Thief: Deadly Shadows

aka: Dark Project: Deadly Shadows, TDS, Thief 3: Deadly Shadows, Thief 3: Złowieszcze Cienie, Thief III
Moby ID: 13460
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Description official descriptions

Master Thief Garrett is contacted by the Keeper Artemus, who wants him to steal two valuable artifacts. Meanwhile, Garrett learns that the coming of a Dark Age had been prophesied long ago. Gaining access to the Keeper Prophecies, Garrett learns that an ancient book known as the Compendium of Reproach contains more information about the prophecy. As Garrett is trying to solve the mystery, it becomes more and more clear to him that there is a traitor in the order of the Keepers.

Thief: Deadly Shadows is the third installment in the Thief series. The game follows the same design philosophy and gameplay structure that distinguished its predecessors. As before, stealth is the key to successful completion of missions. Avoiding confrontation with the guards, Garrett has to make his way through the levels towards the objective. Shadows and sounds play a large role, as guards will react to suspicious noises, and studying their patrolling routines is essential.

A few gameplay elements have been slightly altered. Garrett can no longer swim, but is able to use climbing gloves that attach him to the walls. He can also flatten himself against walls while standing; if in shadow, he remains completely unnoticeable that way. The player can see Garrett's limbs even if he is viewed from first-person perspective, allowing more precise movements. Switching to third-person view is also possible.

The most significant gameplay change is the non-linear exploration of the City, which has been added to the largely linear missions. In order to access the next mission, Garrett has to explore the City. On his way, he can overhear conversations, steal valuables, avoid or knock out the guards, and even accept secondary missions, which will influence his reputation with some of its factions.

Spellings

  • Thief 3. Тень смерти - Russian spelling
  • 神偷:死亡阴影 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

265 People (208 developers, 57 thanks) · View all

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 83% (based on 44 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 105 ratings with 7 reviews)

Some great additions for the series, and some drawbacks too

The Good
First of all, this is the third in the planned Thief trilogy, and the fact that it's here is good. Stephen Russell is back to voice Garrett(as well as guards etc) along with other instantly recognizable(and excellent) voices, Thief style FMV's are back and they're as atmospheric and other-worldly as always, although mixed in with some that appear to be in an in-engine style, there's still the haunting ambient sounds to keep the tension up. All these things are familiar to seasoned Taffers and help bring the unique Thief atmosphere back, and should draw newcomers in to the game.

The graphics are excellent, although technically an improvement I wouldn't say that they're necessarily so, as the originals looked sharp and the graphics did the job very very well(The Dark Project even ran smoothly on my ATI Rage 2MB onboard graphics!). Deadly shadows still looks excellent(there's much less right angles too) and this is failing to mention the real-time shadows; which are a great addition to the game, and directly effect gameplay, you can now hide in the shadow of a door left ajar, or a pile of stacked boxes etc.

There is now a much more open-ended element to the game, and even some side quests that effect your standing with the factions. The City itself is very much part of the game, patrolled by the City Watch and wandered by valuable adorned passers by. There's fences and blackmarket shops throughout the City of several types - some will buy some types of goods from you and others will buy others. In turn some shops will have equipment or items in stock that other's won't. You'll have to travel across the City to get to the areas of the next mission, and this is where the open-endedness really comes into play, stop to pickpocket a passer-by, break into an armoury or a closed up tavern, or pretty much visit any area you want.

The missions themselves are varied, from a traditional manor/castle type estate to a zombie infested ghost ship, pagan settlements, a spooky maze like asylum etc, one of my favourites was the sunken city inhabited by the lizard-like Kurshock. The later levels are more difficult, and achieve a very good level of tension and scariness, in keeping with the original games. The plot quickly becomes a driving force behind the missions and, as always, the Keepers are very much involved.

The AI will notice extinguished torches and investigate missing valuables, comrades and open doors. A small point but it's now longer possible to stand in the shadows and lean into a well lit corridor unseen, more realistic and a good point in my book.

The Bad
My main gripe is the movement, which is somewhat clunky and slower to react, once you've pressed a key you've got to wait for the model to do it's thing. For example, say you're having a look around and decide to set off in another direction, the model will turn to first to face the same direction, and move slightly to one side while doing so - this resulted in falling off a close ledge a couple of times early on. Leaning also feels rather haphazard. I did get stuck in the scenery a couple of times too. That lot all said, I got used to it pretty quickly and was having too much fun to notice.

Load zones, most missions are broken up into two areas and the City is broken up into several areas, now this didn't bother me too much, but one drawback is that it's easier to run through one and leave a band of cursing guards on the other side, also they can sometimes still be waiting for you when you return, this detracted a bit from the experience.

The design of the game seemed a bit easy in places(not the AI). No swimmable water, entering deep water results in instant death. Rope arrows, while highly improbable, were fun to use but have been replaced with climbing gloves. The HUD is more obtrusive and has some unnecessary curly iron work. Now there's a lot of tweaks available on the web that address a lot of issues, but personally I thought I'd just play the game as is(and moan about it afterwards).

The missions are much smaller than the originals, but a lot of effort has gone in to making the levels not feel small. A small note but the guards will now get tired and pause while chasing you, this makes it easier to get away but may be down to the smaller levels.

The Bottom Line
There is a fairly long list of improvements and drawbacks, perhaps the drawbacks are a little longer on my list but overall the game is true in many ways to the Thief series and is a lot of fun to play through.

Windows · by Jack Lightbeard (2685) · 2005

Equilibrium.

The Good
I remember my cousin handing me his copy of Thief back in 1999 and he said “You've never played anything like this before”. From promos it looked like it belonged in the same genre as say Quake or Doom. After installing and playing I didn't find myself running around blasting monsters but avoiding that and keeping myself confined to the shadows. The problem was playing such a game at a young age brought a lot of tension and alas I found myself too scared to continue this game. So it's safe to say that I've never actually experienced a Thief game except for the start of the first one. I'm aware of this game's influence and pioneering of the stealth genre and I've even played Looking Glass Studio's magnum opus “System Shock 2”. That's why in 2009 I've decided to swallow in some courage and face my fear, play a Thief game.

I decided to start from the latest and possible final release and that being Deadly Shadows. It's a shame that Looking Glass closed it's doors before production of this game due to bankruptcy. Ion Storm picked up some of the development team and decided to make the third installment together. Being a fan of Deus Ex, a game directly influenced by Looking Glass Studio's System Shock 2, the idea of these 2 working together would seem like a good idea. Besides Warren Spector worked in both these companies and on both the above mentioned titles. So failure would most likely be equal to John Romero making you his bitch.

Thief 3 Deadly Shadows is my first real experience of this series. The game is powered by the Unreal Engine 2 this time instead of the usual Dark Engine and with havok physics added under the hood. Surprisingly I liked this game's visuals more than any other Unreal 2 powered game. It utilizes Dynamic Shadows and this has been integrated into the gameplay as I found that I could hide behind an opened door's shadow or push the a box from it's stack and be discovered as the box shadow only covers half my body. The physics are pretty good for it's time, ragdoll physics are obviously present and essential for this game.

The game follows it's traditional style of gameplay but this time they've added in the city which you're free to roam as long as you confine yourself in the shadows as a city guard or enemy is just about to brush his shoulders against you. Not to mention an optional third person perspective to complement the game's trademark first person view. You have an indicator notifying you of how hidden you are, just like the original. The levels follows a procedure of “Days/Mission/Rinse Repeat”. You'll start off at day 1 then you will head towards your mission. After the mission is complete starts day 2 and so on. These days basically take place in the city at night and have no time limit whatsoever allowing you to roam it freely to purchase equipment, loot people and places, sell loot and complete side-missions.

Storyline may also develop during these city levels. Speaking of equipments you have an impressive arsenal of them. Water arrows, oil flasks, moss arrows, flash bombs, climbing gloves to scale walls, the essential blackjack and many more. Some of them have more than one purpose for e.g. The water arrows can take out small fires and put out torches at the same time remove any blood spills and even expand the moss patches created by the moss arrows. It's obvious that the thief series has some awesome thought process going on in the designing stage.

And to further backup the above statement the A.I seems to have a lot of realism put into it. They notice torches put out, noise created by footsteps or bumping into objects, missing comrades and missing loot. The sound is simply perfect and of the highest quality. It's the major driving force behind the atmosphere of the game which is simply brilliant. The world seems to be alive, with people stopping for conversations, greeting each other and eavesdropping on conversations can even lead to a side mission or clue. There are notes laid out here and there not to mention books and journals. These can help you discover hidden loot around the city or discover side missions. Side missions can reward you with maps to a future mission's location or even the benefit of an ally.

Yes there are two factions in the city, the Hammerites and the Pagans. Somewhere in the middle of the game both sides give you a side mission & performing either one will anger one faction as well as please the other. Being an ally to these factions will benefit you in certain parts of the game adding a non linear element to the game.

The main missions which are around 9 are pretty diverse in location and length. Takes place in locations like a church, zombie infested ship, insane asylum/orphanage hybrid, mansion etc. All of them follow a rather standard blueprint. Break into location, steal a certain percentage of loot depending on difficulty level selected, find main object and leave. But this is not always the case, some missions like the insanely awesome mission “Robbing the Cradle” have some mind blowing concepts behind them.

“Robbing the Cradle” is the main reason you should play this game especially if you're not a fan of the Thief games. I may have been afraid of the first Thief game because of the tension it creates but this is just way beyond that. At the age of 21 in broad daylight in an apartment filtered with traffic noise, I almost wanted to wet my pants in the most bone chilling atmospheric level I've ever witnessed. I'd be bold enough to say that this even kicks Silent Hill's arse. So what's so great about this level? Well everything, at this point Garret the protagonist is clueless and has no lead on the lady who tried to attack him in the Hall of Statues so he seeks out an Inspector who's tracking down the hag. He is advised to visit the Shalebridge Cradle, an Orphanage which then turned into an Insane Asylum then for a short while ran as both!!!! Before being abandoned due to a fire breaking out. I won't ruin the rest but in the words of the protagonist Garrett “If there's a way to cram more misery into one building's history, I can't think of it.”

The storyline is often conveyed with cut-scenes, pre and post mission narrations by Garrett and two types of FMV. One using the in game engine and one having a kickass art direction to it. The Storyline itself is interesting although at first it may seem a bit confusing but that's probably the fact that I've not played the first 2 games. The protagonist Garrett is just awesome, they've managed to portray him well without overdoing things and just like most of the characters in the game he is voiced perfectly. There are other characters who are presented in a rather subtle manner but still manage to be memorable.

The game is rather lengthy, gameplay time can be from 25-30 hours or even more and the slow pace of a stealth game is not the major factor here. 9 city levels and 8 missions won't take a weekend and maybe not even a week.

The Bad
When I have to look at the negative aspects of the game, it lies in the more experimental parts. The movements try to recreate a very realistic feel. In first person perspective you'll notice some very natural head bobbing not to forget the fact that you can see your entire body from first person and this game does it the best, even better than F.E.A.R's attempt. If you look right you'll see your weapon, basically your head is the only thing moving when you turn your mouse. Very realistic but very annoying, takes a lot of time to get used to and very distracting. And for those you get nauseous at the sight of head-bobbing then it's your unlucky day as the game doesn't have an option out of the box to turn it off. The third person works better but really makes the game a whole lot easier allowing you to look around corners by just swinging the camera.

To make things worst the game has very clunky movement and clumsy collision detection. I often found myself stuck in the games environment between boxes and even a weird bug where i jumped against a wall and the animation got stuck but i could still move.

I mentioned the realistic A.I before and still think it's impressive but when you got such a good thing going on why leave a loophole in it? I often found that I could bonk a guard with a blackjack “BONK” he lets out a “UHHHH” and then his sword falls “CLANG TANG THISH” and the guard which is just few feet away will act like nothing just happened. Meanwhile I brush against a box which goes “TICK” and the guard which is around 8 feet away will go “I think I heard something”.

The game would be a lot better if the city didn't need me to maintain stealth and instead leave that factor to the actual missions. To make things worst the city resets itself after a mission so you may have to bonk that same guards head around 20 times. At the start it was all good sneaking by the city guard to head to the next area but after a few missions I found it frustrating but still enjoyed it in the actual missions.

Each section of the city is split into various areas like South quarter, Docks etc. All of these are joint by loading zones and the load times are pretty long. So the city missions which require you to travel a lot can get a bit annoying.

The hud and G.U.I is just bad and unattractive. You can call this a console port from the main menu itself. The text in the pre-mission dialog screen is unnecessarily large. Not to forget that you'll be scrolling a lot to see your goals and notes as that screen has no real sorting options whatsoever. The completed tasks will stay at the top while your current tasks will be at the bottom. I found myself scrolling just to read 5-8 lines of text thanks to the super huge font. If someone was so visually impaired why would they play a game that's practically taking place in the darkness?

Lastly the character models aren't too impressive except for maybe Garrett and the puppets in Shalebridge. Most of them follow a rather similar skeletal structure. It's hard to tell the difference between a Hammerite and a City Guard from a distance or a Pagan from a Thug.

The Bottom Line
I cannot say whether Deadly Shadows is a disappointment as compared to the previous two as this is my first experience of a thief game but I can say it's definably true to the stealth genre the series help pioneer and it's probably my favorite stealth game so far and this is coming from someone who's played Splinter Cell and Metal Gear. Those games went strong in certain area, Splinter Cell had good gameplay but a uninteresting story while Metal Gear had a good story but really limited gameplay as 90% of that game is dialogs and cut scenes. Despite the mentioned flaws Thief 3: Deadly Shadows is balanced well in gameplay as well as story which has an interesting plot and a rather epic ending. And with missions such as “Robbing the Cradle” you can recommend it to your horror loving friends looking for a scare trip and I'm sure they'll thank you for it.

Windows · by dreamstealer (126) · 2009

Steal this Review!

The Good
The third and perhaps final(oh no!) entry of the Thief series. Ah yes the series that more or less invented stealth gameplay arrived on the PC and Xbox. In this review I intend to answer these questions: Is it good? And Does it live up to the series? Is it the best one?

The Graphics in Deadly Shadows are excellent. The unreal engine gets put to work and in the end looks it’s best with incredible lighting effects that have to be seen to be believed. The physics are a sight thanks to the Havok engine. The new third person camera view is interesting, but Thief veterans know you have to play it in first person. Also new in Thief III, is the ability to see Garrett’s body in first person, which makes things seem a little more real. The cut scenes are still pure Thief, very sweet indeed.

The Sound/ Music play an important role in this one as in all the Thief titles. Being quite helps you go unnoticed, and eavesdropping on enemies give you crucial clues about an area or a mission. The sounds are all clear and sharp, and incredibly cool in 5.1 Surround Sound. Music is scarce as with most Thief games as well. And like most games the tunes always fit the moment, like an eerie tune that plays in a dark mansion, or a rock track in the games thrilling opening scenes.

The Gameplay is very much like it was in Thief I and II. And for good reason, I mean why stray from something that works. There are still a few surprises however. For one during missions Garrett can obtain up to three ‘special loot’ items. These items are harder to find, but are worth more money and, in the games higher difficulty modes they are required to finish the mission. Speaking of loot, another difference in this one is that you have to sell loot you acquired after the missions, then buy new items in shops around the city. This brings me to another new addition. Instead of jumping from mission to mission, Garrett now must walk to each local. And can partake on side missions in between the main missions.

The Storyline in Thief III is perhaps it’s weakest part. Don’t get me wrong it is good. It is just that past Thief games had a better plot’s that all. Basically in Thief III, Garrett must work with various factions to once again save the city, that he seems to despise so much. The part with the faction is cool and works well, it is very similar to the factions seen in Deus Ex: Invisible War. And yes this game is much better than that was.



The Bad
The Bad, well there are a few nagging issues. For one the A.I. while generally good is occasionally retarded. You can kill a guard and his buddy won’t even notice. Other times Garrett is attacked for something he did not actually do. I also found the blue highlighting of items to be annoying. As well as the blindingly bright blue of the load and save screens.

The Bottom Line
I would recommend this game to Thief fans as well as stealth enthusiasts. So is it good? Yes. Does it live up to the Thief name? Yes. Is it the best one? No, I give that nod to Thief II: The Metal Age. But it is still worth playing.

Xbox · by MasterMegid (723) · 2006

[ View all 7 player reviews ]

Trivia

Difficulty bug

Both the Xbox and PC versions shipped with a bug that affected the AI. The difficulty setting of the AI would default to Normal from all other levels (Easy, Hard, Expert) upon reloading a save game or re-entering a load zone. The game would still indicate that the setting was unchanged, so the only noticeable effect was that the awareness of the guards was easier and they dealt less damage. Ion Storm released a small patch (415 kb) for the PC version that fixes this problem.

Engine

Ion Storm developed Thief: Deadly Shadows with a heavily modified Unreal engine. Its the same engine that was used for Deus Ex: Invisible War.

Graphics

Originally the game did not work properly on ATI Radeon cards. Textures popped in and out, causing walls and floors to turn black and making it appear like there were shadows where there aren't supposed to be any shadows. This was fixed with the Catalyst 4.8 drivers.

Mods

Even though Ion Storm was shut down by its publisher-owner Eidos in early 2005, mod software tools for their final game Thief: Deadly Shadows have been released shortly after.

The mod tools could be found at a number of web file download sites like FileShack and 3DGamers. The 323 MB download will allow players to modify or build new maps for the game along with scripts, conversations and more. It also includes a number of tutorial maps.

[Source: Computer Games Magazine (Feb. 2005)]

References

The various painted portraits gracing walls throughout the game actually depict members of the development team. They were drawn by comic-book artist Frank Teran, who supplied much of the concept art for the game.

Awards

  • GameSpy
    • 2004 – Best Sound of the Year (PC)

Information also contributed by Alan Chan, EndlessDespair, Jack Lightbeard and Jeanne

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Game added by PhoenixFire.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Sciere, Scott Monster, Xoleras, UV, Havoc Crow, Klaster_1, Patrick Bregger, ZeTomes.

Game added May 26, 2004. Last modified March 17, 2024.