Anybody wanna talk about "Thief"?

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DerAlex
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Anybody wanna talk about "Thief"?

Post by DerAlex »

Thief vs. AAA Gaming (27 minutes)

"Thief: The Dark Project" and "Thief: The Metal Age" are games I consider among the very best video games ever made (on place 2 and 1, resp.). This video compares gameplay and mechanics of the old Thief games with modern AAA titles. I disagree with some points he makes against newer games, but I agree about everything he says about the old Thief games. I played them the first time about 15 years ago, Thief: The Metal Age was the first video game I ever bought on release date. This video more or less convinced me that nostalgia isn't the only factor placing the game on my top spot. There were very talented people working on the games, and sadly, most of the lessons they teached got lost in history, losing against streamlined experiences, "cinematic" gameplay, and the never ending hunt for photorealism.

Wikipedia: Thief: The Dark Project, Thief II: The Metal Age

For the unlucky people who never played the first two Thief games, they are on steam. Even thou they are 15 year old games, the price of $10 seems a bit steep, especially since the developer Looking Glass Studios is no longer with us. But they are regulary on sale for $2.50, might be worth looking out for.

There still is a very active community on TTLG.com, and there are very VERY good mods to make the game run on modern systems: Thief 1 unofficial patch (upd. 01 Jul. 2015) and Thief 2 unofficial patch (upd. 28 Jun. 2015)

There are also HD-Mods, if that's your thing, that make the games look amazing if you consider that it's running on an almost 20 year old engine.

Anybody also loving the old Thief games that maybe wants to talk about the good old days, when we were still young and everything wasn't ruined by everyone? :D
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Wafflewaffle
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Re: Anybody wanna talk about "Thief"?

Post by Wafflewaffle »

Brilliant opinion article of a brilliant game. I've never really imagined the effects of maps and minimaps on gameplay and narrative and he explained it perfectly (and I fully understand why @FC was trying to remove maps from btw a while back now).

I've played Thief and had a blast, even though I am not a fan of stealth games. The very fact that there is no option besides stealth adjusts you brain to the way the game has to be played making sneaking around feel good and getting caught scary. It kinda puts you in that "now you are thinking in portals" state of mind that so few games do.

Recently I picked up Dishonored cuz the sequel was announced and it was on sale for real cheap, but man its so hard not to kill everybody in sight, it puts me in a blind rage everytime i get caught. Its a very different feeling between "If i get caught im fucked" to "if I get caught im gonna murder everybody here". And becouse I went in with the mind set that this is a stealth game, I cant help but feel its a bad stealth game even though it actually is a good action game with stealth elements.
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DerAlex
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Re: Anybody wanna talk about "Thief"?

Post by DerAlex »

Wafflewaffle wrote:Its a very different feeling between "If i get caught im fucked" to "if I get caught im gonna murder everybody here".
I never finished Dishonored, but I've finished T1 3 times, T2 5 times, and T3 2 times. I played about 3/4th of Dishonored with a pure ghost playthrou in the hopes of recreating the old "Thief"-feeling, but it never really worked. The game never really clicked for me, and it took me watching this video to "get" that difference, that problem with missing tension because of an overpowered character. I am not a smart man sometimes...

In Thief 1-3, by being that underpowered in regards to fighting, you are on the edge of your seat constantly. On the harder difficulty, you are not allowed to kill anybody, or the mission insta-fails. There are even missions where you cannot be seen at all (ghosting). For me, because of the constant tension, the old Thief games are among the most immersive games out there, even if they look like ass nowadays. A big factor in this is the incredible sound design. The ambient noises and spooky background music mixed with approaching footsteps or the groaning of an undead makes your hands sweat. The sounds are your enemy radar in this games, the quality of Thief's audio to this day is seldom reached, off the top of my head only Bioshock 1 & 2 come close, while Amnesia and Alien Isolation are arguably even better.

I really have to play the Thief games again soon, I've watched the video again today and I'm nostalging so hard right now :D

Are there any big AAA games out there right now that aren't power fantasies? There isn't anything wrong with having those kinds of games, but it does feel like that's the only thing we're getting right now, apart from the horror niche, which isn't really my cup of tea. True stealth seems to be dead, and it's reanimated corpse has minimaps, enemy radar, see-throu-wall-o-vision, questmarkers, and other bullshit. STYX came close, but didn't really click with me.
Last edited by DerAlex on Fri Jul 03, 2015 9:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Niyu
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Re: Anybody wanna talk about "Thief"?

Post by Niyu »

Not sure if it's an AAA title but I'm enjoying Styx: Master of Shadows rigth now. In the harder difficulty setting you do't have combat mechanics if an enemy reaches you it's an instakill.
Last edited by Niyu on Fri Jul 03, 2015 10:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
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DerAlex
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Re: Anybody wanna talk about "Thief"?

Post by DerAlex »

Niyu wrote:Not sure if it's a AAA title but I'm enjoying Styx: Master of Shadows rigth now.
Hehe, I was just expanding my post with a sentence about Styx before reading your answer. For some reason, it doesn't click with me ether, even thou on paper it should. That's propably my problem thou, not necessarily Styx's. I think I'm searching for "Thief", not "Like Thief", just because by being my favorite game series, it's my template for "perfect", nothing will ever really fit it, sadly. Apart from that, I found the character controlled really bad an inprecise, which is not the best in such a jump-y and platform-y game, thou that might've been fixed in the mean time.

And then there is invisibility and that special yellow-tinted goblin cheatyvision, and while I could restrict myself to not use them, the game isn't designed to do that. Ah well, I should give Styx another change I think, on paper it does sound really good, thank you for reminding me!
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DerAlex
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Re: Anybody wanna talk about "Thief"?

Post by DerAlex »

Steam has a stealth themed sale right now, until Oct. the 16th.

Thief Gold and Thief 2 are both on sale for under $2 each.

(Styx is also on sale)
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DaveYanakov
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Re: Anybody wanna talk about "Thief"?

Post by DaveYanakov »

The studio behind Styx is more AA than AAA. They're well established but they do their work with much less funding and they tend to sail just under the radar.
Sir, You Are being Hunted is indie and survival based but it's a great pure stealth title without maps.
Not sure about the newer titles but the original Splinter Cell lacked any form of minimap and while it was fairly linear, I never once felt like just shooting everybody was an option. It may be the closest AAA thing to Thief that you'll find from within the last decade.

I'm also seeing Alpha Protocol pop up in these lists but it looks more like a Deus Ex successor than Thief. It's on sale for dirt cheap though so I think I'm going to pick it up.
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DaveYanakov
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Re: Anybody wanna talk about "Thief"?

Post by DaveYanakov »

One game I've been keeping half an eye on is Clandestine which is an asymmetric co-op title. One player runs the intel and the computer network bits while the other player is the field agent.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/290530/
Better is the enemy of Good
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