Thief: Gold

The Good
Pretty much everything is pretty darn good here. First off, the graphics have the right mood (dark) and complexity to suspend disbelief, the sound, music and voice acting are all top notch. The controls are simple to use and master while being, oddly, complex at the same time. The stealth dynamics (light sources, shadows and having to pay attention to sound to succeed) are excellent, as are the intelligence of the guards and monsters you will face (or sneak by). The diversity of the places you loot is excellent, ranging from a manor, a prison, a cathreadral, a fortress comprised of mages, a ruined city, an opera house, a temple and a crypt. The story is well thought out and masterfully scripted, and in game conversations between guards are amusing and at times useful too.

The Bad
Can't pop popcorn. Also, it can not cook pizza or pour beer, which is a dreadful oversight most developers overlook. ;)

The Bottom Line
Thief is a game where you go around, steal things from people or places, use some of the artifacts you stole from the last mission to purchase equipment for the next area and then steal some more stuff, all the while avoiding guards, monsters, undead and/or lethal traps by sneaking around and hiding in the shadows or attacking your foe (the former option (sneaking) being the safest by a wide margin). All the while you unravel an excellent storyline. Of course, there's much fun to be had, too. Defininely one of the best first person games to ever be released and certianly the best (and most innovative) since Doom. A must buy, IMHO.

The Good
"Thief" is an extremely well put-together game, its production values range from high to impeccable across the board. The graphics are fine and fluid, the animation outstanding, music is scarce but extremely effective and has an interesting style (it's sort of an ambient-industrial blend) and sound design is simply perfect. Adding to that, "Thief" boasted quite an A.I. for its time, which can be considered to be quite effective, even today. The interface is complex and yet easy to control (with a small amount of learning applied), but most important, its initial premise of playing a thief, who is basically a weakling and won't be able to live through a second fight, is both original and fun. One has to sneak past guards, stay constantly in the shadows, pickpocket bloated, rich madmen and silently kill enemies (very frightening ones, too). Unless, of course, one chooses a higher difficulty setting which will most certainly go with the condition to not kill anybody. In my opinion, this a wonderful design element of the game, actually aimed at influencing the player to kill as few enemies as possible on any difficulty setting, for the whole tone even of the existence of such a feature suggests that killing will only be resorted to by "rookies", and that it's unnecessary for the "real" thief. Some game developers should have a look at such an idea and re-evaluate their own "the bloodier, the better"-routines, for here it is: a game where one may kill all sorts of people, yet is encouraged not to do so, not merely out of "heard-em-already" moral reasons, but because it is simply more of a challenge! And this is just one of "Thief"s many intelligent ideas and devices, and there are a lot more points which are in desperate need of flattering.

"Thief" is one of the few games I know that ties its different elements so closely together that the final game approaches complete homogeneity. It ceases to be merely a parallel display of graphics, music, content and control, on the contrary, all these elements are fused so well that one is bound to forget that this game was not created by a single artist. This becomes clear when one has a look at one of its extremely well designed levels, namely #5, "The Sword". It starts out as a regular thieving mission to some guy's mansion, however, the introductory cutscene mentions something about said guy being extremely extravagant or even...crazy. The level begins normal enough, one breaks into the house, raids a few rooms, then, suddenly, one is standing on a floor's ceiling, the walls have slowly become more and more tilted, colour palette has changed from subdued brownish to twisted LSD, and with these changes there are eerie sound effects coming up, a sinister, silent laugh, getting louder and louder as one approaches the central aim of the level, where all sorts of spooky, natural sounds, evoking the thought of a dark and threatening forest, will hit the player while the level's ending cutscene doesn't deliver any relief to this rising tension but makes it leap to yet another level. Sounds, graphics and even cut-scenes completely blend in with level design, just because "Thief" does not continuously try to impress the player with its technical prowess, but aims at mastering the art of dosage, of pacing, of build-up. If you want to have an effect of real, intense loudness, go ahead and start out silent, that's the philosophy behind "Thief". Music is only used sparingly at chosen moments, sound design will always come up with new, uncomfortable surprises, and the graphics really come to life due to the architecture employed during the different levels. Here, too, "Thief" succeeds in delivering the maximum effect because of its masterful change between immense structures vs. creepy tunnels, light-flooded mansions vs. dark prison cells and civilized casinos vs. zombie-infested graveyards.

This whole philosophy of merging elements and applying them at just the right time is also true for the whole world displayed in this game, and what a world it is. This has nothing to do with your average,"Lord-of-the-Ringy" fantasy stuff - and boy is it nice to have some change in that department going on once in a while. "Thief" employs a steampunk, "futuristic Victorian" look, combines it with medieval elements, adds a whole load of horror stuff and delves it in a simplified kind of a Miltonic, "split" world-view where you'd have:

reality vs. dreams, light vs. darkness, security vs. fear, order vs. chaos, stagnation vs. creativity, Satan/Pagans vs. God/Hammerites

As I said, it's all quite simplistic, but it's extremely focused and to the point, offering a highly original, yet familiar world where one feels immediately "at home" in spite of all the strange things going on. Moreover, the moral ambiguity with which both main fractions of the game (Pagans and Hammerites) are portrayed actually makes the main character's own shadowy, "neutral" (albeit self-serving) way not only the most appealing, but probably the better one, too, and all this is addressed not only in the game's background (by exploring, reading stuff, etc.), it's all part of the main story and one's own character's development as well. However, the best thing is the way the game's title ("The Dark Project") is implemented into the story, and the resulting paradox.

!!!WARNING!!! UPCOMING SPOILER:

How great is it to create a game where the player is absolutely dependant on darkness and not-being-seen, yet has to look for something called "The Eye" and prevent the world from a total black-out?

The Bad
This is one of the very few games where I could not find a real flaw. Moreover, I find many of the flaws found by other players quite wonderful. I thought the zombies were plain horrifically well done, and I did not find that "Thief" was lacking a freely explorable city, on the contrary, I found that the division into different levels actually helped the game's sense of drama.

One could criticize the ever-oppressing nature of "Thief" though, and the sheer intensity of all the sneaking going on. It can be quite an exhausting game because it never offers any "relief" - however, I like that, too.

The Bottom Line
The perfect blend between all its different elements, their ingenious, individual executions and an overall great sense of pacing and dosage make "Thief" stand out as a masterfully created, frightful experience destined to distract the player from reality for quite some time (it's a rather long game, after all). And when one re-enters that reality, one may well think about the amount of hypocrisy and of stubborn, religious fundamentalism to be found there, too, or about our desperate need to shut out as many reminders of our own mortality as possible - for that is, after all, one of the reasons we put lights everywhere, isn't it?

A final note on this version of the game: The "Gold" edition of "Thief" features three more, superbly designed levels which are well integrated into the games plot, making the its division into introduction-main part-endgame more balanced. In my opinion it's the best version of "Thief".

The Good
I played Thief Gold after playing its sequel. The sequel ironed out most of the bugs and honed in on the best aspects of gameplay, so visiting its predecessor was a little disappointing. However, I fully recommend this game.

The gist of Thief is that you are Garrett, trained thief and anti-hero who finds himself in the unenviable position of having to save the world. In Thief, you must stay in shadows, pay attention to your noise level, knock out guards, douse torches, etc. In this game, if you aren't a proficient thief, you'll die. That simple rule made the game incredibly immersive and I really felt that it was similar to an RPG. You take on the role of Garrett.

The ambient sound and vocal acting was pretty good. Sometimes character voices seem a little campy. The locations are highly detailed although I preferred the urban locations to the outdoor/other world ones. The story is engaging and the bonus levels included in the Gold edition help to flesh out the plot.

Also, this is one of the few games I've played where the difficulty settings seemed to matter. Each level of difficulty offers different objectives and even forces you to play the game in a different way. At the hardest levels, you are often not allowed to make any kills.

The Bad
I've heard that Looking Glass wasn't sure if players would like a fps that relied on stealth rather than ammunition. As such, some levels require combat and there is a great number of undead. Of course, it was the stealth aspect that became popular and coined the phrase "first person sneaker."

Secondly, there seems to be no advantage to conserving ammunition, items, or gold. You basically start from scratch each level. I would have preferred to have had a wider arsenal at the end levels.

The only other quibble I have is with item interaction. To open doors, pick pockets, etc you must maneuver in such a way that they are highlighted. This is useful but I was often able to open doors from a distance, which seemed unbelievable.

The Bottom Line
This is one of the best examples of what a computer game can be. I loved the vision of a medieval city, struggling between paganism and fanaticism. While this game has some peaks and valleys in level design, there are moments that are as riveting as any movie.

For fun, look straight up when you are outside and shoot an arrow-- how's that for physics?