The graphics are excellent. I never found anything which looked out of place or any bad textures (probably owing to the darkness, but even in well-lit areas I struggled to find fault). There was a particular chapter with an escape sequence and it is really great visually. Fire everywhere, crumbling buildings, floor, wood, etc. Brilliant.

However, I had a lot of frame rate issues -- particularly when encountering particle effects in the open world like smoke, embers, flame (of which there is an abundance in this game) -- and I was running it on a PC with pretty decent specs and with most settings on medium/high. Most people have observed that it is, sadly, poorly optimised.

I customised the game's brightness/contrast settings to make the game look nice and dark (and always played with dimmed lights) to really immerse myself, which I feel worked exceptionally well. A game often compared with Thief -- Dishonoured -- doesn't hold a candle to Thief visually (hah, aren't my puns great?). The lighting in Thief is just outstanding, something I have yet to see in another game.

Most importantly, I'm a sucker for Garrett. His character model is really cool and, again, immersive. Anytime I was sneaking around, picking a lock, opening a safe, or searching for trick switches and I got a good look at his chipped, dirty fingernails and leather gloves, I genuinely felt like I was a thief looting in a dirty, degrading city. Plus, those aerial takedowns -- when you catch a glimpse of him fully masked in his black leather attire -- are awesome. "That's me, being a badass!"

3. Difficulty: A Good Challenge

I have often heard people say that the game is too easy. Perhaps, but I played on Thief difficulty (medium) and I found it to be pretty challenging. I became immersed in Garrett's character and like him opted to never kill (unless it was these certain spooky enemies you encounter later in the game...). Hence, I played stealthily, which offered a nice challenge. If you blaze through the game aggressively, then yes it is easy. Play the game how it urges you to -- stealthily -- and it's a good challenge.

What holds Thief back:

1. The Awful Story

There is SO much missed potential here. I cannot give the story any praise because it's so choppy and awkwardly told. It expects the player to assume things and fill in the gaps -- gaps which were obvious, but should be told by the characters to give them development.

Anytime the story starts picking up, it comes to an abrupt halt. I did not care about any of the characters, not even Erin -- the whole character responsible for Garrett's 'adventure', if you will. I only found myself attached to Garrett, and that's because -- as I said earlier -- I felt like I was really him. Throughout the game, Garrett shares his thoughts and feelings when you progress, when you find loot, etc. That made for a pretty engaging character. None others managed to engross me.

I can't say more of course, just in case there are people who want to play and experience the story for themselves. But don't expect anything fantastic there. It's a letdown to say the least.

2. Immersion-breaking bugs, glitches, cheapness, aggravating AI.

These were the most minute problems, but also the ones which really brought my blood to a boil while playing, and were often why I took long breaks in-between play sessions. I had numerous instances where:

· I was hit by projectiles through walls by guards.
· I was spotted through walls by guards.
· Enemies lagged and appeared next to me.
· Glitches in the AI halted my progress, e.g. upon loading a quicksave a guard or two would refuse to move along their scripted paths and I had no choice but to either kill them (not an option to me) or reload again and again to fix it.
· Character model often got physically stuck and I had to reload the game.
· Falling off/through platforms when I shouldn't have.
· Struggling to get on damn ropes unless I was at the precise angle (often with guards rapidly approaching).

There were many other little annoyances too. For example, sometimes I'd close a door by accident when trying to peek (these actions are assigned to the same key and cannot be rebound), alerting a nearby guard to my presence. Very minor, but very annoying.

The number one bug I kept experiencing was looping dialogue from NPCs nearby. If I have to hear about how this guy rolled with Polly Adler one more time, I'm seriously going to put an arrow in his skull. It really got on my nerves, especially because the subtitles kept playing on the screen over and over, or the dialogue came up at the wrong time when Garrett was talking and I'd want to hear him rather than some guy is worrying that he's getting sick.
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Chukapi
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Post by Chukapi »

3. Side quests are lacklustre.

Because the world is pretty open, there was a lot of potential here for some varied side quests. Unfortunately, this did not happen. They are VERY samey -- go to X, sneak past guards, get this loot, done. All of them, with a slightly different description of why you're doing it.

The only side quests I got vaguely interested in were client quests, where there are actually characters talking to you about what to do and why they want you to do it. But there were only 6 of those, and that was just between 2 people. As a completionist and someone who appreciates sidequests, I finished all the side quests, but was very let down.

4. Sudden shift in tone/difficulty spike

I can't say much for those who want to play this game, but let's just say the tone of the game takes a very dramatic turn during chapter 5 and it's really jarring. It was technically a really great chapter, but I suddenly felt like I was playing a different game. There was no real build up to it, which would have actually made it great. I also felt that there was a massive difficulty spike here (in the later part of the chapter) and I was just simply not prepared ammo-wise.

Closing comments:

I really do recommend this game, purely because the gameplay is really fun, and to me that is the purpose of a game. I can overlook poor storytelling, issues with graphics, and some minor glitches if I ultimately have a great experience and feel immersed in the world, which I truly did with Thief. Give it a try -- if you haven't already -- and you might too.
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Reknoc
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Post by Reknoc »

Started the game, got to a scripted run sequence, uninstalled faster than you can say "context sensitive rope arrows"
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