Pickpockets Rock It
Bum...
Bum bum...
Darkness shrouds the city streets.
Bum...
A figure darts from the cover of shadow, and disappears just as quickly.
Bum bum BUM bum...
SCREAMS IN THE NIGHT!
"AAAAHHHH! MURDER! MUUUURDER!"
"Are you alright?!"
"I see blood, oh my god!"
BUM bum BUM bum BUM bum BUM...
The guards rush in, trying to restore calm, and failing miserably, as several of them are intoxicated beyond reason. Before long, two of them are down, unconscious, and the others flee in terror.
Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum buuummmmm...
Elsewhere...
Doo bee doo...
A servant dusts the paintings in his master's private gallery.
Doo doo bee doo bee doo...
He hears a noise to his left.
"What was that? I wonder...
Doo doo doo...
He feels the icy cold hands of fear clutch at him as he wanders in the dark hallway, hoping desperately that he is alone.
"Heh...perhaps it is a beautiful maiden...come to give me gifts, and tell me how handsome I am...Ungh!"
He's down.
He's out.
And I'm 50 gold pieces richer.
Ah, the glorious life of the thief. You, too, can experience what I go through every night with the not-so-new, but still excellent, Thief: Deadly Shadows.
The third in the Thief series for PC (The Dark Project, The Metal Age, Deadly Shadows), Deadly Shadows is full of moments like those described above. I cannot even begin to describe how awesome it is to crawl along the rafters of a building, to drop onto your unsuspecting prey, dagger in hand. Or to crush those bothersome Pagans with a giant gear. Or to scale walls without the aid of rope or hook. Or to blow Hammerites apart with motion-sensing explosives. The list goes on...
You play Garrett, a thief trained in the ways of a Keeper, with a bionic eye and a whole bag full of tricks, from bombs to knock-out gas arrows to flasks of oil to flashbangs. Your blackjack is your closest friend, your dagger is your lover, your bow is...your...umm...lover's closest friend? And it's all about you.
Your goal is to complete various quests, which all further the somewhat linear storyline, while making a profit with which to buy equipment for future quests. You do this by, well, thieving. You steal items of value and sell them to your fences. No biggie.
The best part of this game is taking out the goodies. I mean, baddies. It's possible in the easier levels to do a lot of open killing, running around without care, but it's so much more satisfying to play the game as it was meant to be played. It's all based on stealth. You stick to the shadows, sneak up behind some poor soul, and club their brains out. You can backstab them, of course, but that's much noisier.
I love the ragdoll physics. They're beautiful. It's extremely satisfying to snipe a guy with an arrow and watch them bend in half backwards and sit there, looking very uncomfortable. And dead.
The only really negative thing I could say about Deadly Shadows is that the load times are kind of lengthy, but they're not overly abundant, and the quotes shown on the screen are enough to keep me entertained for the ten to fifteen seconds that it takes my computer to load the next area.
I could go on and on about this game, and I'd like to try not to, so I'll get down to the ratings.
Graphics: 10
I run the graphics as low as possible on my computer, and it still looks good. Full graphics are absolutely gorgeous. The shadows, as one might expect, are just about perfect. I drool when I play.
Audio: 10
Everything's pretty realistic, though there are some points where something should make a sound and...doesn't. But this is covered by the glorious voice acting I've come to expect from the Thief series. Oh, I sigh every time I hear a guard rationalize any noise I make as the wind, or a large bug, or something he ate. The fools.
AI: 10
The AI is set perfectly to whatever difficulty you choose. Once in a rare while it will glitch, just like any game, but the glitches are minor and infrequent. NPCs will notice open doors, extinguished torches, missing characters, misplaced items, blood stains, and, of course, bodies. They search for you. They hear you, see you, and sometimes, it seems, smell you. They retreat when hurt, or, in the case of peasants, when they first notice you. It all just seems how people would really react to a notorious thief.
Gameplay: 25
I think I've said enough on the subject.
Overall, Thief: Deadly Shadows gets a 10 out of 10. It's as close to perfect as I can expect from anyone other than myself. It's not too hard to learn, and is fun to try and master. I, being the master thief I am, have beat it several times on the highest difficulty with a perfect record. That is, no kills whatsoever (only knockouts), never seen or caught, no bodies discovered, every possible bit of loot stolen, and no damage taken. Not easy. So worship my superior gaming skills, mortals!
And the besotted buffoon says, "I'm shorry, Ms. Heath's ghosht, for taking yer pie. I wash *hic* hungry..."
Bum bum...
Darkness shrouds the city streets.
Bum...
A figure darts from the cover of shadow, and disappears just as quickly.
Bum bum BUM bum...
SCREAMS IN THE NIGHT!
"AAAAHHHH! MURDER! MUUUURDER!"
"Are you alright?!"
"I see blood, oh my god!"
BUM bum BUM bum BUM bum BUM...
The guards rush in, trying to restore calm, and failing miserably, as several of them are intoxicated beyond reason. Before long, two of them are down, unconscious, and the others flee in terror.
Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum buuummmmm...
Elsewhere...
Doo bee doo...
A servant dusts the paintings in his master's private gallery.
Doo doo bee doo bee doo...
He hears a noise to his left.
"What was that? I wonder...
Doo doo doo...
He feels the icy cold hands of fear clutch at him as he wanders in the dark hallway, hoping desperately that he is alone.
"Heh...perhaps it is a beautiful maiden...come to give me gifts, and tell me how handsome I am...Ungh!"
He's down.
He's out.
And I'm 50 gold pieces richer.
Ah, the glorious life of the thief. You, too, can experience what I go through every night with the not-so-new, but still excellent, Thief: Deadly Shadows.
The third in the Thief series for PC (The Dark Project, The Metal Age, Deadly Shadows), Deadly Shadows is full of moments like those described above. I cannot even begin to describe how awesome it is to crawl along the rafters of a building, to drop onto your unsuspecting prey, dagger in hand. Or to crush those bothersome Pagans with a giant gear. Or to scale walls without the aid of rope or hook. Or to blow Hammerites apart with motion-sensing explosives. The list goes on...
You play Garrett, a thief trained in the ways of a Keeper, with a bionic eye and a whole bag full of tricks, from bombs to knock-out gas arrows to flasks of oil to flashbangs. Your blackjack is your closest friend, your dagger is your lover, your bow is...your...umm...lover's closest friend? And it's all about you.
Your goal is to complete various quests, which all further the somewhat linear storyline, while making a profit with which to buy equipment for future quests. You do this by, well, thieving. You steal items of value and sell them to your fences. No biggie.
The best part of this game is taking out the goodies. I mean, baddies. It's possible in the easier levels to do a lot of open killing, running around without care, but it's so much more satisfying to play the game as it was meant to be played. It's all based on stealth. You stick to the shadows, sneak up behind some poor soul, and club their brains out. You can backstab them, of course, but that's much noisier.
I love the ragdoll physics. They're beautiful. It's extremely satisfying to snipe a guy with an arrow and watch them bend in half backwards and sit there, looking very uncomfortable. And dead.
The only really negative thing I could say about Deadly Shadows is that the load times are kind of lengthy, but they're not overly abundant, and the quotes shown on the screen are enough to keep me entertained for the ten to fifteen seconds that it takes my computer to load the next area.
I could go on and on about this game, and I'd like to try not to, so I'll get down to the ratings.
Graphics: 10
I run the graphics as low as possible on my computer, and it still looks good. Full graphics are absolutely gorgeous. The shadows, as one might expect, are just about perfect. I drool when I play.
Audio: 10
Everything's pretty realistic, though there are some points where something should make a sound and...doesn't. But this is covered by the glorious voice acting I've come to expect from the Thief series. Oh, I sigh every time I hear a guard rationalize any noise I make as the wind, or a large bug, or something he ate. The fools.
AI: 10
The AI is set perfectly to whatever difficulty you choose. Once in a rare while it will glitch, just like any game, but the glitches are minor and infrequent. NPCs will notice open doors, extinguished torches, missing characters, misplaced items, blood stains, and, of course, bodies. They search for you. They hear you, see you, and sometimes, it seems, smell you. They retreat when hurt, or, in the case of peasants, when they first notice you. It all just seems how people would really react to a notorious thief.
Gameplay: 25
I think I've said enough on the subject.
Overall, Thief: Deadly Shadows gets a 10 out of 10. It's as close to perfect as I can expect from anyone other than myself. It's not too hard to learn, and is fun to try and master. I, being the master thief I am, have beat it several times on the highest difficulty with a perfect record. That is, no kills whatsoever (only knockouts), never seen or caught, no bodies discovered, every possible bit of loot stolen, and no damage taken. Not easy. So worship my superior gaming skills, mortals!
And the besotted buffoon says, "I'm shorry, Ms. Heath's ghosht, for taking yer pie. I wash *hic* hungry..."
Pulled from the planet-sized mind of Christopholes around 9:27 PM
1 Comments:
Yes, I did say for PC, though there's an Xbox version, too.
Go for PC.
I think it was about $40 when I got it, but that may have dropped. Oh, and Jake? There's no multiplayer.
Just to warn you.
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