thiefinthedark on 4/4/2013 at 17:39
Quote:
Thief is played from a first-person perspective, although
the game will shift to third-person when Garrett scales walls or
goes into combat.Quote:
To this end, Garrett has been equipped with some impressive abilities, including being able to peek around corners or objects without being spotted, and
slow down hand-to-hand combat in order to pick specific parts of your enemy's body to target.Quote:
Garrett has Lara Croft's annoying habit of talking about what he's doing in such a way that it
spoils moments of discovery in favour of making sure you know exactly what to do.Quote:
Garrett also digs out his old blackjack, useful for clobbering guards (either in the face during fights or on the back of the head to avoid them)
and this time it's going to be upgradeable, as will your Focus abilitiesHOW DO YOU UPGRADE A BLACKJACK?!?!?
Quote:
The new Thief makes obvious concessions to players who have been brought up on gaming in the nine years since Deadly Shadows - for instance,
when you're navigating narrow beams you will be guided along them automatically and dismounting will require you to press a button.Pack it in, get the coffin ready. This is absurd. :tsktsk:
van HellSing on 4/4/2013 at 17:43
Quote Posted by Tomi
You say that like we weren't all expecting it all along, van Boring.
I direct you to my third person hybrid thread, where quite a few people were in denial.
skacky on 4/4/2013 at 17:44
Dumbing-Down: The Game.
jay pettitt on 4/4/2013 at 17:46
Quote:
To this end, Garrett has been equipped with some impressive abilities, including being able to peek around corners or objects without being spotted,
and slow down hand-to-hand combat in order to pick specific parts of your enemy's body to target.I'm guessing this is kind of a pick your takedown animation system.
Tomi on 4/4/2013 at 18:01
Quote Posted by van HellSing
I direct you to my third person hybrid thread, where quite a few people were in denial.
Oh, I was hoping for an option to turn off the third person stuff too. I just meant that we were all expecting you to jump at every
"I told you so!!!" opportunity (as if many of them are that hard to predict), because that's just about the only reason why you're posting here, isn't it van TrollSing?
van HellSing on 4/4/2013 at 18:03
:rolleyes:
Weasel on 4/4/2013 at 18:06
Quote Posted by thiefinthedark
HOW DO YOU UPGRADE A BLACKJACK?!?!?
Didn't Thief 3 have an upgrade for the blackjack?
van HellSing on 4/4/2013 at 18:08
It did, kind of. It let you destroy the gargoyle enemies.
thiefessa on 4/4/2013 at 18:11
Quote Posted by Tomi
Oh, I was hoping for an option to turn off the third person stuff too. I just meant that we were all expecting you to jump at every
"I told you so!!!" opportunity (as if many of them are that hard to predict), because that's just about the only reason why you're posting here, isn't it van TrollSing?
There are some minimal 3P elements in Thief
DX:HR had it too. A lot of fans were against this choice before release, but they still ended up liking/playing the game though. Right, Hellsing? :cheeky:
Renzatic on 4/4/2013 at 18:13
This is what I've gathered from the RPS and Escapist articles...
Barring a few modern game design hiccups that may or may not be all that annoying, it sounds like New Thief is pretty much what we've all wanted out of a Thief game.
It's not separated into levels. You now have one gigantic city to explore. You want to go to Bafford's Manor? You're gonna have to look at your map and march across town to get there. Either you can walk along the streets, sneak about in the sewers, or go Life of the Party and jump around across the rooftops, diving into open windows and walking around in apartments when you can't.
This is one of the positives of looking to Mirrors Edge and Assassin's Creed's for gameplay ideas. The difference here is that it sounds to be much more intimately detailed, and not nearly so automatic. It won't be playing itself. You'll be the one jumping. You'll be the one shooting rope arrows or THE CLAW to gain some height. You'll be the one mantling over ledges. It still plays like a Thief game (barring a few modern blah blah blah).
Dynamic lighting. New Thief is doing what Thief 3 failed to accomplish, and TDM only partially succeeded at.
Imagine a situation where you're in a dark room. It's storming outside, but you're tucked away in the shadows, perfectly safe. Those three guards stumbling about looking for you? They don't know where you're at. Then a bolt of lightning lights the room. The shadows flicker, dive about wildly...
...and suddenly those there guards know exactly where you are.
Putting out candles and lights? Works the firsts time. Guards won't think nothing of it. Must've been the wind. Second time? Well that's weird. Third time? Someone's sneaking about around here. We need to go into full alert mode and find the bastard.
The AI is now much more aware of its surroundings. If it lives up to the promise, none of you here are gonna be able to ghost a mission nearly as easily as you once could. The guards are smarter, and the darkness no longer a permanent safe zone. You'll have to be that much more aware of your surroundings to compensate.
It's also kinda nice you've got more tools to help you escape in the now much more likely scenario that you get spotted. While the presentation might be a little overblown and slightly cheesy, a master thief, while not a expert fighter, will probably know how to punch a guy in the kidneys and knock him down so he can make his escape. Hence focus.
Garrett is now more agile. I know this ticks some of you off, but comeon. A guy who spends most of his work day scaling walls, then hunkering down and walking on the balls of his feet is gonna have the grace of a ballerina and the jumping ability of a basketball player. He's a cat burglar. I don't expect him to be able to leap tall buildings, but I sure as hell expect him to be able to jump around and scale a waist high wall without trying three times.
The gameplay, barring a few modernization gameplay blah blah blah, sounds like it's gonna be pretty damn grand. It's a Thief game, but with complexity and nuance added thanks to the extra horsepower of modern PCs and consoles.
The smart game we're all claiming to hope for? I can't say for a fact you'll get it, but I've seen and heard enough to think we might.
Now for the bad/to taste/with a grain of salt bits
Thematically, this is a Thief game. We know it's got Garrett. The Keepers have been mentioned. It's likely we'll see the Hammerites and the Pagans. We might even see a few burricks roaming about.
...but the presentation is going to be completely different.
This isn't LGS' Thief. This is EM's Thief. For reasons good or bad, they don't have Stephen Russell on board anymore. This means that Benny, the booming voiced Hammerite priests, the sheepish townfolk, all those people SR did...none of them are gonna sound the way you remember. The new people they get to do the voicework could be just as good, but it won't be the same to you. Won't feel the same.
Ditto on the music and sound effects. The new guys and gals? They'll be good at what they do. But they're not Eric Brosius. They'll follow his example to a point, but they'll be bringing their own style to the mix. It won't feel the same.
The world. The City. The characters. They're all going to be similar in style, different in execution. This is a reboot, done by an entirely different group of people. It won't be quite the Thief you currently know and love.
And you know what? I welcome it. Not because I think LGS' style is old and outdated. Not because I think Thief NEEDS to be expanded in a different direction. Hell. I'd love to see the old LGS crew get back together to make a new Thief game. But it's not gonna happen.
Instead, I'd rather EM do their own thing with Garrett and the City, and maybe possibly succeed in doing something unexpected and interesting, than for them to try and copy LGS from top to bottom, and likely fail at doing it. Remember the Pagans from Thief 3? Slippery sneaksies thiefsies, Ises goeses to the marketsies? Do we really want an entire game like that?
As I've said about a hundred times before, New Thief is going to be different. That doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be bad. The old games aren't going anywhere. Let's see if a new team can bring something new to the scene.
