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Thief: Deadly Shadows Review
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Game Name:
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Thief: Deadly Shadows Review |
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Console:
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PC |
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Reviewed:
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Unknown |
Meet Garrett. He’s stealthy. He’s not one of the heroic stealthy types who use their skill to protect and save the free world. He prefers to use his stealth to make himself wealthy – saving the world is just a side hobby he’s trying to give up. Thief: Deadly Shadows is the third and final game in the Thief trilogy. The first two games were developed by the now defunct Looking Glass Studios, this one was developed by Ion Storm with a number of former LGS staff being hired for the project.
The Thief games are all about stealth – moving without detection and stealing things. The action is first or third person, the earlier games being first person only. The main character, Garrett is a master thief having been trained by a secret society known only as the Keepers. The Keepers have the job of monitoring the balance of power in the place where Garrett lives – a place known only as the City. The city is home to many other factions like a religious faction called the Hammerites or the nature lovers called the Pagans. The City is ancient; nobody truly knows its full history, not even the Keepers.
Garrett has many tricks up his sleeve to help him acquire wealth from others. Shadows are Garrett’s best friend, the darker the area he is standing in the harder he is to locate. To help with this, a light gauge is shown onscreen to indicate how well he is hidden. The darker the gauge is, the closer someone needs to be in order to see him. When the gauge is completely dark Garrett cannot be seen, he can still be heard though and if someone bumps into him they will become aware of his presence. Garrett can flatten himself against a wall to improve his shadow gauge and to help stay of the way of any guards. Noise is Garrett’s enemy, when he moves around he makes varying amounts of noise. The level of noise depends on what he is walking on and how fast he is moving. A metal or tile floor for example makes a great deal of noise when walked on and even more noise when run over. For some reason though, Garrett is completely silent when moving around in a crouching stance. This is a bad design choice I feel as it makes the game a bit too easy – mainly because fast crouch moving is faster than most guards so sneaking up behind them is a bit too easy.
As well as his natural abilities, Garrett has an assortment of tools to help him out. In previous games he was armed with a sword – for this outing he is armed with a dagger which he can use to fight with as a last resort. He can use this dagger to backstab an enemy resulting in an instant kill. However, backstabbing is not particularly silent and leaves bloodstains which will alarm others if seen. A more useful tool is Garrett’s blackjack. This can be used to render opponents unconscious with no noise or fuss. To perform a knockout with this tool Garrett must be standing directly behind an opponent. If you are in the right position, Garrett will raise the blackjack. Hitting with the blackjack at any other time will cause a small amount of damage and alert your target to your presence. If a human has been killed or KO’d, Garrett can carry them around and try to drop them somewhere they won’t be discovered. There is a really strange problem with the blackjack though, for some reason you can only use it on opponents who are on their feet. If they are standing or walking then there are no problems. If, however, they are sitting down then you can’t blackjack them no matter what. Another blackjack oddity is when you blackjack someone carrying a weapon like a sword – when your victim gets KO’d their weapon drops with a loud clatter. For some reason this noise never attracts attention and nobody ever cares about the weapon left lying on the ground.
Garrett also carries a bow which can be used with a range of special arrows. Broadhead arrows are mainly used to wound/kill enemies. Hitting an oblivious opponent in the neck with one will usually kill them instantly. Any other kind of hit will wound them and put them on alert. Water arrows can be used to douse flames and clean up bloodstains. Gas arrows will render unconscious any living thing near where they hit. They are very useful for taking out enemies who you cannot sneak up on or groups of enemies standing near each other. Fire arrows will detonate on impact – they will cause a great deal of damage and can relight torches. They make a great deal of noise when they detonate though. They are quite useful for killing undead. Moss arrows will cover a small area with soft moss. Moving over the moss causes no noise at all, regardless of what is underneath it. Noisemaker arrows have a small firecracker attached to their tip. As their name suggests they make a fair amount of noise when fired and can be used to lure guards towards a certain location – or more specifically, away from their current location. Using one of these arrows will make them more alert in the future however and unlike previous games these arrows can’t be picked back up and reused. Strangely missing from this game are rope and vine arrows where were very useful in the earlier games. They have been replaced by climbing gloves which I will cover below.
Rounding out Garrett’s toolkit are some special items. Flash bombs produce an extremely bright flash of light which will temporarily blind anyone looking at them when they go off – even Garrett. Hitting someone while they are blinded will cause them to recover instantly though. I suppose this is an improvement over the first two games where you could blind a group of guards with a flash bomb and quickly blackjack them all into dreamland but it seems a little unrealistic for them to suddenly recover. When flash bombs are used on undead they cause will damage. Mines are explosive proximity devices that will injure or kill anyone nearby when they detonate. They also make a lot of noise when they go off. Health potions restore some of the health that Garrett has lost. Holy water is only useful against undead creatures. If it is thrown against an undead it will cause a great deal of damage. If thrown against the ground however it creates a puddle which lasts for a short while and damages any undead that steps into. Undead will become paralysed when entering a holy water puddle and will soon die. This potentially allows a single vial of holy water to take out several undead. Oil flasks cover the ground with slippery oil which will trip anyone moving over it. Hitting an oil patch with a fire arrow sets it alight although this seems to do only a small amount of damage to creatures passing through it. Gas bombs are similar to gas arrows but are thrown by hand. Climbing gloves can be purchased during the game; they allow Garrett to climb up most stone walls – very useful in a city where most things are made of stone.
No true thief would be without a set of lock picks. This is another feature that has changed from earlier games. Previously Garrett would have to apply one of two lock picks to a lock, in some cases swapping in the middle of the attempt, until the lock opened. In Deadly Shadows the lock picking is like mini game with a series of rings representing the tumblers of the lock. Garrett must find the sweet spot for each tumbler which is indicated visually by the ring shaking – clicking the mouse button will crack the tumbler and allow him to move onto the next. This takes a little bit of getting use to but with practice most locks can be opened within about 10 seconds.
Loot glint is a somewhat controversial addition to the thief series in Deadly Shadows. Any item that of value that Garrett can steal will have a sparkling effect added to it. This slightly breaks the immersion but the designers consider it to be a valid feature as Garrett, being a master thief, should be able to quickly appraise any items he can see to determine if they are worth taking. Loot glint doesn’t seem to work perfectly though as some valuables don’t have it even if they can be stolen. I feel it is a good feature since the earlier games would see you picking up items just to work out if they were valuable or not.
The first two Thief games were mission based. You were generally given the chance to buy some equipment using money from the last mission before being dropped directly into your next mission. Thief: Deadly Shadows starts out like this but then moves to a slightly more freeform model. Garrett can wander around parts of the City, looting buildings and either pick pocketing or mugging people wandering the streets. He has to avoid the city watch though and members of any faction he has bad relations with. Sometimes Garrett will find small quests that he can undertake for profit while wandering the City. Early in the game he will also be approached by the Hammerite and Pagan factions asking him to perform tasks to earn their favour. These tasks are usually fairly simple and performing them will raise his status with them. When they like you enough you can freely walk through their territory without them trying to kill you. Befriending the Hammerites is a really good idea as you can then take free holy water from their fort. One of the Pagan’s requests is a bit obscure though, they ask you to fire moss arrows into “specially marked” cornerstones throughout the city. It would have been helpful if they gave you directions to one of them as they aren’t so easy to recognise when you don’t know what you are looking for (they look like big, black stones that stick out of the corner of certain buildings). One of the Hammerite quests on the other hand is an insult to Garrett’s stealthy nature. You have to shoot rust mites found around the city with your broadhead arrows – for some reason these bugs explode loudly when they die which brings any nearby guards running. I get the impression that the faction system has suffered from cutbacks during development. While the quests aren’t that hard the rewards aren’t that great either. I suspect Garrett was meant to learn some of the spell casting abilities of each faction when he did enough favours for them. As it is, the main reward of being able to pass safely through their territory is worth the small effort needed.
Since you no longer are given a shopping screen before each mission, it’s up to Garrett to go and buy what he needs himself. Thankfully each area of the city has black market stores. These stores come in two varieties – fences and shops. The fences will buy any loot you have from you. However each fence only buys a couple of types of loot so you might be able to sell your metal items and gems to a fence but not the paintings you have. The shops sell all the items Garrett can use as well as some special items like the climbing gloves or practice locks. Each store only has a limited range of goods though so you might need to travel to a different part of the City to get what you need. The strangest thing about the fences is that even things like a bag of coins needs to be sold to them; I really can’t imagine why you’d need to sell coins off – perhaps the thieves have their own currency?
Because of restrictions in the game engine, Garrett cannot swim in this game. If he falls into deep water it results in instant death. This arguably more realistic than the first two games where Garrett could swim like a fish no matter how much stuff he was toting around. A less appreciable change though is the default movement being set to running. You can’t remap the keys to have separate buttons for run and walk – you have the hold the walk button to force Garrett to remain at the slower speed. If Garrett “dies” while out in the City he will be taken to the local jail where he can attempt to escape. This only happens once though, if you manage to escape from there the next time you “die” it will be game over.
In some cases you have the choice of which mission you wish to attempt next. Mission areas are indicated by a glowing glyph outside their entrance. You need to travel through the City to get to the entrance. Once you start a mission though, you can’t exit that area until you are finished. The faction friendship rules don’t apply during missions. Even if you are friendly with the pagans for example, any pagans you encounter will attack you on sight. Likewise, you don’t lose faction ratings if you rob/kill them.
There are many improvements in Thief: Deadly Shadows over the previous games. The graphics engine in particular looks drastically better than earlier games and has a much better physics engine. Fans of Thief 1 and 2 will remember the pseudo rag doll physics of guards when they were killed or KO’d. They’d always slump over to the ground the same way. Even if most of their body was lying over empty space they’d still lie flat. This time around there is a proper rag doll system in place. Well, sort of. Sometimes people collapse into rather odd positions like dropping down onto their knees with their entire bodies arched backwards. Sound is also excellent with directional sound helping you identify where guards are currently located. You also get audio clues as to the guard’s alertness state – they will make comment if you hear or see something suspicious.
One annoying feature of the game is the “blame everything on Garrett” syndrome that pops up sometimes when you are exploring the city. Any time anyone is found dead, even if you aren’t the culprit, the city watch will be intensified in that region. This can make sneaking around a lot harder, even if you’ve been a good boy – so to speak. The city sections also seem to be frozen in time every time you leave them. If you return to an area, everyone will be in the same position they were before. So if you flee an area with a mob of angry guards in hot pursuit – don’t go back in through the same gate. Areas are reset after you complete each mission though.
The AI in this game is pretty good. Guards will react if they hear or see something suspicious. If they find nothing they will return to their normal routine. If they do spot you though they will go into full alert mode and try their best to kill you. Once a guard has been alerted they will be a lot more vigilant from then on and will be harder to sneak past. They also warn other guards that they have seen you. If a guard chases you around for a while they will usually stop every so often, wheezing and trying to catch their breath. They also have a certain amount of morale – if you lay enough hurt on them they will run away from you and try to find help. One funny trick is to sneak up and steal a guard’s weapon. They won’t be able to attack you if they see you and will have to run off to find help. The dynamic shadows in Thief 3 play an important part in the game AI. Guards can see your shadow, so if you try to sneak up on someone with a light at your back they will see you coming and react. Likewise, some guards are carrying torches which will limit your ability to hide in the shadows when they approach. AI controlled humans will react to each others presence, often giving each other hellos or snide comments depending on who they are talking to. One really interesting part of the game is that weapons the guards are carrying are calculated realistically. I’ve seen a swing from a guard fail to hit me because there was a chair in the way. I’ve also taken damage from an oblivious guard walking past, just because his sword happened to graze me.
Some parts of the plot are kind of ridiculous. At one point Garrett is being hunted by the Keeper Enforcers. The Enforcers are squad who have been magically enhanced and use a special magical weapon to take down their foe. These guys are supposed to belong to a secret society but when they are chasing you they openly roam the streets killing anyone who is carrying a weapon. Between these and later foes it’s a wonder the City has any living residents by the end of game. On the matter of killing, I feel this game has taken a downturn from the first two games where higher difficulty levels prohibited you from killing since Garrett is a thief, not a murderer or an assassin. This release seems to be much indifferent to killing. In some cases you are even prompted to make a kill as a way of making progress. Other than that the plot is pretty good with some unexpected twists and turns. The missions are always about stealth but vary in location. Some are in mansions, others are in caves. One mission is set in a haunted former orphanage/insane asylum. That makes perfect sense doesn’t it? If you died, wouldn’t you want your child being on a first name basis with someone who ate their own parents? Previous Thief games had missions with varying amounts of scare factor. Some people couldn’t even finish the first Thief due to missions that were filled with undead. The orphanage, called the Shalebridge Cradle, has 90% of the entire scare factor for the game. Thieves planning to explore its insides are advised to load up on flash bombs, fire arrows, holy water and a couple of spare sets of underwear.
Since Thief 3 was developed on the PC and Xbox at the same time it suffers from a console limitation in the form of loading zones. Between different sections of the city and between parts of each mission you will find swirling blue mist which indicates a path to another section of the game. The PC version doesn’t actually need these; they are a carryover from the Xbox version. The zones are pretty big in most cases so it isn’t that much of a problem. It would have been nice if they’d removed that limitation from the PC version though.
If you are a fan of the Thief series or stealth games in general I can easily recommend Thief 3. The pros well and truly outweigh the cons. Even better, Eidos have allowed the SDK to be released so a number of fans are busily making their own game mods.
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