Thief 3: Deadly Shadows

I absolutely hate the fact there are no interactions and scenes between levels really does take something away from the game. Please bring those back if there is a thief 4, they really add to sucking you into the game. I also hate the loss of some controls. No Swinging on the Rope arrows, No Leaning Around doorways to blackjack. And the Zone like doorways what in the heck is that. Thief the Metal age had Huge Huge areas in the game that were very complex. This game being 3 cd's is actually much smaller and less complex than the previous versions. I am also starting it off on expert level right away, 3 levels deep still 100% of all the loot. No real difficult things to figure out and No real fun things to do to stray Garret from the path. How Many old thief players took a running Jump from the 3rd floor of Lord Bafford's Mansion while running from a guard praying you hit the pool and not the cobble stone edge of the pool. And the last thing I noticed Garrret doesn't talk to you as much, Bring Back the Funny Garret one liners or put a few more in. Garret seems to have lost his sense of humor. However all these bad things I listed, the Game still gets 4 stars.

Ok, enough of the Bad I am done benig a taffert, the good, Oh it's Garret alright. There is no mistaking him, even if he has lost some sense of humor. He is still calm cool and collected. If you played Thief before you have no trouble recognizing him. How the heck they found either the guy that originally did Garrets voice or found a great replacement I do not know but it is the old soothing Garret. The Graphics, are outstanding I can not confirm but I would swear the one time I got up close and personal with a guard he had stubble on his face that threw moving shadows. I didn't last too long because they grabbed my attention so much I had to just stop and appreciate the graphics. But the Actual in game graphics are better than the closing Cinematic of the previous games. The new ability to flatten to a wall is cool. But really haven't found it overly useful. I am still a die hard crouch in the shadows fan but I am sure I will get use to having it there. The new lock picking is better and a lot more interesting. At first it annoyed me, but you know now I can appreciate it. How many times did I sit there and not pay any attention to the lock picking before, you got in the habit of just holding down the mouse buttons while letting it work. Now you got to really work it. So for the old Garret everything else you will feel right at home and the Story continues. Excellent job at continuing the story. But also it is not so entrenched as the new person could not pick this up and just start playing. Be Warned the Guards have some new tricks to root you out of hiding as well.

PC Requirements, with the Graphics seems a bit high. I have a Huge Alienware system, 4 gigs Ram, 256 meg 8X AGP GForce and first thing I did was crank the graphics up to the highest level. I had to step them down a couple notches because I was getting some staggering jumps in some spots. Other than that it ran fine, and there is nothing sweeter than seeing Garrets shadow as you run past torches and stuff.

In Closing The Old Thief Player will not be disappointed, but slightly annoyed at the lack of some of Garret's abilities, and some other interface changes. The New Player should find this as extremely absorbing as the original games were to us old farts. And this is a fairly Unique game. There has never been anything like the Thief line and I do not think there ever will be.

The graphics and music are far more extensive and immersive than the previous games. Merging that with awesome level design makes you want to explore every nook and cranny just to see it all. Unlike other people who have said that playing earlier "beta" versions yielded no multi-level, multi-roomed mansions you're sorely mistaken. This game teems with huge complicated maps and manors.

The weapons array is, for the most part, the same as the last game minus the rope arrows. You get climbing gloves instead which have many tiny hooks on it to grasp vertical surfaces. Not all missions are condusive to climbing gloves but then again when it's available you'll use the heck out of them. There are a few more tricks in your arsenal and this time around you visit shops to buy/sell your loot and weapons. Nice addition!

All in all Thief 3 is well worth the price of purchase and with the new modern game engine is quite viable for making third party mods and conversions. Yay! Buy the game and enjoy it! :)

The lack of cutscenes really hurts too - in 1 and 2, they were very atmospheric, and really added to the immersion factor.

Those things said, the voice acting was superb, the story was immersive, and the factions played their parts well. I enjoyed having to work with fences to offload the loot, and shopping the stores was a nice addition.

As for the video updates, it just seemed like we lost gameplay options to accomodate the upgraded graphics. Why not allow pixel shading to be disabled? Without that ability, lots of folks are going to find out that their card doesn't really run this (I am using a GF4 ti4600, and it runs OK).

With Deus Ex 2, and Thief 3, I am starting to worry about Ion Storm. Here's hoping HL2 and DOOM3 don't follow the same road...

I finished it once through already and never once was the story or action not gripping. There are times it is even really, really scary. Creepier than games that are meant to be scary.

I love the climbing gloves and being able to do break-ins and mug people.

The only wish item is that the areas were bigger with a lot more
places to break into. There really aren't that many, and when you get the climbing gloves, you already broke into most of them.

I love this game and beat it at normal difficulty. I plan on playing it again at the highest setting.