by Igor - June 12, 2004

It has been four years since Looking Glass Studios, home to the innovative games such as System Shock and Thief, has closed down its doors. What had once been thought lost forever, the inspiring Thief series that led to Splinter Cell, has now been revived by Ion Storm with their second sequel to the game: Dark Shadows. That being said, Master thief Garrett is back, he�s mad, and he�s ready to loot everyone and everything in The City.

Art of Stealth

When Thief: The Dark Project was released years ago, a brand new genre had been shown to the gamers � a first person game that was not a shooter, but a stealthy-crawler. But while the player had the option to run around the level and kill everything he or she saw, the game was designed so it wasn�t nearly as fun (or as easy) to do so. Instead, Thief focused on having the player, controlling Garrett, sneak around in the dark shadows and knock out unsuspecting enemies with his blackjack. Years later, the gaming-goodness formula is back, with Ion Storm as the developer, and Deus Ex 2 as the engine.

The focus of the game is just like the previous series, simple and up to the point: sneak, kill, and steal. Helping Garrett achieve these goals are the two fundamental features of the game: light crystal (a magical crystal which automatically gets lighter or brighter depending on Garrett�s visibility) and the sounds that the game produces (if the player can hear Garrett running, so can the enemies). Still yet, on the business side of things, Garrett is armed with a bow, a dagger, and a blackjack, and equipped with several throwable items to help Garrett in his missions.

Yes, your eyes did not fool you � Garrett has lost his sword and his fencing abilities (old age maybe?) in lieu of the dagger. Whilst before Garrett could block and parry with the guards with his trusty broadsword, Garrett must now resort to hiding in the shadows (and those shadows end up deadly indeed) and stabbing his enemies while they aren�t paying attention. The dagger does have some cons, such as leaving behind a trail of blood which some guards may notice, but it has pros as well, such as being able to knock out those pesky Undead monsters (whilst a blackjack only gets their attention).

Be it dagger or blackjack that the player prefers, Garrett�s bow is equipped with several arrows as well: broadhead (your standard issue arrows), fire (explode-in-your-face type), gas (poison), moss (sound dampener), noisemaker (uh, noisemaker), and the last but not least, the water arrow (to put out those torches and get rid of blood). Just like with a dagger, Garrett can play sniper and kill unsuspecting enemies in one hit (those that are �aware� of Garrett�s presence will need 2-3 though) with his broadhead arrows, or use the gas arrows to instantly K.O. any humanoid enemy.

Finally, Garrett�s throwable items are: flashbomb (which blind the enemies), gas bomb (which kill the enemies), mines (ditto, but enemies step on them), health potions (these restore Garrett�s health), and the oil flask (which makes enemies trip and can be lit on fire with the fire arrows). Unlike other games, in Thief III, Garrett can throw an item at the same time as using a weapon (useful incase Garrett is noticed and needs to make a quick getaway).

With an arsenal this big, it is no wonder that Garrett is a master thief. Indeed, it seems that Garrett is so popular, that when Garrett is traveling through The City (a city Garrett travels through in-between missions) all the City Watch guards are out to kill him (and should Garrett be �killed� he will go to jail). But the City Watch aren�t the only people in the city � there are the Hammerites (religious zealots), the Pagans (the heathen enemies of the Hammerites), the Keepers (a secret organization which Garrett is a member of), and some random NPCs (which Garrett can pickpocket any day).

It is from the Keepers that Garrett will receive most of his missions, and from the Hammerites and the Pagans that he will receive the most distractions (these two are called �factions,� and Garrett can have a different status with them). While the Keepers are not really a faction, the Pagans and Hammerites may be allied with, or fought with. If allied, these factions will let Garrett go through their territory and fight off enemies (not guards though) when you run past them, but if they are Garrett�s enemy, they will try to kill him on sight.

The missions themselves are almost like in any other first person shooter, except that Garrett doesn�t instantly teleport to his mission area, but must walk through The City to his starting area, and then go through the door leading to the mission area to start the mission. Once Garrett is in a mission, he is free to do whatever he wants without his faction status being changed � knock out guards, kill them, whatever, as long as his objectives are complete. Examples would be to steal a heavily guarded artifact while making sure the guards didn�t raise the alarm, or finding some information regarding a Keeper enemy.

But instead of being more of the same, about every mission introduces something new to Thief 3, be it some undead monsters, a different race, a plot twist, or some major loot that any thief would love to have his hands on. So instead of feeling like a grinder like many first person shooters become towards the end of the game, Thief felt more and more satisfying to me as I reached and beat the end of the game.

Shadows, and lots of them

Thanks to the use of the Deus Ex 2 engine (which itself uses a modified Unreal-series engine), Thief III has up-to-date graphics which are easily on par with any game released this year (except maybe Far Cry). While most of the things are the same as in any other game, there is one thing that makes Thief III stand out, and that�s its the use of dynamic lights � lights move around all the time, guards carrying torches, someone�s shadow changing because they are closer/farther to a light source, fires going out, all of this gives the lighting in the game a more realistic look � something that would be perfect, in fact, if it wasn�t for the bugs that would sometime make pitch-black areas (as the light crystal testified) appear lighted up.

He didn't hear me, did he?

There is one thing that makes Thief III stand out of all the other games I�ve played in 2004, and that�s the sound. As a person would expect for any stealth-oriented game, the sound is expected to play a big role, and with most of the previous Thief�s sound actors back, Thief III successfully carries out this role.

NPCs have conversations with each other, Guards talk to themselves, footsteps are heard, and all noises are investigated. Every little thing has its own sound, and every NPC is a potential sound producer. Suppose Garrett accidentally walks out into the light, and a guard catches a glimpse of him � well this will instantly cause the guard to go and check out what he might�ve seen. But once the guard realizes that he can�t find Garrett (or maybe that he didn�t see Garrett at all), he calms himself down by saying to himself �Must�ve been the wind� or anything along these lines. Likewise, if the guard is chasing Garrett he will be screaming after Garrett and telling Garrett to stop � a lot of times the things they say will even be funny from Garrett�s point of view, but make sense from the guard�s point of view. Regardless, this is the first game where the things that the NPCs casually say actually help steer the gameplay.

But where's the multiplayer?

Sadly, in the field of replayability, Thief III does not shine. While the expert players may find �ghosting� (beating the game without killing or knocking out anyone) fun and challenging, or playing the game on expert level (the AI is actually made smarter, instead of just giving the AI more health), the gist of the game is the same. All missions must be completed, and with the exception of the beginning, all of the missions must be completed in the same order. The few �sidequests� that Garrett can do to help raise his faction status are completely unnecessary since they don�t count as �real� missions and are simply something Garrett can do without much difficulty while traveling around The City. But what I find strange, is that Ion Storm missed Pandora Tomorrow�s multiplayer success with its Mercenary vs Spies gametype; a similar Guards vs Robbers could�ve had equal success in Thief III, or even a free roam �Loot The City� mode would�ve been welcomed.

If it wasn't for the bugs..

There were a couple of things that, er, bugged me while playing Thief. As I mentioned before, there was a harmless bug in where dark places would appear lighted at times, but what I didn�t mention were the more harmful bugs. First off, for anyone playing Thief 3 not on �Normal� difficulty, would�ve experienced a strange glitch � the reset of the difficulty to �Normal� after reloading a saved game (not quite fun at all if trying to beat the game on expert difficulty, or having a hard time on Easy). Also, there were spots in the game where Garrett would fall through the map, land in the water, and die (I�ve had this happen to me twice.. I wonder why Garrett can�t swim?). Even more annoying was the fact that whenever I tried to K.O. a guard near the Tavern in the Docks, my game would instantly kick me out to the desktop without any error message. Thankfully, however, most of these bugs appeared rarely and did not detract from my gameplay much � but it amazes me to this day that such an obvious bug like the difficulty resetting could�ve sneaked its way and onto both the PC and Xbox versions.

In a nutshell

Thief: Deadly Shadows is one of those �got to have� single player games. For anyone who likes to think instead of point and kill, Thief 3 will provide over a week of gaming goodness, and a single player experience which is so unique only Splinter Cell can come close in its comparison. But ultimately, because the game lacks multiplayer, or a real breakthrough that sets it apart from the previous two Thief games, Thief 3 does not deserve any special awards for being �unique� or �completely innovative.� Instead, Thief 3 does what it does best � continue the Thief experience out into the 21st century, in the hopes that one day a new Thief may come and become the next Half-Life. But don�t take my word for it, play the game for yourself!