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Post by paulofthewest on Nov 4, 2021 15:37:12 GMT -5
While a little late, I did finish Thief, which overall I liked because It focuses primarily on stealth. Meaning, if you try to go rambo, things are going to be much harder.
Thief is a stealth game (well obviously) from 1998. Sneaking around and quietly taking care of the enemies is a high priority of this game. The game is split into several levels where in general you are trying to steal a heavily defended item.
The game does try to balance realism with fun. For example the blackjack/sap can be used on any part of the body as long as the enemy is not aware of your presence. Also, you do have to hide bodies that are unconscious/dead or it will alert enemies that find them. One the other hand, your map is effectively a kindergarteners representation of the topography. Meaning if you don't have a good sense of direction you are going to get lost. I got lost, a lot.
Pros: + Smooth stealth mecanics
+ Lots of items to aid with stealth (moss arrows for quietness, water arrows to put our torches, flash bombs, etc...) + Low combat ability forces you focus on stealth + Rope arrows + Atmosphere, the dark theme matches the game extremely well
Cons: - That map, ugh. - The lock pick game is monotonous - You almost have to be a dark room to play this game
The map issue is probably because I had to take so many breaks form the game and would forget where I was. This is why I loved the short maps because I could complete in one sitting, but trying to remember half-way through was a nightmare.
7/10: The stealth uniqueness of this game during the 90s era places it in a must-play for any hardcore gamer. There are some serious drawback, like mapping, that detract for the modern gamer.
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Post by Sarge on Nov 4, 2021 15:40:35 GMT -5
Did you play the original or Gold version? I really enjoyed the mage towers level in Gold.
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Post by Xeogred on Nov 4, 2021 16:32:12 GMT -5
Haha, yeah glad I have a good sense of direction games. Those hand drawn maps are never really that useful. I loved covering every corner of the maps in Thief and generally blackjacked every guard along the way. I was the mean brutal stealth ninja.
Did you like the caves, temples, zombies, monsters, and organic nature of some of Thief? Or did you prefer the more realistic urban buildings and towns? Thief 2 is 100% the latter and some levels even look like they'd be more fitting in Deus Ex (like some docks level I always remember). I always wager this is why some people have a favorite between the two. On one hand I think that Thief 2 is more consistently refined level to level, but I do like the more surreal nature of the first game so it probably gets the edge to me. I love both though and Deadly Shadows is still really good as well. Not sure if a 7/10 for this one warrants checking those out, but they'd be worth a quick look at least.
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Post by paulofthewest on Nov 4, 2021 17:58:03 GMT -5
I played Gold. The Mage towers had some great varied challenges, but suffered from *my* intermittent play style. I ended up liking "The Sword" level the most. While not as varied, it still had some fun challenges and was the right length.
I appreciated the mix of caves, temples, zombies, monster, etc. Some of the best maps had all of them where you would start in the town, go in a cathedral or whatever, drop down into hidden cave with monsters, and then come back up to finish. It really highlighted the explorartory part of this game, which I should have put in the review.
As for the 7/10 it comes down to there are things that don't attract me to this game (map & the those lockpicks), but overall it is definitely one I'm glad I played & beat.
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Post by Ex on Nov 4, 2021 21:05:53 GMT -5
paulofthewestI'm glad to read you have completed Thief Gold. The original 1998 Thief: The Dark Project is my all time favorite game ever, so I can't agree with your 7/10 rating. However, I did originally play this game close to its release date. I cannot honestly say what I would think if Thief were new to me in 2021. That said, in many ways, not just stealth alone, Thief was revolutionary for its time. It is my opinion Thief still stands the test of time, in at least its game design and audio portions. That said, it has been many, many years since I last completed the game in its entirety. I have also never played through the Gold version. Reason being, Gold didn't exist when I beat Thief originally. So I also cannot say what I'd think of the Gold version. I do however intend to someday play through that version of this outstanding classic. As for the "childishly drawn maps", I loved those. They invoked a sense of mystique, with some frame of reference, without giving away the entirety of the level's layout. It was like you were entering these mysterious places with nothing but hearsay to guide you, including the hastily scribbled maps. For me this method of introducing and displaying the levels was genius, adding to the enigmatic realism of it all. Though with how large and seamless (no loading points) these maps can be, I can understand being lost if you came back a few days later. When I played through Thief originally, I had a lot more free time for gaming back then. I would finish those 3 hours missions in one gaming session. Would likely not be the case today. As for the games I've finished in the series, I'd rate them: Thief: The Dark Project 10/10 Thief II: The Metal Age 8/10 Thief III: Deadly Shadows 8.5/10
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Post by anayo on Nov 6, 2021 10:51:35 GMT -5
2c) Warcraft II: Beyond The Dark Portal (human campaign) 26) The Operative: No One Lives Forever 27) Star Wars Rogue Squadron 3D 28a) Warcraft III (Human Campaign) 29) Descent 30) Quake Mission Pack No. 1 Scourge of Armagon 31) Moto Racer 32) Sin 33) Dungeon Keeper 34) Half Life Blue Shift 35) Quake Mission Pack No. 2 Dissolution of EternityDetailed thoughts and impressions coming soon. Quake is a PC game I can’t discuss without any bias because I have too many formative memories surrounding it. From about 1992 to 1997 my Dad went through a phase where he was really into PC gaming. I was an impressionable kid at the time. When Dad wasn’t on the computer, he would let me log on and play MS-DOS titles such as Quake. At the time, Quake was a state of the art game far beyond the capabilities of most home video game consoles. So, there’s a part of me that will always see Quake as a technological marvel no matter how quaint it looks compared to what we have today. As the second official Quake expansion, Dissolution of Eternity is outstanding. The mechanics of Quake just feel “right”. I especially like the “damage economy” underpinning each of the enemies and weapons. For example, one rocket will kill any Grunt, Zombie, or Scrag. Two rockets will kill an Ogre. Three rockets will kill a Death Knight or Fiend. There are similar ratios for all the ammunition types and enemy species. I caught myself doing math in my head to figure out how to best dispatch all the monsters. I became most enamored with the rocket launcher in Dissolution of Eternity. The enemies seem to have an unseen “health bar”. If you simply empty their health bar, they perform a normal death animation, falling down and remaining motionless. But if you inflict crazy damage far beyond their health bar’s threshold they’ll explode into bloody pieces. There’s no real advantage to killing enemies this way, but for some reason I kept wanting to do it anyway. The rocket launcher is best suited to this since it inflicts a crazy amount of damage with each shot. But there’s a downside, namely that its damage radius can mortally harm you, the player, if you’re too close to your target. This created ongoing tension where the game always incentivized me to use the rocket launcher, but I always had to keep a respectable distance from whatever I was shooting at. Since my targets had a penchant for charging my way with reckless abandon, this was easier said than done. In this best possible way this reminded me of Mechwarrior 2’s plasma weapons which would inflict insane damage on targets but perpetually ran the risk of overheating and exploding, taking me down with them. I love Quake’s sound effects. Enemies telegraph their status using distinct sound effects. They all have a particular voice clip for when they are patrolling but haven’t located you, when they spot you and get alerted, when they die, and when they get into a spat with each other and start fighting their own kind instead of you - something I never tired of instigating between them. Quake’s soundscape felt so satisfying because I could didn’t necessarily have to lay eyes on the scene to assess what was going on. I could just tune in with my ears and reach useful conclusions that way. At some point during my playthrough I changed the way I was playing by no longer taking my time and being cautious and instead turning each stage into a race. I hesitiate to call what I was doing “speed running” since my completion times were nothing close to competitive in terms of actual world records. But I would repeat individual stages as many as 50 times, memorizing stage layouts and enemy placements until they became a frantic choreography of carnage. Playing Quake this way is a blast. Lately I tend to beat titles as quickly as possible and move onto something else, since my backlog is so insurmountable. But I really took my time with Quake Dissolution of Eternity, savoring it and going over all it had to offer. I don’t regret it one bit. This is an awesome MS-DOS FPS, easily outshining 1996’s retail Quake.
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Post by Xeogred on Nov 6, 2021 11:10:53 GMT -5
Wild to hear you kept replaying the levels out of sheer fun, heh. I look forward to going back to Quake someday on the highest difficulty. Was this the expansion with the beefed up Nailgun? Or maybe that was the first.
Still surprised you played all of these without the music.
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