I have always had an affinity with those who lurk in the shadows and have alternative ideas as to what the concept of ownership entails. Despite this, I have somehow managed to miss the Thief series up to this point. However, due to a somewhat incredible a series of unlikely events, it fell to me to write this review. Thief seems to be the latest on the rush to capitalize on the popular Eidos games of the 90’s, along with Deus Ex and Tomb Raider. However, while Deus Ex was a prequel set in the same universe and Tomb Raider was a new take on an old franchise, Thief seems to rest somewhere between reboot and sequel. Unfortunately what sets Thief apart from Deus Ex and last year’s Tomb Raider, is that it’s not very good.
Thief has you assume the role of Garret, the titular thief. During the game, you will sneak around, and try to solve a mystery while avoiding rousing the suspicion of the guards. The game is played in a first person point of view, and its stealth operates primarily on a sound and light mechanic. There is a light indicator at the bottom left of the screen that shows you just how exposed you are. Paying attention to light is important, and so the game gives you access to tools to help you navigate the darkness; these include things like the ability to dash ahead about 15 feet, allowing you to easily jump from shadow to shadow avoiding detection.
I AM THE NNNNN- Never mind.
Thief also makes a big deal about giving you different types of arrows to play with. Specialty arrows all have the effects you’re expecting. The water arrow will drown out torches, the fire arrow will set fire to specific spots, the rope arrows will allow you to climb to higher places, but again, only in pre-defined areas. There are blunt arrows, which allow you to trigger switches from a distance, and finally, explosive arrows, which explode on contact. The problem is that although the game is somewhat open, specially in the hub area, these items can only be used under specific circumstances. See a piece of rope tied around a beam? You know you are supposed to use a rope arrow. There’s a strange puddle? You are supposed to use your fire arrows to set it on fire. A lamp too inconveniently placed? There’s a switch you have to shoot somewhere. This makes it feel more like they are scripted events than allowing you to use the tools you are given creatively.
This is exacerbated by the focus ability, an ability that slows down times and highlights interactive things in the level, letting you know where to shoot that fire arrow, or which torch to extinguish with your water arrows. You may not want to use this, but in the samey, dark environments you may find yourself just going straight to focus so you get an idea what is interactive in the level. There are several upgrades to these focus abilities, like making lock picking easier, enhancing your stealth, or allowing you to take out guards easier during combat. You will get focus points during certain story events, but there are extra points hidden through the game. The problem is, I never really noticed the difference. The game felt like it played the same regardless of whether I had upgrades or not, or whether I was in focus mode or not. The only use I got out of focus was highlighting the interactive objects.
The game’s stealth is good, and tense. It felt great to sneak past a guard, and steal everything that wasn’t nailed down while he is turned around. The AI is good enough that guards will recognize when things are “not right”, meaning there is an open door that is supposed to be closed, or an open safe. This helps to ensure that you are extra careful, because even with combat upgrades, Garret is not a fighter. Having to fight guards is hard, especially in levels where there are a large number of them and getting caught will all but guarantee your death. It is a much better option to just run away. The problem is that if you know where the exit is, you can just make a break for the next section and neither enemies nor the alert status will follow you. This kind of devalues the excellent stealth game play, and it would have been easy to fix. Enemies can walk through doors too, there is no reason a simple change of room should quench their blood lust! Or the game could just close the door until guards are no longer looking for you.
The actual thievery in the game is also well done, but it feels very optional. In most levels and in the hub cities, there are very specific houses you can break into where you can steal pretty much everything that is shiny and not nailed down. Pens, forks, spoons, ink pots, Garret doesn’t care, as long as he can sell it. Awesome! The game also has some specific pieces that are collector’s items, and are usually behind difficult puzzles. When you are in a house, checking paintings for hidden safes and rummaging through drawers looking for anything shiny to take away, the game really feels like its in its element. With the money you get from stealing, you can buy extra tools to make your life easier, such as a wire cutter to disable traps, or a wrench to open ventilation shafts and break into places with greater ease. Some of the best treasure is behind traps after all. You can also get away with stealing nothing at all. Aside from the write cutter tool and the wrench, none of the the upgrades I got seemed to make much of a difference in how the game is played.
The thievery mechanic is clearly used to entice you to explore the levels, but the problem is that aside from the asylum level, which is great in terms of design and atmosphere and is genuinely creepy and unsettling, there just isn’t much that is interesting about the levels. While the levels do occasionally have different ways to navigate them depending upon your play style (for example, I usually opted for using the environmental to navigate, according to the game), there are points of no return, and its easy to accidentally find yourself on the other side of them when you are wandering through a level looking to fill your pockets with valuables. This is especially true of the main story quests, but you can occasionally run into them during the six side missions as well. It’s just as well, the game doesn’t care if you stole all that much in a level anyway. It does grade you but at no point does it impose a quota on you. It would have probably felt more like a game about stealing if there was some reason to steal, like if I don’t steal so much per level, then some mobster will break my legs or some other plot reason to justify thievery, but the story doesn’t really lend itself to it.
Speaking of the story, it’s a bland mess and does a very poor job at making Garret endearing to the player. At the beginning of the game, during the tutorial mission, Garret is introduced alongside another thief name Erin. There is a connection between the two characters. It is indicated that Garret is something of a mentor to Erin, but there was a falling out. After she is introduced, Garret proceeds to berate and belittle her for the entire mission. He calls her loud, unprofessional, slow, etc… the only instance where it feels Garret’s disapproval is warranted is when she kills a guard, which Garret does not approve of. A specific issue Garret has is Erin’s reliance on a tool called “the claw”, essentially a tool to help her climb higher. With some pride, Erin mentions she made it herself, and Garret does not approve of her reliance of this. At one point in the mission, Garret decides to steal it from her, setting off a series of events which cause her to fall to her death and Garret to become unconscious.
Mystical Old Lady: Also a check
Garret wakes up a year later. The town is in the clutches of a plague, that is killing many people. The police have become more brutal, as a rebellion is threatening to take the ruler of the city out. Garret, now in possession of the claw, proceeds to rely on the instrument for the entire game without a hint of irony. While trying to find out what happened to Erin, Garret starts to work for the rebellion, which, when it comes to power is more vicious and violent than those they rebelled against. If that sounds like Dishonored, is because that is the plot of Dishonored, just with much more boring characters, and samey levels and environments.
Then there’s the Thief Taker General who is supposed to be a rival of sorts for Garret. The first time you meet him he kills one of his henchmen for a minor offence, for no apparent reason. Then you witness him stealing items from the dead, taking bribes, selling drugs, and the game also strongly implies he is a pedophile. There is no real point to him other than to provide a boss battle late in the game. The problem is that he is not even the real villain The game already has a better villain that is much closer to the narrative of the game, and with whom the player has a history and a reason to hate. It is strange the game tries to make you hate the Thief Taker General so much. There seems to be little satisfaction to beating him in battle, while you don’t get to fight the person who turns out to be the main antagonist at all (you’ll guess who it is the second he is introduced, by the way, but I guess I won’t spoil it.)
Look at that cute face. He can’t be THAT evil.
So should you buy Thief? Not really, at least not at full price. $60 is a lot to ask for for a mediocre 9 hour experience. Thief does do some things well, the stealth is good, the actual thievery feels great, but both of those things feel rather inconsequential for the game, and there isn’t enough of either. Instead you’ll feel like you are playing an inferior version Dishonored, but instead of having Corvo as the main character, you have Batman in War Games (with Erin being Stephanie Brown in this scenario). If you are really desperate for a stealth game, this could fit the bill, and after all, it all depends how you want to play it, but I have to recommend you wait until the inevitable price drops there will be in the next few months.
