Thief (2014)
- Thread starter Randin
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Lightning Returns is not a good game, unless you just really like Lightning as a character. Both user-sourced reviews on Metacritic and Gamefaqs agree (about 1000 user votes in all) it's merely average.
Certainly wish I could get my full money back on it - it's mostly a bunch of sidequests that are very MMO-esque and some Final Fantasy cosplay outfits.
Certainly wish I could get my full money back on it - it's mostly a bunch of sidequests that are very MMO-esque and some Final Fantasy cosplay outfits.
Vaclav
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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LR was pretty damn amazing to me, the storyline was wonky as hell and the time limits were somewhat annoying, but the gameplay was innovative and fun. Perhaps it's niche, but metacritic and the like aren't kind to niche. (Plus the whole you can submit reviews without owning a game thing and a few places throwing a shitfit about it likely skewed things to some degree...)
Amazon's reviews are averaging 3.5 not even sticking to just confirmed owners - and glancing at confirmed owners a bit unless I missed a few ONE 2 pt review was a buyer and zero 1 pt. (Although I did note the title of one of the 4s was that it was a "3.5" to him)
Thief done right is restrictive - and it earned its praise for being the first to create a genre for the original - the points spiraled on average reviews from the first to the second to the third from 90/85/80 for the earlier Thief games over a 5 year timeframe - with how much they've slid when you triple the timeframe assuming the "innovation" is less of a points earner than it was to reviewers it could be projected to be a 60-65 based on how it was degrading over the years. (remember it's been TEN YEARS since 3/Dark Shadows)
And honestly these days it's got direct comparison in many of its elements to Dishonored but with more restrictions because it's not remotely intended to be the same style of game. If Dishonored II came out tomorrow with half of the weapons and no spells with only a few new additional toys, where would you expect it to review?
Don't get me wrong, I'm curious to see how it is - I'm definitely buying it regardless - but for people that were hooked on the original it looks legitimately like the old ones brought up to date with appropriate toggles. I'm deeply curious how many recent reviewers actually played and enjoyed the first being that it's 15 years old, a time when many reviewers were in middle or high school.
Vaclav
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Just as a refresher, I'd suggest watching Yahtzee's review on the series before Thief 4/Rebooted/Returns whatever you want to call it:
Thief: The Dark Project | Zero Punctuation Video Gallery | The Escapist
Note all the positives he speaks on with the original, nothing I've seen has indicated a loss of any of those things that made the original great. But there are certainly some potential worries to be wary of.
Thief: The Dark Project | Zero Punctuation Video Gallery | The Escapist
Note all the positives he speaks on with the original, nothing I've seen has indicated a loss of any of those things that made the original great. But there are certainly some potential worries to be wary of.
Vorph
Silver Baronet of the Realm
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Only way I'll trust someone's opinion on Thief is if they put huge bolded text at the start of their review saying that the game was played with every difficulty setting maxed out, or at leastveryclose to it. I just find it extremely hard to believe that Thief is somehow a worse Thief game than Deus Ex: HR was a Deus Ex game. Already have it pre-loaded so I will see for myself in... uhhhh, when the fuck does it unlock in the US anyway? Steam's newsfeed says, "Thief is Now Available on Steam! Check the store page for release times in your region." but the store page does not list any release date or time at all anymore.
And LR is the closest thing we'll likely ever see to Valkyrie Profile 3, and that alone makes it vastly better than any of the 'critical darling' JRPGs from the last generation. Still not quite as good as Resonance of Fate, but since they're both [technically] tri-Ace games, I'm ok with that.
And LR is the closest thing we'll likely ever see to Valkyrie Profile 3, and that alone makes it vastly better than any of the 'critical darling' JRPGs from the last generation. Still not quite as good as Resonance of Fate, but since they're both [technically] tri-Ace games, I'm ok with that.
Watching some video reviews, it doesn't look like it retains the difficulty of the old Thief games at all. Players hanging outside of shadows for several seconds before they get spotted, etc. It also looks VERY unpolished - looping guard animations, jarring sound effects, cut scenes ending before they are finished. Smacks of a rush job or at least a series of development changes over the course of it's life (which we know for a fact happened, game has been in development forever with multiple teams).
We'll see what Yahtzee has to say about it before I buy it, as he's always been a big proponent of the old Thief games.
Vorph
Silver Baronet of the Realm
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Wtf, now the Steam store page is updated with an unlock time and it's 1PM EDT tomorrow, not midnight as one would expect. That's the kind of shit you used to see when Walmart and Gamestop actually stocked more than half a shelf worth of PC games, and it especially doesn't make sense for a game that is 100% digital download only on the PC version.
Vaclav
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Thief Review The Sham Burglar | Lazygamer .:: The Worlds Best Video Game News ::.overall reads like a decent game with them falling flat on creating the "world" as well as the old ones.
And note the same people have a LR review that's worse while it was a very good (albeit niche) game -Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII review In need of salvation | Lazygamer .:: The Worlds Best Video Game News ::.
LR would get a solid 8 from me, so if their recent history is at all indicative Thief could well be a 8.5 to me. And honestly at the end of the day, who the hell cares what MOST people feel about a game - I don't play the games I choose to for YOUR enjoyment I do it for my own. As long as it's a 7+ game to me is the key, reviewers aren't always right.
Here's bullets from another "bad" review:
+ Core gameplay mechanics are quite enjoyable
+ Allows for full UI and difficulty customization
- Bad voice acting supported with terrible dialogue and sound design
- Weak AI and technical performance
- Odd choices in direction
First is the most important element to Thief being done correctly. Second helps undo any changes to modernize it if they're not wanted. 3 and 5 are basically the same thing and while nice to have aren't exactly the key element to the games they've always been more about the "doing" than the story to them. And on 4 - if I cared to look up Youtube I'm sure I could find dozens of AI oddities that existed in the earlier Thief's the AI being a bunch of dumb idiots that Garret was mocking under his breath quite often was part of the point of the entire mood of the game.
Oddly I've seen length mentioned in a few reviews as terribly short by my standards to the disappointing degree (6-10 without replays) that might be a failing point to me - but so far the positives still sound good and the negatives sound like trivial minutiae they're just trying to trump up for views.
Remember we're in a post "reviewers are too positive all the time" generation where over critical nonsense happens constantly - look at how well AC4 was received, yet it's sitting at 83 Critic and 7.8 User on Metacritic. If Thief's reboot is "10-15% worse" than AC4 it's still an amazing game.
And note: Metacritic currently sitting at 73 for Critics with some reviews 80/82/90. And the first blurb from the Game Informer one "Eidos-Montreal may have adhered too closely to the series' roots, resulting in a reboot that suffers from classic problems like simplistic combat and trial-and-error sneaking missions." GI is apparently worried it's TOO CLOSE to it's roots, not that it's shied far away from them.
And note the same people have a LR review that's worse while it was a very good (albeit niche) game -Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII review In need of salvation | Lazygamer .:: The Worlds Best Video Game News ::.
LR would get a solid 8 from me, so if their recent history is at all indicative Thief could well be a 8.5 to me. And honestly at the end of the day, who the hell cares what MOST people feel about a game - I don't play the games I choose to for YOUR enjoyment I do it for my own. As long as it's a 7+ game to me is the key, reviewers aren't always right.
Here's bullets from another "bad" review:
+ Core gameplay mechanics are quite enjoyable
+ Allows for full UI and difficulty customization
- Bad voice acting supported with terrible dialogue and sound design
- Weak AI and technical performance
- Odd choices in direction
First is the most important element to Thief being done correctly. Second helps undo any changes to modernize it if they're not wanted. 3 and 5 are basically the same thing and while nice to have aren't exactly the key element to the games they've always been more about the "doing" than the story to them. And on 4 - if I cared to look up Youtube I'm sure I could find dozens of AI oddities that existed in the earlier Thief's the AI being a bunch of dumb idiots that Garret was mocking under his breath quite often was part of the point of the entire mood of the game.
Oddly I've seen length mentioned in a few reviews as terribly short by my standards to the disappointing degree (6-10 without replays) that might be a failing point to me - but so far the positives still sound good and the negatives sound like trivial minutiae they're just trying to trump up for views.
Remember we're in a post "reviewers are too positive all the time" generation where over critical nonsense happens constantly - look at how well AC4 was received, yet it's sitting at 83 Critic and 7.8 User on Metacritic. If Thief's reboot is "10-15% worse" than AC4 it's still an amazing game.
And note: Metacritic currently sitting at 73 for Critics with some reviews 80/82/90. And the first blurb from the Game Informer one "Eidos-Montreal may have adhered too closely to the series' roots, resulting in a reboot that suffers from classic problems like simplistic combat and trial-and-error sneaking missions." GI is apparently worried it's TOO CLOSE to it's roots, not that it's shied far away from them.
Vorph
Silver Baronet of the Realm
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My biggest concern is the map sizes. People are saying it's like Thief: Deadly Shadows when it comes to having to load new areas constantly, and that's not something I'd call acceptable a decade later. I'll be putting it on my SSD, so I'm not worried about the load times so much as the simple annoyance of having load screens break up the flow of the game too often.
Vaclav
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Lenas
Trump's Staff
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Initial opinion: think Dishonored with less magic and combat ability. City is taken over by martial law, ambiguous disease infects inhabitants. Protagonist disappears for a while and returns with pseudo-supernatual powers. Only enhanced thief-vision at this point, but who knows if I'll be shooting crows out of my fingertips in due time.
Progression is split into levels / missions. At the end you're graded depending on how much you snuck around, fought people, etc. Each level also has optional objectives like get four headshots, pickpocket 10 guards, extinguish 10 flames, etc. Pretty basic stuff.
If you want to be forced to play like a thief, crank the difficulty up.
Randin
Trakanon Raider
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Gameinformer gave it an 8/10
Also, here's Totalbiscuit's video on it
He brings up a couple bugs he found in the game, and mentions that some of the levels are a little too "here are three paths through the level, pick the one you want to take" rather than "here's this big open space, find your own way through it," but other than that, he seems to like it.
Also, here's Totalbiscuit's video on it
He brings up a couple bugs he found in the game, and mentions that some of the levels are a little too "here are three paths through the level, pick the one you want to take" rather than "here's this big open space, find your own way through it," but other than that, he seems to like it.
spronk
FPS noob
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while you wait for the steam unlock (which I think you can fool with vpn proxy, if you really wanted) you can try playing the free thief dark project, its ~2gb download. i'm downloading it now to fool around, there are over 100 user-generated missions for it
Downloads | The Dark Mod
(download the installer which is ~1meg, put it in its own directory and run it to start the download)
Downloads | The Dark Mod
(download the installer which is ~1meg, put it in its own directory and run it to start the download)
Balroc
Molten Core Raider
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- 229
Vaclav
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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"Feels" 7 or slightly higher from watching TB's thing all the way through, some rough edges (although amusingly rough edges that remind me of T:TDP back in the day) and a little less "openness" from the original in exchange for more realistic building design from what I've seen. [every damn building had balconies in T:TDP it seemed - they seem appropriately rare/uncommon from the TB video]
Jaybee
Silver Knight of the Realm
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This review was getting me excited, then when I found out you can't freely jump I cringed.