Thief 3 Preview Shows Excruciating Detail, Insight

Thanks to EvilAvatar for pointing to an extremely in-depth preview of Ion Storm's PC/Xbox title Thief 3:Deadly Shadows, courtesy of fansite Thief: The Circle. The piece deals with some of the more controversial changes ("Loot glint is there whether you like it or not. It sort of clashed with the look/atmosphere to see this bright twinkling light across the room, but it aids in what has been one of the most frustrating elements in the earlier games: the loot hunt"), whether this is anything like Deus Ex 2 ("No. This game is actually finished at the time of its release") before concluding by noting: "Loot glint and arrow streaks mean exactly zip when you're actually... playing the game... and for once in the history of the series, the game actually looks GOOD." Update: 05/17 16:39 GMT by S : An anonymous reader also points to a detailed retrospective of the Thief series on the delightfully named FourFatChicks.com.

Comments

Looking forward to this game.

[Nebu]

I remember when I first played a Thief 1 demo that came on a CD that came with some magazine. A friend and I decided to try out the game, and we were simply blown away by the (at the time) amazingly realistic AI.

When we shot a guard a couple of times, he actually realized he was losing and decided to run away, unlike every other grunt I've seen in every other FPS who just kept running at you. To make things worst, as he was running, he shouted "Help! Help! Thief." We knew we were screwed unless we could silence him, so we took out our sword and chased after him.

He ran into a door, and closed it behind him. This, in itself, was another impressive detail, but we our jaws dropped when we tried to open the door and discovered he locked it!

We stood around the door, not sure what to do when all of a sudden it flung open and five guards came running out and pummeled us to death.

This was the first time I had experienced actually intelligent behaviour from a computer controlled character.

Thief Immersion

[Bobtree]

When the original Thief came out (back in 98/99?), I spent a good 6 hours or so at it one afternoon, only to finish when I realized I was starving and everyone had left our dorm for dinner. I had just quit the game and was sitting in the dark, gathering my appetite to head for the cafeteria, when another student walked by in the hallway, scuffing their feet and whistling.

I froze. Then I realized I couldn't find my blackjack. I was, in fact, sitting in my dorm room, and no longer playing Thief. That was a very weird realization, and somewhat of a dissappointment, because that noisy student sure had it coming.

I can't wait for Thief 3.

Re:Thief Immersion

[EnglishTim]

After playing splinter cell for some time recently, I found myself witha huge urge to turn on night vision whenever I went into a dark room or shadowed area. I also found myself keeping an eye out for security cameras and wanting to shoot out streetlamps...

Re:Thief Immersion

[Imperial Tacohead]

Every time I see a cop standing out beside his car, I think, "could I take that guy? Cop cars are pretty sweet." Stupid videogames robbing me of my sense of right and wrong.

Re:Why is stealth action so boring?

[Killjoy_NL]

The game is supposed to be slow, it gives you the time to think out a strategy to the situation at hand.

Personally (I'm not an elitist or trying to flamebait) I think that strategy/stealth games are for the more intelligent gamers. To each his own I guess.

Tension

[Bobtree]

Stealth games are slow because the deliberate pacing leads to very high tension situations. Tension is important, because it gives the player a vested interest in the outcome of their planning, and the higher the tension, the more important the outcome of their actions. This makes the player's observation and planning at least as important as their active execution. The danger of discovery and combat in Thief makes it's stealth very high stakes.

If you want more action and less planning, I'd recommend the Tenchu: Stealth Assassin series - where only line of sight contributes to stealth. Tenchu characters are practically Batman (auto-coiling grapple gun included) with Ninja gear. Played very well, a Tenchu game can be practically nonstop running 1-hit stealth kills, but it takes a lot of practice.

Hitman 2 & 3 are also great, if you like elaborately planned right-under-their-noses disguise, environment, and gadget oriented stealth killing. They also gives you the option to go full-guns-blazing if you are discovered.

Stealth games aren't for everyone, so if you just want action, play an action game already.

Re:Tension

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

You nailed it on that one. My most favorite Thief moment (hell, probably my favorite *game* moment ever was sitting in the shadows at a dead end with a guard walking *straight towards me* and whistling. I was trying to win the level without killing anyone, so shooting him was out. I waited and waited and *waited* (long hallway, y'know) for him to see me, but he stopped *two feet away* and then turned to walk off. I was going to run after him and blackjack him when I realised that I was on tile and that he'd nail me instantly. There was carpet ahead that he was walking on, but he was almost to the very end! I had to stand, jump to the beginning of the carpet without moving on the tile, sprint to the end of the carpet, and blackjack him. Right as I connected with his head, my foot hit tile. He went "What?" and went down at the same time. It may not sound that exciting in print, but imagine going through all that process in the space of about three seconds.

*That's* what makes the slow stretches exciting. My heart was about to *explode* when I hit him.

Re:Lack of information

[Bobtree]

Thief 3 purportedly uses the same Unreal-derived engine as Deus Ex 2 (with extra light/shadow and Havok physics goodies).

Hopefully this will mean it is map and mod-friendly like most Unreal engine games.

This is, arguably, a more important engine feature than raw rendering capabilities and performance are these days, at least in terms of a title's longevity. Witness Half-Life for example.

Atmosphere over Poly Count

[October]

Hopefully this will mean it is map and mod-friendly like most Unreal engine games. This is, arguably, a more important engine feature than raw rendering capabilities and performance are these days

I have always felt that the Thief series did the right thing to focus on the gameplay and style, rather than on the poly count. I'm happy to see the series getting a significant visual upgrade, as hopefully this will make it more accessible to gamers who haven't played the first two, but the important thing to me is that they keep the same atmosphere. What we've seen of the City in the previous games has a wonderful feel to it - dark, mysterious, and just a touch surreal. As long as they maintain that core style, I'll be happy.

Re:GPU intensive

[ZosX]

I would increase your RAM to at least 512, preferably 1 gig, as XP tends to eat up a good 256 right at boot. Also, your CPU would not be a huge bottleneck for a newer 3D card, so 1 gig would probably last you for a little while longer. Your biggest bottleneck would probably be AGP (does it support 4-6x on your board?) and your limited FSB which, hopefull is at least 266mhz. You may want to look into seeing if your motherboard supports something faster. I just bought a 1.6ghz AMD Athlon XP 2000+ for like $60 off of Pricewatch a few weeks ago. All it took to recognize the chip was a bios update, you should look into maxing out your CPU if it only costs you like $50-60.

Hope this answers your question!