Thief

Another new(ish) game, hurrah! Now the Thief series I’ll admit was one I had never heard of before, and only started looking into it once I had watched a few YouTube videos of people playing Thief pre-release. So, I had to try it out for myself and here’s what I thought about the latest edition to the series.

Thief, as you can probably tell from the title, is a stealth video game in where your character, Garrett, is a master thief stealing from the rich. Gameplay revolves around the choices you make as there are numerous paths you can take when reaching a goal, and how you use the environment and NPC’s are entirely up to you. At the end of each chapter you get a rating on a pie chart showing you how you played your game with the classes Ghost, Opportunist and Combat. It also lets you know how many looted items you collected and how many were missed. Handy if you decide to redo the level. Throughout the game you also have the ability to upgrade certain skills in order to help if you want to focus on a certain class such as increasing your stealth if you wish to be Ghost rather than Combat, and so on.
During the game you notice and come across more obstacles, making you re-think how to defuse the situation or whether to take another route. I liked this aspect in the game as you’re constantly thinking about your next move. And even if you do have everything planned, you can still run into a new challenge you didn’t foresee earlier. It’s really nice having a game where you really do need to think through your strategy and make sure you use everything you’ve learned to play the game you want.
Regarding gameplay, one notable feature I found to be rather annoying was the constant cutscenes. Obviously the cutscenes including dialogue with other characters are interesting and very helpful to the progression of the story, but a few cutscenes were literally just showing you the surrounding area to where you where stood. Handy in a sense that you can use it to pre-plan your route, but the constant use comes irritating to me. When I’m playing a game and I’m really into it, I don’t need constant breaks from gameplay, but I don’t want to skip them incase I miss anything important!

The graphics in this game are outstanding, and just what you’d expect from a newly released game. All settings are dark, but it’s to be expected from a game where your focus is remaining stealthy. Characters are very lifelike, and the scenery is incredible and a joy to explore, which is what you spend most of the game doing. Another touch in the game I enjoyed was the lightening that appears periodically throughout the game. It adds a nice lifelike feel to the gameplay, and it adds a challenge when trying to sneak past guards.
One problem I had with the game, and has been noted by others too is that character’s mouths don’t move in time with the dialogue. It really takes something away from the game in my eyes and just ruins the look of the game when you’re interacting with a character and their mouth just looks like a cow chewing cud. Not nice. Other than that, characters are lifelike and the attention to detail (apart from their mouths) are amazing. The main character in particular who has separately coloured eyes is very noticeable when looked at in 3rd person. I do like when in games, characters do have something that sets them apart from the rest, rather than just walking past a crowd of clones.

Now for the soundscape. Nothing particularly outstanding in this sense, just what I would of expected from a stealth game. Some may see that as boring, but for me it fits in perfectly with the stealth game type. I don’t want to be sneaking around to a loud background music as it can be distracting when you’re trying to hide, or sneak over/past objects that can cause a lot of sound such as broken glass. So in this sense I was pleased it wasn’t over done.
This being said, the sound effects were really good and true to life. I noticed it more so with the thunder and lightening as it’s a sound I don’t like in real life, so hearing it did put me on edge throughout the game too (and a little more jumpy when seeing someone appear in front of me). Although it sounds like a nasty experience, it was nice in the sense it got me more involved with the game, and I felt more like I was actually there in that moment.
Character interaction was great as it’s always nice for me being able to hear the differences in voices when characters are talking to each other. Again as said with the looks, I don’t like hearing or seeing clones everywhere I turn in a game as it feels a bit lazy to me.

Thief has been a great experience for me. I’m not normally a stealth game player, but I did enjoy this game and will definitely be continuing my storyline to see how the game progresses later on. I personally think stealth games aren’t for everyone, but if this is your sort of game then definitely give it a try.
For me, I’d give this game a 7/10. Really great in places, will continue playing, but still has some work to do to make it an excellent game for me.

Until next time!
-KirreeH