Thief: Deadly Shadows Updated Impressions
The master thief Garrett is getting ready for his biggest heist yet. Get the details here.
Did You Hear Something?
We watched two different PC levels in action, which are currently named "Museum" and "Castle." In the Museum level, we watched Garrett scout out the perimeter of a museum by carefully walking across the flagstones in the courtyard outside. Deadly Shadows' game engine has the same sound propagation technology as Invisible War, so walking on cobbled stones will be far more noisy than walking on carpet or grass. We watched as Garrett carefully avoided the gate guards and downed one of them with an arrow to the head; then he finished off the others.
Once inside, Garrett began searching for his mission objective, which involved the retrieval of an important artifact that was kept in the heart of the museum. During his search, he also stole nearly every piece of loot he could find. In the early version of the game, picking up loot in a mission pulled up a brief text message that indicated how much loot you were carrying, as well as what percentage of the total loot in the level you had recovered so far. Like Invisible War, Deadly Shadows clearly indicates any items that you can interact with (or any loot that you can steal) by highlighting them with a glowing light when you face them. Garrett then picked a lock using the game's lock-picking system, which lets you fiddle with the tumblers of a lock while you are timed. If you're on the right track, you'll receive a visual cue in the PC version, and your controller will vibrate in the Xbox version. By sneaking past the guards, our hero was able to locate a master switch so that he could cut the power to the museum, thus temporarily killing the lights and giving him many more places to hide.
We were also able to see Garrett in action in a City section in the Xbox version, where he's generally treated as a normal citizen unless he's caught doing something suspicious. In these areas, Garrett can knock out and rob any citizen and can break into any house, as long as he isn't caught doing so. These areas not only serve as good sources of loot for keeping Garrett well-supplied, but they may also provide important clues about upcoming missions--or about especially choice bits of treasure for him to pinch. Garrett can pick up scattered notes with important clues in both missions and City sections, but he can also overhear rumors in City taverns. In this City section, we watched as Garrett broke into a random house. More specifically, he broke into a winery by picking the door's lock. He then snatched up all the loose bottles of wine.
Since Deadly Shadows is powered by the Invisible War engine, it features all of that game's fancy accoutrements, including dynamic lighting and shadows, as well as normal-mapping--these features help make the dank streets of the City and its network of pipes and roads look appropriately cold and dark. The game also features the Havok 2.0 physics engine, which not only allows for rag-doll death animations but also allows environmental objects to be manipulated in Garrett's favor (or against it). For instance, in the Castle level, we watched Garrett clamber up the side of a wall and then topple a huge barrel down onto a guard below to get him out of the way. However, the game's modeled physics will require Garrett to exercise caution as well. As Spector explained, Garrett might think that by sneaking across the table of a guarded room, he's committing the perfect crime--until his elbow nudges the chandelier above him and causes the light and shadows in the room to sway back and forth, thus potentially alerting the guards.
Deadly Shadows seems to be coming together quite well. Spector assured us that the team has carefully considered what went right and what went wrong with Deus Ex: Invisible War and is applying the lessons learned to the development of this new game. The game is also being developed with input from several former designers from Looking Glass Studios, along with voice-over from Stephen Russell, who provided the voice of Garrett in the previous games. Thief: Deadly Shadows is scheduled for release later this year on the PC and Xbox. Until then, be sure to watch our developer interview with Ion Storm studio director Warren Spector.
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- Eidos Interactive
- Ion Storm
- Fantasy Action Adventure
- Release: May 25, 2004
- ESRB: Mature
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