I can’t recall what exactly what drew me to sign up for Thief for my Power Hour Review. The trailer certainly is awesome. Watching it I get nostalgic for Kingdoms of Amular and Fable. It seems like it is going to be one of those big story games. Fighting evil, kicking ass, and most likely saving the world. I should have known, since it’s called Thief, that it would rely heavily on stealth, which I’m notoriously terrible at, and would likely not deliver on story (damn you Dishonored for ruining all other stealth games for me).
The game starts out letting you choose which difficulty mode you want to play in: Rogue, Thief, Master, or Custom. Rogue is for “thieves who want stealing and story without the sweat.” I personally really like that games are giving people the option of choosing this kind of mode. You used to have “easy” “medium” and “hard,” if that. I think these new options show that our conception of gaming has evolved. It’s not “easy,” it just focuses on different elements for a particular audience. (RHETORIC?). I am not too proud to choose a story-focused mode, so I chose Rogue. In the beginning, you don’t get much backstory. You don’t learn much about the main character, Garrett (worst thief name ever?), at all within the first hour. But honestly, the cut scenes are pretty laughable, with terrible acting and weird timing issues. So maybe I laughed over his story.
After an hour of gameplay I have not fallen in love with Thief. But here are my first impressions.
The good:
There is always more than one way to solve a puzzle. Much of the game is spent trying to get from point A to point B, without being seen of course. In many games like this there is one particular way to proceed, and you have to figure that out. In the Lego games, for example, when you have to progress there is typically a particular character you have to have, a spot you need to be in, or something you need to smash. With Thief, if you want to take 10 extra minutes to go some crazy way, that’s mostly allowed for within the game’s structure. For someone like me who is more puzzle-oriented, this made the game better than the average stealth game for me. I’ve also seen many reviews that say the stealth is particularly good in Thief. I usually don’t dig stealth, so I didn’t notice if it was good or bad. But I do notice bad stealth, so that must say something to the stealth in this game.
The bad:
At least within the first hour of play, the gameplay and interaction got fairly repetitive. Shadow, hide, move, hide, steal steal steal. Repeat. Again, I understand that this is the world of the stealth game, and if I found those actions fun, then this may not seem repetitive at all. Or perhaps I’m missing some nuance to what makes each scenario different. Or even more possible, since I chose story mode my action requirements may have been altered. Rather than pressing a timed combo of X and O, I just hit X (I’m not sure about this, just a hunch). I’m not sure why I found it so dull, especially when I play the same games over and over and over. But I did.
The unforgivable:
The story. Oh, oh, oh the story. Well, a combo between the story and the acting is really what kills the game. The mechanics aren’t good, but that’s how I feel about lots of stealth games because I just find this style difficult. However, if you hate story the mechanics aren’t good enough to sit through the story, and if you like story the acting is too bad and the story too nonexistent to make the less than exciting gameplay worth it, the game is doomed. And this is the main reason I will be returning this game and not purchasing it.
The reviews:
The reviews have been on a whole pretty bad. I think this quote from a review on Forbes.com sums up the feeling of the game’s critics:
There are some games that you play all the way through despite the fact that you’re not having much fun. They’re just good enough, or interesting enough, or addictive enough to shoulder through. To persevere in spite of it all.
Others are so bad that after an hour or so, you realize that there are just too many other things you’d rather be doing with your life. Like the dishes, or laundry.
Some aren’t so bad. The folks at IGN wrote a favorable review of Thief, saying that in the area of stealth the game excels. In combat, story, and almost everything else, it does fall flat. But in stealth, which is the most important part of a stealth game, Thief is pretty good according to critics. And I can get on board with that. Overall, I’d say it’s definitely worth the $2 you will spend on renting it from a Redbox. But I wouldn’t go running to Gamestop to drop $50 on it.
