Thief
PlayStation 3
Apparently this game is part of a long running series which has been around since 1998. Coulda fooled me! I had never heard of Thief until seeing a preview for it in Game Informer magazine a few years ago. I thought the screenshots looked interesting, the graphics seemed to be pretty phenomenal. And being a longtime fan of games like Manhunt and Metal Gear, I was digging the stealth element.
But other than the fact that the game looked pretty and featured the element of stealth, I knew nothing else about the title. I believe this had been a popular PC series, and being a console gamer my whole life, the series had managed to find a way to slip by me. Still, I was intrigued. I vowed to give the game a chance if and when I ever got the opportunity to get my grubby mitts on it. Which is exactly what happened when this game became available for free on the PlayStation Network last year. It took me a while to finally get around to it, but when I did I found that it was well worth the wait.
Being a part of a series, I was worried that I would have a hard time jumping into the story line of the game. While this fear at first proved to be unfounded, the more the game progressed, the more I thought to myself: what the hell is going on? I don't think it is necessary to have played the other games to understand what is going on here, but this is one of those titles like Assassin's Creed where the story is kind of a mess. I didn't really follow what was going on. You have to read a lot of documents you find (which I never do, unless I absolutely have to) in order to make sense of a lot of things going on around you. The cutscenes tend to feature rambling characters who throw a lot of information at you at one time. I tend to zone out during these kind of scenes, and that is exactly what happened here. Also, story related events often happen as you are playing the game. I am always very focused on the task at hand, and often tune out people when they are talking to me as I am walking around.
So - long story short - after just a few hours playing the game, the story line completely got away from me. Even after completing the game, I still couldn't tell you what the hell this game was about. But really, I don't think it matters much. Even though I value a strong story line in a game, I didn't find it essential to my enjoyment of this particular title. To me, Thief is all about its strong gameplay.
The game takes place from a first person perspective. Playing as a master thief named Garrett, you must roam this medieval city (is it a real city? Is it made up? Who knows.) completing tasks, taking on missions, and ransacking as much loot as you possibly can. There are 7 or 8 story related missions in the game that you must complete in order to finish the game. These missions are never more than an hour or so in length, so concievably you could complete this game and be done with it in record time.
But where is the fun in that? The amount of time I spent on Thief was mainly focused on the game's numerous sidequests. Everywhere you look, seemingly there is something to do. There are several people in the game you can take on thieving quests for - where basically they dispatch you to ransack a house, retrieve an item, or find a hidden treasure. Even without taking on these quests, you can explore on your own and find all kinds of hidden loot. The city you explore is very large. You can't gain access into every building in the game, but quite a few of them you can manage to break into. You can explore on the street level of the city, take it to the rooftops, jump around on ledges, break into windows.
Hidden items and treasures are located all over the damn place. Even after nearly completing the game, I would find myself returning to old areas and finding treasures that I hadn't noticed before. There are so many nooks, crannies, hard to notice windows and ledges here that exploring the entire game is a full time job in itself. I found myself losing hours at a time just walking around - not on any kind of particular mission or another - just looking for secret areas I could get in to and loot.
As I alluded to before, missions are stealth based. The streets are patrolled by guards with torches on the lookout for no-good thieves. If you stick to the shadows, you should mainly be able to avoid detection. A guard wanders too close to you, however, and all bets are off. Combat is a little sluggish in the game, and I think they make it intentionally cumbersome to fight so that you stick to stealth and don't just run around killing everybody. You have a shoulder button you press to swing your staff at your opponents - and that's it. You are equipped with a bow and arrow, but this is mainly used to pick off unsuspecting enemies. If you are spotted and they start to rush you, this weapon is as good as useless.
The bow comes with many different varieties of arrows. Water arrows will put out fires, making the area easy for you to sneak by. Rope arrows can be used to attach a rope to an attached fixture, which you can then climb to avoid enemies or access new locations. Fire arrows start things on fire, blunt arrows are good for knocking things down.
Other items you can pick up include bottles, which you can throw to make a noise that distacts your enemies, and smoke bombs which allow you to make a quick getaway when you are in a sticky situation. Health items are available, as well as poppies which allow you to use a focus ability. This ability makes items that are hard to see pop out, such as hidden treasures or secret doors.
If you want to have any success with this game at all, you will learn how to sneak around and utilize Garrett's stealth abilities. As much as I love other games where you beat up hordes of enemies, or shoot them with your guns, there is something unmistakably satisfying about sneaking up behind your enemy and quickly snapping their neck.
At times, this game makes you feel like a complete bad-ass. I love the feeling you get when sneaking around a giant, dark mansion, avoiding or stealth killing the occasional guard who comes by on patrol. You rummage through desks, look behind paintings, search through bookshelves, crack safes, pick locks... when it comes to the art of thieving, there is seemingly nothing Garrett can't do.
While I did enjoy the game, it is not without flaws. First of all - as I mentioned - the game is very short. If you stick to the main missions, you could easily beat this in 9 or 10 hours. A lot of the optional thieving missions are repetitive. Break into a building and bring the treasure back. Break into a business after it closes and loot everything you see. Many of these missions feel like one simple fetch quest after another. Sometimes on story missions, what you are supposed to do next seems incredibly vague. While a lot of hints can be found by reading documents you uncover, it can be very easy to miss some of these and get stuck completely. There was a number of time while playing I had to pause and Google what to do next, or Google a password for a wall safe that I somehow missed God knows where along the way.
The city itself is pretty big. While its design is impressive, you often find yourself backtracking through large areas over and over again throughout your quest. I didn't mind this too much, but it seems a lot of the time you spend with this game is just you running around looking for hidden things or completing meaningless little side quests. Picture a game like Assassin's Creed or Arkham City. Everyone takes time away from the main mission every once in a while to veer off course looking for collectibles and hidden secrets. But instead of just being a side feature in Thief, it seems that the majority of the time I spent playing this game was me exploring and looking to find things. I had fun, but it gets dull after a while, especially when the game doesn't have a strong story line or a clear sense of purpose for your character.
Visually, the game is stellar. Sound effects, music, character voice, every technical aspect of the game is top of the line. It even controls very well. I felt very satisfied sneaking around in the shadows, looting items from right under your opponents' noses. I felt this game could have truly been great if it had just done a few things in other areas better.
All in all, I had a fun time with Thief. It is not the greatest game in the universe, but I've read some harsh reviews and I don't think the game is as bad as people have made it out to be. All I ask for is to be entertained when playing a video game, and I always knew that every time I'd turn this on I would enjoy it. It may not be the deepest or the most memorable game in the world, but I was consistently entertained every time I'd give it a play.
Perhaps with a better story line, perhaps with some deeper, more varied game play I would have loved the game. As it stands now, I simply liked it. I had a good time, but in five years when you ask me about Thief I'll probably have to struggle to think of a decent answer. It is fun, it is solid, but it definitely not an elite level game.
Overall:
B
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