Review: Thief

thief info
thief story
Thief is set in a dying city overruled by the tyrant Baron. You play the role of Garret, the lonely master thief. As the city falls apart Garret finds himself thrown among a revolution he does not want to take part in. The revolting citizens will try anything to get the city back from the hand of the Baron. The revolution is coming, and if Garret doesn’t get involved the streets will run red with blood and the city will tear itself apart.

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As a master thief there is nothing out of your reach. Precious possessions, gold and secrets. If you listen closely you will find even greater prizes. The main story centres around the fact that Garret awakes after he has been missing for a year. Completing jobs and travelling the city you will find small clues that will unravel the untold mystery behind your missing time.

thief presentation
Thief is a very dark and dull game, but it does have real beauty within. Amongst the many shades of black you will find a dash of colour that will contrast beautifully. This could range from the flickering of a fire, the shine of gold or the scarlet red of a rose petal. Thief has some fantastic colourful moments that really does take your breath away. Eidos have made some mistakes though. With frame rate issues plaguing certain areas and textures popping in and out, they really did drop the ball in a few instances. As you travel around you will find some unique conversations that slowly become very repetitive and soon ignored.

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Although the story is compelling and really grabs your attention, the lack of overall colour and the repetitive nature of the textures and sounds, makes it hard to play for a large amount of time. Although the story will keep you wanting to finish it, it does become a chore in some cases. The overall product definitely doesn’t represent what Eidos said this game would be.

thief gameplay
Thief is a first person stealth game that introduced a lot of great mechanics. With running, climbing, and sneaking, you have the ability to move around the world in a variety of styles. Although you can choose how you approach a situation, you only have one choice on how to do it, stealth! If you do not sneak past the guards you will die. The sneak mechanic seems like it could’ve been pulled from a variety of other games. Sneaking is ignited by clicking on the left analog stick. You have the ability to slide which will allow you to get around in the quickest way. Travelling large distances becomes a hassle because you can’t run without alerting the guards, so your only option is to sneak. Sneaking is unbearably slow and the map layout makes it impossible to get anywhere fast. There are a number of bows and a mace to use in the game but these are purely about knocking the enemy down in order to get away. The game is about stealing and sneaking not bashing your enemies heads in.

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The 3rd person climbing mechanic works great if you’re next to something you can climb, but these instances are few and far between. The focus vision mechanic works great but you only use it to find traps or loot. With the blue glow staying after you turn it off you will be spamming the button to turn it on and off and save your focus bar. With no Regen on your health or focus bar, you have to make sure you have food and poppies stacked up in your inventory at all times. You have an impressive array of equipment to use but there isn’t an instance where you really need them. The only equipment you will find yourself using is the rope arrows to get to high places. Except the rope arrows only have specific areas you can use it, making it useless everywhere else.

There are small quick time events to get between areas but they’re identical every single time. The lock picking is so simple that they could’ve left it out. It definitely felt more gimmicky than anything. The only difficult puzzles are the safes located in random areas. You need to find the combination which is usually located within the immediate area, whether it be in a document or on the environment. You will be constantly spamming the X button to pick up loot and open draws.

The save feature is irrelevant, hiding in cupboards is almost unnecessary, so finding that feature was very difficult. The peek feature is useless, if you stay in the dark they can’t see you, so there is no need to peek around the corners. You can blow out candles and hit fire with water arrows to create more darkness, or you can find a better path that is already dark.