Springheel on 9/12/2013 at 17:57
Quote Posted by Chade
In the third person takedown you linked to Garret grabs his head (but does not cover his mouth), knees him in the back, and then, while still holding his head with one hand, whacks him with the blackjack.
Ok, I went back frame by frame. We're both wrong. Garrett is NOT using his blackjack; his hands are both empty, as visible below. He grabs the guard's head with both hands and wrenches it back, causing a loud cracking sound, but then he winds up (visible in the screencap), holds the guard's head with his left hand, and
punches him in the head with his right hand, causing him to scream (guess his neck isn't broken then) before collapsing.
So it's not a neck-break, but you've still got a bare-handed thief taking out a trained guard who has his sword out, which is think is a ridiculous escalation of Garrett's combat abilities.
Inline Image:
http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?app=core&module=attach§ion=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=9959SubJeff on 9/12/2013 at 19:05
The game does indeed look great.
But something about it is off. I think it's the writing - it's pretty poor (although I thought the robe line was quite amusing and apt and it was said in a SR style which I liked) and I think that reflects the creative drive behind this being less than stellar.
Chade on 9/12/2013 at 21:11
Quote Posted by Springheel
Ok, I went back frame by frame. We're both wrong. Garrett is NOT using his blackjack; his hands are both empty, as visible below. He grabs the guard's head with both hands and wrenches it back, causing a loud cracking sound, but then he winds up (visible in the screencap), holds the guard's head with his left hand, and
punches him in the head with his right hand, causing him to scream (guess his neck isn't broken then) before collapsing.
So it's not a neck-break, but you've still got a bare-handed thief taking out a trained guard who has his sword out, which is think is a ridiculous escalation of Garrett's combat abilities.
Ok, so no blackjack.
I didn't get the impression that it's a combat ability. I thought it was a third person takedown animation. I don't have any particular evidence to back me up, though, other then that we know they have third person takedowns and I've never heard of anyone mentioning similar abilities during combat.
Springheel on 9/12/2013 at 21:27
I meant "combat abilities" in a more generic sense. Not what the player can do in actual combat, but what Garrett as a character is supposed to be capable of. There was nothing in the previous games that gave the impression that Garrett was capable of defeating an armed guard with nothing but his bare hands.
Now, apparently, he's some kind of badass superhero.
Renzatic on 9/12/2013 at 21:44
Quote Posted by Springheel
Now, apparently, he's some kind of badass superhero.
Not really. I'd say he's just trained.
It's a little over the top, but he did take the guard by surprise, after all.
Chade on 9/12/2013 at 22:02
Quote Posted by Springheel
I meant "combat abilities" in a more generic sense. Not what the player can do in actual combat, but what Garrett as a
character is supposed to be capable of. There was nothing in the previous games that gave the impression that Garrett was capable of defeating an armed guard with nothing but his bare hands.
Now, apparently, he's some kind of badass superhero.
Hrmm. The "badass superhero" comment seems a bit hyperbolic to me. He's meant to be a badass superhero ... who has to catch his opponent unawares in order to do any of his badass superhero moves? Isn't that the very opposite of the badass superhero cliche?
Your "defeating an armed guard with his bare hands" comment seems like a misleading way of putting it, too. Normally that expression would mean that Garret can defeat the armed guard in "fair" one on one combat. That's not even remotely similar to what happened here.
I don't
like the third person takedowns, as such, but I don't see them as being all that different thematically to the blackjack either. In one, Garrett ambushes the guard unawares and whacks him on the head with a blackjack. In the other, Garrett ambushes the guard unawares and hits him a few times before knocking him out by hitting him in the head. In both cases he had to get the drop on them before he could take them out, and he avoided killing them. Those are the two major themes here, in my opinion. I don't see the big deal in the specific sequence of blows Garrett strikes when ambushing a guard.
apostrophe on 9/12/2013 at 23:25
I don't recognize Thief there.
Maybe i'm too knee deep in the past (I haven't played T:DS yet), but this is unrecognizable. The pace, the edginess, the characters, the ingame cutscenes, it's all so
apparant, so
out front, the familiarity with the first two games is, to me, lost.
Thinking about it, it's real funny. The deepest of rivers sure are the quietest. Like a book, like literature, the impressions the work strikes in the subject is subjective; handing the imagery and the universe is HALF the art, the other half is a blank, or as in Thief's cutscenes, a shadowy figures in the observer's mind.
Compare the two:
Garrett in the Dark Project
Inline Image:
http://static3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080711212336/thief/images/a/a3/Final_cutscene_19.jpg"NuGarrett"
Inline Image:
http://www.gameranx.com/img/13-Mar/thief-garrett.jpgLook how propped our revisited friend is. The pose, the look, the outfit. I'm almost embarassed to look into his eyes. It's like viewing an old time roommate's facebook, who just discovered some new industrial or clubber subtype musical genre, and loves dressing the part and posing with his new designer friends.
hm
Springheel on 10/12/2013 at 00:25
Quote:
Not really. I'd say he's just trained.
What kind of training gives you the ability to knock out an armed guard by twisting their neck and punching them in the head? Special forces? Ninja? Is there an answer to that question that suits the Garrett that we used to know?
Quote:
Your "defeating an armed guard with his bare hands" comment seems like a misleading way of putting it, too. Normally that expression would mean that Garret can defeat the armed guard in "fair" one on one combat. That's not even remotely similar to what happened here.
Oh come now. Isn't that splitting hairs? We both know what scenario I'm talking about, so how can I be "misleading"? The guard has his sword out, clearly alert, and he has a helmet on, yet Garrett is able to grab him from behind and completely incapacitate him with his bare hands.
Quote:
I don't see them as being all that different thematically to the blackjack either.
So you don't think hitting someone with a club is much different than breaking their neck (or nearly so) with your bare hands? Or are you just saying that it's different, but you're fine with it?
Chade on 10/12/2013 at 01:09
It's not hair-splitting: you're using a very strong phrase that has no relation to the scenario at hand. I don't mean to imply you're trying to mislead me. If anything, I would claim that using such strong language is misleading yourself!
Speaking of the scenario at hand, we do have different opinions about what is happening here. You think the guard is alert and actively searching, presumably on edge and ready to respond to attacks at a moments notice, hence implying that Garrett's ability to take him out like requires extra skill. I don't have that impression. I think we're seeing a third person takedown animation on an unalert guard.
Let's assume for the sake of the argument that you're right about the situation. We've got a guard who is suspicious, is searching for Garrett, and Garrett sneaks up behind him and knocks him out. So let's be clear about what we're complaining about: from a gameplay pov this could be a situation straight out of thief 1. The only difference is the animation that plays when you knock the guard out.
So firstly, there's only so much I can get worked up about what I regard as trivial window dressing. So EM want to make non-lethal options look "cool". Would I want it for myself? Not really. But if you're going to make a mass-market thief game, are cool stealthy optional takedown animations really such a terrible way to make stealth appealing? Aren't you chucking the baby out with the bath water by complaining about it?
Secondly, no matter what moves Garrett makes to take someone out unawares, as long as he can't repeat the feat in actual combat, I wouldn't come anywhere close to calling him a badass superhero.
Thirdly, it's a quick and vicious attack from behind on a guy who has no idea Garrett is there. Is this really such an incredible feat from a guy who has blackjacked half the City by now? I dunno, I am the first to admit I have absolutely no idea how these things work in the real world. If I were going to complain about it, I would focus more on the character of the attack, not the skill behind it. It appears less surgical and more vicious. Perhaps because of that change in character, though, it doesn't appear incredibly skillful to my untrained eye.
Springheel on 10/12/2013 at 01:31
I'm not sure we're going to see eye-to-eye on this. I'm not talking about the gameplay implications; in gameplay terms it doesn't matter if Garrett clubs someone, breaks their neck, or whispers a sleep spell into their ear. But each of those options changes the kind of character Garrett is.
