thief impressions, continued.
Jun. 1st, 2004 05:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solipsistnationAfter all that, I really enjoyed the levels I played yesterday.
I'm going to complain a bit more anyway.
Remember I was talking about the rooftop level in Thief 2, and the lack of rooftop options in Thief 3? Well, after finishing one level in particular, I was greeted by a vista of rooftops. "Hooray!" I thought, as Garrett went into his "...they don't call it the Thieves' Highway for nothing" spiel.
Of course, in this case, it was more like "The Thieves' Offramp." Three buildings' worth of roof does not a highway make. Ah well.
There are some interesting things going on, and I'm pleased to be able to say that what I thought was totally predictable wasn't. That's a nice surprise. Predictable plots are annoying.
I also very much enjoyed the atmospheric and creepy abandoned orphanage level. It has some really great effects, a mechanic I found entertaining and challenging, some of the scariest things I've run into in a game in quite a while (at least when you first encounter them), and really great atmosphere. It's the level I've enjoyed the most so far, but the way it's designed, it won't be a repeatable experience, since now I know what happens. Ah well. Nicely done, though, and a good piece of horror in the middle of the game. I'm hoping it bodes well for the rest of the game. I'm being intentionally vague here in order to avoid spoiling it. Suffice to say, it's scary as heck. There was one part where I was wide-eyed, talking to the screen. "Okay, I am not going to open that door. I am NOT going to open that door." Of course, you have to open the door. That's why it's horror.
Overall, though, Thief 3 is looking like sort of a mix of the stuff that made Thief 1 and 2 interesting, rehashed. Where Thief 2 added some interesting gameplay options, a more engrossing plot, some new ways of traversing the city, and so on, Thief 3 has had very little that is innovative, as far the the gameplay experience goes. The hub system is nice-- I talked about that. The fence/stuff-store stuff is interesting, but unbalances the game. I talked about that. The little side-missions are okay, but appear to be largely ignorable if you really don't want to mess with them.
The missions overall seem sort of like what you'd get if somebody gave you an inventory of the first two games and said, "Okay, now do those in the new engine." A bit of robbing from big houses, a Lost City rehash (...the second rehash, really, considering the second visit in Thief 2), a trip across the rooftops, a couple of scary horror levels where you try not to wake up the zombies, a Hammerite cathedral and a Pagan area to rob, and a tower to climb and descend, much like the Mechanist tower from Thief 2. There was a bit of the "don't be seen at all" style of gameplay, too. And if you "die," or get "killed," you wake up in prison, and have to escape from prison without your stuff, at least until you recover it on the way out, just like one level of Thief 1. Oh, and, of course, a "do what the ghost says" level, much like the Haunted Cathedral on the highest difficulty levels in Thief 1. I've even got a follow-the-person-through-the-streets level coming up. What's next? Another visit to the Maw of Chaos? Another crazy-person mansion? Another mission where you have to haul an unconscious body back out past all kinds of unpleasantness? I guess I'm not expecting anything new here in terms of gameplay-- it's all been done before in the previous games, and in most cases, done better. (Although the horror stuff here was seriously scary, and that remains my best experience so far.)
At least there aren't any freakin' spiders.
It's been getting better as it goes, though, as more areas open up (Auldgate is particularly nice if you have the climbing gloves. It's ALL worked stone, with lots of good ledges to hang off of) and as the plot gets more intense. I suspect that the next level after the following-the-person level will be interesting again. I certainly hope so.
While this isn't the best game I've ever played-- it's certainly not the life-changing experience that Thief: The Dark Project was, or the quantum leap of level design and challenge over Thief 2 that Thief 2 was over Thief 1, but it's an entertaining and interesting game. I suspect that people who haven't spent way too much time thinking about Garrett's world and the city and everything in and around it would find it an entertaining and engrossing experience, and a very good game. Heck, it _is_ a good game! I just keep wondering what Looking Glass Studios would have done.
I'm going to complain a bit more anyway.
Remember I was talking about the rooftop level in Thief 2, and the lack of rooftop options in Thief 3? Well, after finishing one level in particular, I was greeted by a vista of rooftops. "Hooray!" I thought, as Garrett went into his "...they don't call it the Thieves' Highway for nothing" spiel.
Of course, in this case, it was more like "The Thieves' Offramp." Three buildings' worth of roof does not a highway make. Ah well.
There are some interesting things going on, and I'm pleased to be able to say that what I thought was totally predictable wasn't. That's a nice surprise. Predictable plots are annoying.
I also very much enjoyed the atmospheric and creepy abandoned orphanage level. It has some really great effects, a mechanic I found entertaining and challenging, some of the scariest things I've run into in a game in quite a while (at least when you first encounter them), and really great atmosphere. It's the level I've enjoyed the most so far, but the way it's designed, it won't be a repeatable experience, since now I know what happens. Ah well. Nicely done, though, and a good piece of horror in the middle of the game. I'm hoping it bodes well for the rest of the game. I'm being intentionally vague here in order to avoid spoiling it. Suffice to say, it's scary as heck. There was one part where I was wide-eyed, talking to the screen. "Okay, I am not going to open that door. I am NOT going to open that door." Of course, you have to open the door. That's why it's horror.
Overall, though, Thief 3 is looking like sort of a mix of the stuff that made Thief 1 and 2 interesting, rehashed. Where Thief 2 added some interesting gameplay options, a more engrossing plot, some new ways of traversing the city, and so on, Thief 3 has had very little that is innovative, as far the the gameplay experience goes. The hub system is nice-- I talked about that. The fence/stuff-store stuff is interesting, but unbalances the game. I talked about that. The little side-missions are okay, but appear to be largely ignorable if you really don't want to mess with them.
The missions overall seem sort of like what you'd get if somebody gave you an inventory of the first two games and said, "Okay, now do those in the new engine." A bit of robbing from big houses, a Lost City rehash (...the second rehash, really, considering the second visit in Thief 2), a trip across the rooftops, a couple of scary horror levels where you try not to wake up the zombies, a Hammerite cathedral and a Pagan area to rob, and a tower to climb and descend, much like the Mechanist tower from Thief 2. There was a bit of the "don't be seen at all" style of gameplay, too. And if you "die," or get "killed," you wake up in prison, and have to escape from prison without your stuff, at least until you recover it on the way out, just like one level of Thief 1. Oh, and, of course, a "do what the ghost says" level, much like the Haunted Cathedral on the highest difficulty levels in Thief 1. I've even got a follow-the-person-through-the-streets level coming up. What's next? Another visit to the Maw of Chaos? Another crazy-person mansion? Another mission where you have to haul an unconscious body back out past all kinds of unpleasantness? I guess I'm not expecting anything new here in terms of gameplay-- it's all been done before in the previous games, and in most cases, done better. (Although the horror stuff here was seriously scary, and that remains my best experience so far.)
At least there aren't any freakin' spiders.
It's been getting better as it goes, though, as more areas open up (Auldgate is particularly nice if you have the climbing gloves. It's ALL worked stone, with lots of good ledges to hang off of) and as the plot gets more intense. I suspect that the next level after the following-the-person level will be interesting again. I certainly hope so.
While this isn't the best game I've ever played-- it's certainly not the life-changing experience that Thief: The Dark Project was, or the quantum leap of level design and challenge over Thief 2 that Thief 2 was over Thief 1, but it's an entertaining and interesting game. I suspect that people who haven't spent way too much time thinking about Garrett's world and the city and everything in and around it would find it an entertaining and engrossing experience, and a very good game. Heck, it _is_ a good game! I just keep wondering what Looking Glass Studios would have done.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-01 05:29 pm (UTC)I'm playing Thief 1 for the first time, have just gotten to the Bonehoard. Are there spiders in my future?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-01 05:51 pm (UTC)Mmmmmmmmaybe. Tee hee.