Released in 2004, Thief: Deadly
Shadows is the third game in the series. However,
this time it was developed by Ion Storm Austin,
after Looking Glass Studios closed doors.
I played the original Thief
demo in 1998 but didn't particularly enjoy sneaking
around in shadows, so I never played the full
game or it's sequel. But with Thief 3 based
on a heavily modifed Unreal 2 engine, I decided
I could put up with some slow gameplay in order
to explore the gorgeous Victorian city.
I'm glad I did too, because
it was very well designed. After playing through
Enclave and now Thief 3, I've been spoiled with
highly detailed, tight and twisting little levels.
The FPS genre needs more games in this style,
rather than modern war or sci-fi themes. Every
level in this game looks great, and there is
just enough variety in there so that you don't
get sick of the town theme. Level highlights
were the short but foreboding haunted, rotting
ship full of zombies. But it was an insane asylum
slash orphanage which wins the award for spookiest
level I've ever played. You help a ghostly little
girl try to escape the asylum, playing from
present time to back in the past through the
eyes of one of the insane patients. Very, very
well done.
Due to the level of sneaking
around in shadows and trying not to be seen,
this brings a whole new level of suspense to
first person shooters (if you can call this
that), which even horror games like Undying
couldn't do. If you get seen and have to engage
in a fight you're going to take a lot of damage,
which means you really can't treat this as an
action game. The style of gameplay works well,
but I did wish at times I could just run in
and shoot everything and be done with it. Instead,
you can easily spend ten minutes in an area
trying to knock each opponent out.
The game ends up being very
long, perhaps around twenty hours which is double
your average action FPS. Unfortunately, you
spend a great deal of time returning to levels
you've already played through over and over
again. Made worse by the fact that your maps
are useless and the levels are very non-linear,
so you can easily get lost in the streets which
often lack distinguishable features.
The biggest problem with the
game were the loading times. On a fairly new
system brought for gaming (8800GT, 3ghz Intel
Core 2 Duo) you don't expect loading times of
20 seconds on a game that is four years old,
featuring relatively small levels. Every time
I'd sneak up behind an enemy ready to knock
them out, only for them to slightly turn at
the last second or the character not swinging
the bat properly (it happens a lot!) I get to
sit through another 20 seconds of loading. Also
Garrett, the main character, acts like a complete
drunk sometimes with the way he moves - and
his ability to jump even a foot high object
is laughable.
Another big probably was over
15 hours into the game, my saved games corrupted
themselves and I lost everything. Fortunately,
someone had put all their saved games on the
internet for me to play from.
Overall, Thief: Deadly Shadows
features some fantastic little levels, enjoyable
gameplay and a great storyline. But you need
to be a patient person to sit through 20 hours
of creeping in the shadows.
