THIEF Review

My game rating 8 out of 10 …

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THIEF's  release has been long awaited for the past year or so. Looking from the trailers, we were promised a aesthetically pleasing, dark genre fun stealth packed game available to the current consoles and next generation. Fortunately to say, we were not disappointed.

Lets get the bad stuff out of the way! The biggest killer for me was the jagged colour glitches which occurred everywhere across the screen. As I have been working on this review, readers and friends from my blog and university have admitted that they suffered the same problem. These glitches got so bad that they had to stop playing immediately. Another issue was the audio overlapping other NPC's while in conversation with Garett.  During cutscenes, Garett's lines cut every know and again, leaving only his lip sinc to stare at.

 http://www.primagames.com/games/thief/guides/thief-eguide/introduction - Character Profiles

The brash but deadly Erin, a nice change in character where an equally strong character leads her self astray and a return of the anti hero becoming one. Costume design has really taken shape here. Erin here (pictured above) comes across between a biker chick, assassin and thief. Her use of jewellery and the rustic manner of which she wears her clothing is quite unique. 

While these issues may have been arduous at times, that's not to say that THIEF wasn't a success. For those who aren't familiar with previous games and such: you currently play as master thief Garett, whose a rather anti-social character, preferring his own company compared with everyone else. He is intelligent and cat like in stature, climbing and combat. In this game title, you have an apprentice named Erin who is rather similar in character to Garett but she is alot more careless ad over confident. After losing your protege during a failed heist, you have no recollection as to what happened you and Erin. After spending one year away from the city, you return to find it in the rather corrupt hands of the Baron who believes industrial progress is the number one priority above anything else. Upon your arrival thanks to some discreet allies, you find yourself in the middle of the city where sickness, anger and riots plague the streets while the rich live comfortably in their homes while the poor struggle and starve in poverty. This is where the gameplay begins … Will you be a stealthy cat or an aggressor? Your call.

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Favourite levels? Well mine would be the Madam Xao Xao's brothel and the mental asylum. Between the two levels, you will see and experience warm and exotic environments to cold, tenuous, potentially heart wrenching ones. For artists and game developers to go from one style and feel of environment to another is greatly admirable and I believe it truly adds more worth and depth to any game. Sound track takes less of a priority but maintains the overall theme and feeling of each scene. There are elements of rustic, classical and mixed elements which if you consider refer to similar patterns to Tomb Raider: Reboot and Bioshock: Infinite.

As for combat, it was enjoyable but not perfect. Dodging is a little fiddly and the only way to gain a real advantage in fighting a group of enemies is to invest in focus points. Despite this, the bow is an incredibly useful and powerful tool to use. And the variety of arrows made it all the better! Pickpocketing is an awkward and also a fun little thing to do that is further improved by focusing your points on this skills set. Another loveable factor is the abstract story… I like it because situations like this are not mean't to understand quickly. I tire of how most games spoon feed their gamers with a simple, unimaginative stories to which I find insulting. The gamers are not stupid, we crave for intelligent plots that give us inspiration and encourage us to ask questions.

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The side mission were very enjoyable. In some way it made feels as though I was getting to know someone through their house … plus their valuables of course! Exploring houses and solving their owners traps while listening to the cracks and spitting fires reflects the attention the developers displayed towards the project. Earlier I discussed the negatives of the game, I believe the game could be further improved if the player had more secret areas to explore, more interaction with the clock tower hideout, more collectables, and increased length of story or game hours. Also, I was troubled by how little the Queen of the Beggars had in the game. I believe there should have been some exploration and further interaction with this character alot more.

Overall, THIEF offers great voice acting, stunning graphical environments, a great array of character personalities, good combat and so on. I just wish that the game was longer so that the issues listed can be addressed and the character's throughly explored via side missions or extended main levels. Having said that however; after what I have seen and played so far, I can tell that this studio deeply cared about this project. That and fine artists have been a great source of help and visionary here. If only other studios could follow their example and standard of art produced.

http://titanbooks.com/the-art-of-thief-limited-edition-7594/

Before I conclude this review, I would like to recommend the art book for THIEF 4. There is a great amount of stunning conceptual images. If you are interested in modelling, they have pages in there too! If your a fine artist such as myself, then the book will be a valuable asset to any book reference collection. In the conceptual studies, you can see how the artists added animal characteristics i.e. how Garett looked cat like in combat and stature. You can buy this book from Ebay, amazon and Waterstones.