Thief: Deadly Shadows

Ion Storm is the kind of company that no-one respects- having only ever put out one game worth anyone's money (Deus Ex), they, until closing in 2005, were generally what Sony Online Entertainment is today- a virtual dumping ground for bad games. And, unfortunately, the cult game Thief found it's way into their paws a few years ago, and some felt there would be hope for the series- maybe Ion Storm could put some Deus Ex magic into it and make it more than a very ugly sneaking game.

Thief: Deadly Shadows, the official third game in the series, follows a mysterious thief as he completes missions in various aspects of an old, medieval town. As the game was developed by Ion Storm instead of Looking Gl*ss Studios (The old developer), the game retains a lot of feel of Ion's older games, as well as the cl*ssic Thief setting that very few have learned to appreciate. Much akin to the Splinter Cell or Metal Gear Solid series, Thief is all about sneaking and covert operations, and is one of the few games to take this aspect to the medieval realm. But does that make it a good game? Unfortunately, no.

Like I said, Thief is a sneaking game, and takes a lot of cues from other sneaking games like it. Much akin to the Splinter Cell games, Thief: Deadly Shadows has a darkness meter (or in this case, a crystal), and generally all of the covert ability of main character Garret relies on how dark he can remain. Enemies, while not absolutely blind, are generally circumvented by staying in the darkness and making no noise- and, by doing this, the player is expected to guide Garret through many old buildings and castles in order to complete specific objectives.

I can't play this game without thinking of Splinter Cell, and there is a good reason- namely the fact that this is indeed Splinter Cell. When Splinter Cell came out in 2002, the gaming industry was floored at the ability to take sneaking into the (then) next generation- and only a year later, Thief: Dark Shadows mysteriously pops out from a shoddy game manufacturer that basically steals most, if not all, concepts from it's older brother. I can't help but add this rather early in the review, and I lament to say I will probably not shut up about it through the whole review- purely because I believe that this game is such direct theft of a good idea that it's almost criminal.

But onto the good things about the game. Thief: Dark Shadows, unlike other sneaking games, is all about the pseudo-criminal side of sneaking. Instead of being led by the government or some other group, Garret is just a thief with something of a mission, and the ability to steal various items is present to accentuate this fact. By careful exploration of even the darkest corners, Garret can pick up “loot”, attempting at the 100% Loot goal that he can achieve at the end of every mission. That being said, there is no direct benefit from loot other than your score, but it still is a unique concept to add to this game.

One thing that I definitely enjoyed from Thief: Dark Shadows was the Medieval setting, which is refreshing to see displayed in a light other than seen in the typical RPG. The world of Thief: Dark Shadows is dark, gritty, and feels like the back alley of New York, if New York existed in the 1600s. With a phenomenal lighting engine, everything around Garret looks beautiful (as long as you don't look closely- I'll explain below) and unique, and the game does a good job of pulling you into the world it presents. Somewhat stealing from the Grand Theft Auto franchise, Thief also expands on this by adding the ability to “roam” around the city, which I found quite useless if not irritating. At this point, the Grand Theft Auto concept is old, and even though this is somewhat unique, I'm tired of it.

The story of Thief is unique, but somewhat cliched. Garret is a snide, dark thief, and he runs around doing good things and being a “little” bad in moderation. Of course, just like any mediocre video game story, Garret is special, et cetera. Really, while the story is nothing interesting or even unique, it gets the job enough, and thankfully, all cut scenes can be skipped.

Now to rant on the game, and generally explain why it gets a bad review. First off, the game is absolutely horrendously ugly. The Thief series is somewhat famous for having mediocre graphics- but except for the lighting engine and random touches here and there, the graphics are just bad. All of the characters look wax-like and fake, all of the environments look jagged and basic, and just about anything that is shown to you is horribly ugly. Another issue is even more basic- because the game was designed for the consoles as well as the PC, instead of making high quality PC textures and compressing them, they did the exact opposite: made console textures and stretched them against the screen to make higher resolutions. This is absolutely horrendous- when I pay a ton of money to afford a large flatscreen monitor and the game only looks good in a resolution that is about half the size of the monitor. 1200x1024 is not big- in fact, it's rather small in today's standards. What this all translates into is a bad job- which is a definite demerit for this game.

Another issue I have is the gameplay, which is rather mediocre, especially compared to older games like Splinter Cell. The sneaking engine, yet again designed somewhat like the Splinter Cell engine, is all based around sound and sight, and your ability to conceal them. This can range from your footsteps, the sound of your bow, or even the sight of one of your arrows flying across the sky- anything that can be seen or heard will be seen or heard. The issue with Thief in this respect is that it seems to make your life a living hell to do even conceal these- from filling a room with light and guards, to making you wait for hours on end just to slip into a single door. This seems a little extensive, considering how there is no real way to circumvent these problems, and the only way I found to actually get through this game was rather brutish: whipping out Garret's dagger and slicing away.

And then, finally, there were some things that just were a bug up my rear in this game. In one case, I noticed that whenever a guard, person, or even Garret speaks, no mouths move- everyone is stone- which was standard in Playstation 1 games, not XBOX/PC games. In another case, a guard found me when I was “perfectly concealed”- just because he walked near my pitch black area and magically realized I was there, without any kind of indicator whatsoever. Even worse, in one situation, I “knocked out” a character, only for the hit to not register and for him to impale me on a sword. While these problems are somewhat myriad, and you may not experience them in the course of any of the missions, I do have to mention that I noticed them there.

So, unlike other reviews sites, with these problems, I draw a different conclusion. Not only did I find Thief: Deadly Shadow's direct theft of Splinter Cell's concept somewhat draconian, I also found that the execution was so poor that it was barely worth the comparison. For those looking for sneaking games, I recommend turning to the Metal Gear Solid or Splinter Cell series- not Thief, and definitely not Thief: Deadly Shadows. Hopefully, this will be a somewhat anticlimactic end to a long struggling series. If not... well, you might not see me reviewing it.

2 star(s) out of 5

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