Magnificent in almost every aspect of its execution.
User Rating: 9.1 | Thief: The Dark Project PC
To start with I might as well mention that this review contains NO SPOILERS. First off, I have to say that if you are wondering if you should play the Thief series in its correct order (The Dark Project, The Metal Age, Deadly Shadows), the answer is most definitely 'yes.' To truly appreciate this series you need to start from the beginning, and it isn't just because of the good storyline. You will probably be ruined by the graphics of this game's sequels if you play them first, or you might have trouble getting used to the old school gameplay mechanics presented in this game. To truly appreciate Thief you must first realize that regardless of its first-person view, this game is almost completely stealth-based. The main arsenal of the game is pretty small, consisting of a sword (useless throughout the majority of the game), a blackjack (to knock out those pesky guards before they know what hit them), and a bow which is surprisingly used as more of a tool than a weapon. Your bow is able to use many different types of arrows, which include, but are not limited to, moss arrows for dampening footsteps, water arrows for dousing torches, rope arrows for reaching places you shouldn't be (it's a thief's job), and gas arrows for harmlessly incapacitating your foes from long distances (useful during missions where one of your secondary objectives involves not killing anyone). Along with your weapons, you also have a variety of items at your disposal, which may be purchased between levels using the loot you managed to grab while you were "doing your job" in the previous mission. The items you can purchase range from more ammunition for your bow, to restorative potions, to blinding Flash Bombs used when you desperately need to vanish as quickly as possible. The game has three different difficulty settings, but the first and second mainly just cut out large amounts of secondary goals during the missions instead of actually making them easier. For the full Thief experience I suggest playing on Hardest the first time through. Although it may seem daunting for the first few missions, as the 'Hardest' difficulty setting makes even the first level take over an hour, it is definitely worth it. If you don't play on Hardest at first you should at least play on the Hard setting, as Normal (this game's 'easy') just takes out too many secondary objectives. Giving an example of this would ruin some of the game's surprises, unfortunately. There is also some good A.I. in Thief. It can seem a bit dumb at times, but it's still easily better than the A.I. in Deadly Shadows, since the guards of this game do an excellent job of hearing things, unlike the apparently deaf guards you see in the latest entry in the Thief series. The guards will become alerted and sound the alarm if possible if they see a fallen comrade, so you will usually have to hide corpses and unconscious bodies in shadows where guards are unlikely to stumble upon them during their rounds. There are two problems with this system, the first being that guards are unable to distinguish between an unconscious body and a corpse, which is very unfortunate, since this makes them scream "Murder!!!" whenever they find an unconcious body, all throughout the game. The second reason is that guards go back to their rounds far too quickly after they see a body for it to be realistic, this can be partly forgiven due to the fact that if this was made realistic you would basically instantly lose if the guards acted the way they would in real life. The guards and other foes will also be able to hear you better if you walk on louder surfaces, which is a pretty impressive feat for a game from 1998, since it's rare to see this even in modern games. The thing about the A.I. is it's never dumb to the point of you being able to put your guard down, which keeps tension high through almost the entire game. The game also has a very distinctive style, chances are you've never seen a quite game like this. It's like a steampunk theme minus the firearms and automatons (although the latter appear in the game's sequel), mixed with a fantasy theme and some heavy doses of originality, for good measure. The level design definitely takes this into account, as do the game's mind-blowing cut scenes. How do a game's cut-scenes still look incredible so many years after release, you ask? The answer is simple; there is little to no 3d animation (an example of what I mean by 3d animation would be Final Fantasy VII's cutscenes). This may sound odd, but the cut scenes make up for this is by having a distinctly hand-drawn look (you just need to see it to believe it, I'd never seen anything like it until I played Thief), which happens to be absolutely stunning, and occasionally mixing it with what I believe are real people's silhouettes. Sound even stranger than before? It definitely is, but using this odd mix the developers created some truly amazing cinematics, rivaling even today's greatest works with their sheer style and atmosphere. Unfortunately there are only four of these cut-scenes in the game, including the intro movie and the ending. Thief's mission design is one of the key parts of the game. The areas you will find yourself looting range from a run-of-the-mill manor house, to dark caverns and even less appealing places, filled with some rather unpleasant, often terrifying, inhabitants. The atmosphere of that the game's areas give off is spectacular, and usually extremely creepy, which is mostly due to the game's exceptional artistic graphical design and excellent use of darkness. The missions all take place at night, and it's a good thing for you, because your main goal in Thief is to hide in the darkest shadows available and avoid contact with the guards, or other foes, like the plague. Nothing beats cowering in a shadow while a zombie moans and walks stiffly by you, while you sweat and hope it doesn't notice. The missions also often take hours to complete, but they rarely ever get to the point of tedium (very few of the game's missions reach this point, regardless of the time you'll likely spend on them). Often enough your objective will change during a mission, though the reasons for these occurrences vary greatly. Going into any greater detail than that would ruin some of the game's great moments, so you'll just have to find out for yourself. The game's mission briefings are some of the few in gaming history that will actually make you sit up and pay attention. They are basically narrated slideshows of well-drawn pictures containing places and/or people. The narrator of these briefings is none other than the main character himself -- Garrett. His world-weary and cynical voice nails the part perfectly, and although these sequences may not sound like much when you read about them, Garrett's voice manages to breathe amazing amounts of life into them. The rest of the game's characters and enemies also sound fantastic, even though they don't quite match up to Garrett's performance. Garrett also occasionally chimes in with his own commentary throughout the game. For example, during the first mission you may come across a library in the mansion you are looting, at which point which Garrett wonders out-loud, "I wonder if he reads them, or if they're just for show...?" in regard to the mansion's owner "Bafford" and his enormous collection of books. In Thief, quite possibly your greatest weapons are your speakers, since the game uses sound effects like footsteps and the whistling of guards to allow you to hear your foes long before you see them, making it possible to avoid detection much more easily. There is no in-game music besides what you may be hearing in the game world itself, but the ambient noises and sound effects are superb, and you'll often find yourself turning up the volume to hear them, and the voices of your foes, in greater detail. From the bizarre gibbering of ghosts, to the sound of your own footsteps, the game keeps you on edge and alert at all times with its audio. There are few things in gaming that have topped the terror of suddenly hearing the dragging-chain noise that the game's scariest enemy makes when it walks around. The voice-acting is also very good, and as I mentioned before Garrett is easily the best sounding character, but the rest of the voice acting in the game is still very high quality. Often enough the guards sound more comical than anything, but for some reason it just works in Thief. The voice acting during the game's cutscenes is probably the best in the game (this is partly because of the game's script, which is well written, and even more so during cut-scenes), but that doesn't mean the in-game voice acting is bad in the slightest, it just means it isn't quite as good. The only flaw in the audio is the strangely cheesy rock music that shows up from time-to-time during a few cutscenes and mission briefings. This was an odd decision on the developers' part, since the music doesn't fit the world of Thief very well. Thankfully, it doesn't detract too much from the game. The story is also good, albeit a bit on the predictable side. The story itself doesn't take center stage, but it definitely provides you with enough intriguing little elements to make you want to progress through the game, in order to see what happens. The main reason the story is so good is because it helps flesh out the world the game takes place in, which it does really well. The game has some very interesting mythology, which works its way into the story and manages to become all the more interesting because of it. The story basically starts on mission five, so don't be disappointed when it doesn't seem show up at first. When you combine the many fantastic elements that make up Thief: The Dark Project, you are left with a game that can't be called anything but a true classic. And since you can find this game extremely cheap on the internet these days, you shouldn't hesitate to dive right in to this amazing experience as soon as possible.
