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Dom Robinson reviews
Eidos Interactive Limited
- Price: £39.99
- Players: 1
- Widescreen: Yes
- 60Hz: No
- Dolby Digital 5.1 sound: Yes
- Xbox Live-enabled: No
Thief 3:
Thief 2:
After playing the monumental second game in this series, I was looking forward toThief: Deadly Shadowsmore than most, and given that, like Half Life 2 and Doom 3, this is also a game we’vebeen waiting for for nearly a year. Was it worth the wait?
Again you take the role of Garrett, master thief, this time making your way around from town to town,starting off with your own home city and aiming to steal as many of the expensive treasures as possible.And that’s about all you need to know in terms of description for the basis is the same as it always hasbeen.
Problems began when I started to play the game, having my fears confirmed from the footageI’d seen not long beforehand on ITV’s gaming show, Cybernet. The first thing I spiedis the change in game engine to the same used in the lamentableDeus Ex: Invisible War.Why?! The one used in Thief: The Dark ProjectandThief II: The Metal Agewere perfect and so free-flowing, something which springs to mind the more you play No.3.Why change to one with a stodgy frame-rate, by comparison?
I guess things couldn’t sit still for four years, but when there are always better ways of doingthings in games that have worked before and are changed and go a bit SNAFU for the sequels, itbegs that “Why?” question, particularly about the fact that the programming duties left LookingGlass Studios and went to Ion Storm. And while you can just about get used to it during the ‘sneaking around’bits, when it comes to fighting and more than one person’s after you, it’s hideous because itplays out so jerky and slow.
That said, the shadows and lighting are very impressive indeed. You can now cast shadows yourself,so it’s not only your bodily form that attracts attention, and while the new “body awareness” featureallows you to see your hands and feet as you look in the appropriate directions, in first-person mode,I found it rather offputting.
One thing that’s different this time round is with lockpicking. Whereas last time you just pressed a buttonand waited, here you press ‘A’ and rotate the left thumbstick until you get the heaviest vibration from thelock on your controller, then pull the right trigger to open the door. This takes a little getting used tobut is quite effective, and eventually you realise that most locks are opened by turning it to thefour main points of the compass so it’s not that much of a challenge.
Time for some more complaints though. The game has long loading times, due to loading the whole levelback in, even though I’ve just been killed in it(!) Why can’t it load the whole thing onto the Xbox’shard drive? In fact, it’s not even the whole level as it has ‘portals’ that take you between areas on thesame level, and after going through one the baddies chasing you have gone(!) Go back again and they’restill waiting for you, but overall this is ridiculous, and the split-level idea reminds me of 2000’s worstgame, Daikatana.
The enemy AI seems worse than before, which is rather annoying as they’re rather thick much too often,such as one guy didn’t follow me when he saw me breaking in somewhere because I closed the door on him.Same thing happened when I unlocked the door for a lady prisoner. She was standing behind it and didn’trealise why she couldn’t get out. Also, after knocking baddies out after creeping up on them,this time, why can’t I pick up their weapons?
You have a choice of difficulty at the start of each level, but this quite pointless as it justincreases the amount of treasures and gold you need to collect – as opposed to making the guardsa bit more brainy.
Something else new is the 3rd-person-view, but thankfully this is an option. I found it far toodistracting after having played the first two games in first-person mode, so that’s the way Ialways go back to. Oh, and we’ve also lost rope and vine arrows in favour of gloves that can helpyou only in climbing stone walls.
It’s not all doom and gloom though. Like the first two games, this one also has great sound effectsand positioning. I got this perfectly with even basic surround sound until now, but the Dolby Digital5.1 does help in making you forget some of the title’s shortcomings. However, while locked up inthe prison the sound stuttered and disappeared. I had to reboot but it did it again, several timeswhile I was in the prison!
Again, thankfully, I’m getting that feeling from the prequels, when I’m being chased by several baddies,very late at night, after a few drinks, of being scared shitless. It’s so rare to have a game withthat feeling of fear so I’ll have that to fall back on whatever happens over the coming 10 levels.
Yes, only 10. There were more in the previous games, so perhaps the developers thought that split-levelswould make up for this? Not really.
That said, you can save the game wherever you like and along the way you can sell your loot forcash and buy items with it this time.
It’s also of interest to hang back sometimes and listen in to their conversations for a while,before twatting them to death. And, of course, it’s still fun to knock people out and throw themonto the floor so part of them has fallen into the fire and listen to them die 🙂
If only they’d sorted the graphics out properly, perhaps lessening the textures in order to speedup the framerate, or at least give that option like you often get on a PC game. Even the recentHitman: Contractshas great, fluid movements, so I know when it comes to Thief: Deadly Shadows, I will playit through to the end, over time, but I won’t enjoy it as much as the first two games.
SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC
PLAYABILITY
ENJOYMENT
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.