Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)First thoughts on Thief III, which I played for about 3 hours last night.
Fun, but not quite as fun (so far) as the first two. On my system, it's a little laggy, but that's probably because my video card is about middle/low end, as far as their specs go (NVidia 5500 FX) and I don't have the money to upgrade to the top of the line vid cards they want. Graphics are not as fabulous as I've heard, but again, I've got a middle of the road vid card, and I can live with it.
I dove right in without reading the manual, so of course, the re-mapped weapons keys came as an unpleasant surprise. I had gotten so used to hitting '4' to get my water arrows in the first two games, but that's '8' now. They also swapped the blackjack and sword (dagger) keys, so I kept pulling out the dagger instead of the blackjack. And honestly, I don't miss the sword, but then I never used it in the first two except to cut down wall-hangings. I never kill guards, and only the occasional spiders. But, these key mappings can be easily changed, so I'm not complaining too much.
Pros/Interesting positive changes:
The training mission rocks for getting you up to speed quickly. It explains all the buttons, and many of the changes between this and the first two games in terms of actions and dynamics.
The dynamic lighting is nice. You can now extinguish candles and other lights (but, strangely, not torches) by walking up to them and 'using' them.
I haven't tried out the third-person mode yet. "First-person" is not what people traditionally think of as first-person in games - it's just like the camera is mounted on Garrett's forehead. I like it, as it lends a little bit more realism to things - you can look down and see his feet, turn and see his arms. It takes a little getting used to, but I like it.
Garrett seems to comment a lot more in this game too. If you pick up an item and try to put it down in a spot where it won't fit, he'll say "uh-uh". He'll make little quips about locations like he did in the first two, but it seems like there's more of those.
Lock-picking is a lot more involved and a lot of fun so far.
There are pieces of loot that are special - they're worth more than regular loot, and are often figured into the objectives. Loot glint is actually helpful, although I can understand the complaints that it makes things too easy. But at the same time, they made loot and non-loot look a lot more alike in this game, and they still managed to hide some loot in out of the way places where you can't see the glint from normal eye-level.
The City mode is a lot of fun. I already ransacked Garrett's landlord's apartment. Just a word of advice - don't blackjack someone in the middle of the street in front of three witnesses. (*whistle* I hit the wrong button, so sue me. I was trying to pick his pocket)
With a few notable exceptions (see below), the physics are a lot more realistic. Almost everything Garrett touches can be moved - he can knock over chairs, knock swords out of sword racks, push large tables and crates, knock cups and plates onto the floor. On normal difficulty, the guards will come if they hear the noise, but they don't seem to notice things being out of place. I imagine on the higher difficulties, they'll start investigating.
Everyone complains about there not being any swimming and the substitutions of climbing gloves for rope arrows. I haven't missed either so far. The loading zones are mildly annoying, but not too bad - they kind of sub-divide missions into smaller chunks. I really didn't mind them too much.
Nitpicks/Little funny issues:
The bright blue "use" highlight is annoying. I can deal, but it's still annoying.
I miss the briefing movies. There are cutscenes, but when you enter a mission, Garrett just reads the text while it's on the screen. No pretty movies.
The physics of the unconscious/dead bodies is really funny. I blackjacked a guy and he bent over backwards in a position that probably should have left him paralyzed. It's now possible for Garrett to trip over the bodies and make noise. No longer possible to "stack" bodies in quite the same amusing way as the original, although that's probably for the best. (No more setting it up like the servants were messing around....)
I managed to make a guard kill himself - I blackjacked him while he was carrying a torch, and he fell on the torch and died.
There's not really an option to quietly set things down either, which is somewhat annoying. (Maybe there is, but I just couldn't find it?) I picked up a cup up from a table without realizing it wasn't loot (still getting used to the loot glint vs. the bright blue "use" highlight.), and when I hit the button for drop - he literally dropped it, it rolled off the table, clanged onto the floor, and attracted a nearby guard.
Overall: Fun, so far. I still prefer the first two, but then I'm only one mission into this one. It felt like Thief, though, which was the most important thing to me. More later!
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Thief 3: Deadly ShadowsWelcome to the Ultimate Stealth Experience!Product InformationYou are Garrett a Master Thief rarely seen but never caught. Movingsilently through the shadows you are able to sneak past any guard pick anylock break into the most ingeniously secured residences. Stealing fromthe wealthy is all in a night's work.In this intense thriller of murderous conspiracy you must use your stealthtactics to uncover a sinister secret that lies within the city walls. Willyour skills be enough to save the dying city can you survive betrayalassassins and war in the labyrinth of city streets?Product FeaturesTension-fuelled stealth as enemies see and hear track evidence searchfor intruders give chase and fight to the end.A variety of gameplay - Break and Enter Steal Combat Ambush andAssassinate.A huge arsenal of Thieves' Tools at your disposal: Mechanical Eye FlashBombs Fire Arrows Wall Climbing Gloves to name but a few.Fully supported 1st and 3rd person perspective - it's your choice!Darkness is your weapon; conceal your presence sneak silently past guardsand strike from the shadows.Windows RequirementsWindows 2000 XP Vista1.5GHz processor256 MB of RAM3 GB Hard Disk spaceSupported graphics chipsets: ATi – Radeon 8500 Radeon 9 Series (90009200 9600 9800); nVidia – GeForce 3Ti Series GeForce 4Ti SeriesGeForce FX Series GeForce 6 Series. Graphics card must support Pixel Shader1.1. Unsupported graphics chipsets: nVidia – GeForce 4MX (460 440 420)GeForce 4 GO Quadro FX GO nForce 2 nForce 3DirectX 9.0b compatibleSound Card (minimum); EAX Advanced HDsupported – requires Sound Blaster Audigy range of Sound CardsDVD-ROM drive
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