Thi4f

[Twig]

That's fair!

[Badfinger]

The thing about making a pseudo open world with multiple ways you can complete objectives is that its...

 

really hard. You have to design the level in a way that someone JUST HAPPENS to stumble on the air duct that lets them stealth into every office and feel really clever.

[Merus]

Was surprised that RPS liked it, but then discovered that John Walker liked it and that explained everything.

[DaveC]

Was surprised that RPS liked it, but then discovered that John Walker liked it and that explained everything.

 

Yup. I find myself checking who wrote a post on that site now before I read anything. 

[Roderick]

Oh? What's up with John Walker? I only recently started reading RPS and I don't see a huge qualitative schism between the various writers, they're all pretty good at first glance?

[Merus]

John Walker's capable of stringing words together like a pro, but whether or not he's likely to be right on a topic is a matter of chance. He has a habit of having strong opinions supported by not very much and using RPS as a soapbox for them, with his editorials as a particular highlight standing for something not particularly controversial that most of his audience is likely to support. He wrote the editorials on RPS's intention to point out social issues and on the absurd length of copyright terms (surely to be followed by a rousing stand against torturing kittens), and despite being a backer of Broken Age he's got his own opinions on how the development must be going.

[mikemariano]

Oh? What's up with John Walker? I only recently started reading RPS and I don't see a huge qualitative schism between the various writers, they're all pretty good at first glance?

 

John Walker is a nightmare of a human being who subjects anyone in his orbit to his vicious, righteous whims.  I have him blocked in my feed reader and do my best to avoid him because he really is psychically exhausting.

 

He's also not very useful to read.  His concerns are inconsistent and nitpicky and don't give me a good sense of what a game will be like to play.  And since Rock, Paper Shotgun is the only video game news site I read, guess I'll never see a review of Thief!

 

Only read this If you want more threadjack about John Walker:

 

A few months ago, Walker showed up in the comments of another RPS writer's article to condemn all readers who didn't enjoy Gone Home as sexist subhumans.  Later, during their best-of-2013 "advent calendar," he dismissed Gone Home with a few sentences saying something like, "I thought it would make me feel more."

 

I thought it was really ugly of Walker to pick up Gone Home, swing it around like a blunt object, and all but ignore it as a game.  I guess this makes him a good Internet commentor?

[dibs]

I'm far more interested than I am in thief!

 

Only read this If you want more threadjack about John Walker:

[Gormongous]

John Walker is a nightmare of a human being who subjects anyone in his orbit to his vicious, righteous whims.  I have him blocked in my feed reader and do my best to avoid him because he really is psychically exhausting.

 

He's also not very useful to read.  His concerns are inconsistent and nitpicky and don't give me a good sense of what a game will be like to play.  And since Rock, Paper Shotgun is the only video game news site I read, guess I'll never see a review of Thief!

 

Yeah, I was going to post something like that in this thread, but I had a sleep first. It's really odd to read his posts in the comments thread defending his Thief interview, particularly that he enjoyed the game immensely, with almost no reservations, but he felt it "dishonest" or something not to mention the serious design flaws the game has, so he included them in his review, which skews the tone of the review wildly towards the defensive. It's... not a very good review in sum, not compared to the thoroughness and coherency of something like the Sneaky Bastards review, which granted has a huge bone to pick. I like some of Walker's other stuff, though.

[kaputt]

Well, I'm playing the game now. So far, it's enjoyable: it's ok, not great, not bad either. There's a lot of stuff to like and dislike.

First of all, I really like how it looks, the visuals are great, some really nice animations, and the atmosphere of the city is really great. The game runs perfectly on my PC, which has an intel i5 3330 and a R9 280X GPU, 60 fps locked at 1080p with max settings (only SSAA turned off, haven't even tried with it on). I'm surprised it runs so well, specially because some other games from Square Enix, like Tomb Raider, don't run that well and even don't look as good (Tomb Raider, for example). I guess that, with the new generation of consoles, they're optimizing some graphical stuff that were really taxing before, like ambient occlusion, lightning, etc.

So, the game is fine, its my first entry in the series so I'm really enjoying looting stuff when the game is totally about that. It's nice to just navigate through the dark alleys stealing stuff, looking at the nice visuals, finding some secret passages. It's somewhat a very relaxing game, I didn't expected it to be.

But, it's relaxing mostly because the AI is really dumb. It reminded me of the AI in Splinter Cell Conviction, they're so dumb at the normal difficulty that it breaks the immersion. In a way that's good, because I feel like I'm learning more how to play more traditional stealth games without a harsh punishment. It's like a stealth for babies, and I like it a bit, since I'm not really good at this kind of games. Still, I don't feel immersed as I was with dishonored for example, in which I pay attention to a lot of details before taking an action. This one is more streamlined.

The story is really cliche as of now, some tropes here and there, nothing to take any note. I dislike Garrett talking, it breaks the immersion and he doesn't say anything worthy. Fortunately, as I am not a native English speaker, it's easy to ignore his talk. I do like the guards talking though, there are some ridiculous and funny stuff.

The gameplay could be better, specially because of the contextual jump, it would be so much better if you could jump on anything at will. The level design also some weird things.

Still, I enjoy it, it's ok, a nice game, nothing great or outstanding.

[prettyunsmart]

Leaving aside anything else about how people feel about him, I thought his review made a fair deal of sense. It seemed like he was saying that there are issues that would probably bother people, but they didn't bother him too much. He enjoyed it, others may not. 

[youmeyou]

Yeah, his review was fair and seems to reflect the general critical consensus about the game. Even the Polygon review, which felt more negative, had a caveat where Aegis (another controversial figure) said he actually enjoyed playing the game for all its flaws.

 

So basically it's a flawed game that still has a lot of good things in it. 

[filk]

I do like the guards talking though, there are some ridiculous and funny stuff.

I've only played the prologue so far, so take this with a grain of salt. I don't mind the random conversations, but the way the audio is mixed for them is really weird. It's like they really didn't want you to miss them. Two people talking in the street below you a block away sound like they are talking in your ear. It's very different than Dishonored or Arkham City, for example.

[SiN]

Indeed, Walker is legit in my books. I don't always agree with him, but I appreciate that he picks difficult subjects to debate. (Also, I get the feeling people miss the humorous intent of his grumpiness.)

 

His Thief review had a *tonne* of caveats, but none of which bothered me so much. Which I think is kind of the point. I'm probably going to play the game at some point.

[Bjorn]

I used to really like RPS, and even some of Walker's pieces.  But as time goes on, I'm becoming less and less enchanted with the entire site, in part due to Walker, and in part due to...other things.  Things that are probably entirely too far off topic for this thread.  Unless someone really wants to hear me bitch about RPS, if anyone thinks that's more interesting than Thief. 

 

Meh, continue on with Thief discussions.  It's a shame the overall impression is that it's simply an average game.  I was hoping for more. 

[Murdoc]

Yeah there were rumors about how bad the production went on this, but I'm still disappointing because I really liked that last Deus Ex and I've played ever Thief game since the beginning, so I dunno, I'll wait for a steam sale.

 

I'm a little sad because in this day and age, especially considering Square Enix's past year, a failure isn't going to go down very well, so I just hope Eidos Montreal stays safe.

[Sno]

I'm especially troubled by the way this turned out, given that it's being used as further validation for what Dishonored did, which was not at all what i personally want out of a Thief-style stealth game.

For all the issues Thief allegedly has, it at least seems like they held true to the detection systems and the emphasis on limited combat.

I'll probably still check this game out when it goes on sale or something. (Or maybe next year when they do a prettied-up bug-fixed re-release, as Eidos seems to do with all their games now.)

[SiN]

I think has a not-hardcore Thief fan I'll enjoy it... but I'm not exactly rushing out to get the game.

 

It's disappointing when you consider it came out of Eidos Montreal though. I never got into Deus Ex back in the day, I was an inexperienced FPS player, and it was just a little too clunky. DX:HR did exactly what I wanted: it captured the essence and appeal of the original, added the right amount of hand-holding and modern conveniences, but didn't go overboard and lose its identity.

 

From all the reviews, I get the sense that Thief has gone too far overboard. Which doesn't make it a bad game per se, but a missed opportunity.

[DaveC]

Yeah, I really want to get back into DX:HR. That game, while flawed, was a real gem for me. It did almost everything right. 

 

This, I don't know. I don't like what I've seen of it so far and all of the lukewarm reviews are really putting me off. It doesn't excite me in the way that the original Thief games did. Shame. 

[filk]

So I picked up the game with the GMG discount pre-order code. I'm playing on Master with basically all the custom modifiers on. In particular, I turned on a modifier which makes it so that the only autosaves are at mission start, and you cannot manually save, and the modifier which makes it so you cannot take out (only avoid) enemies. Needless to say, I'm still on the first chapter of the game.

 

It's fun as hell. I would use the metaphor of playing a stealth Dark Souls. Since my focus is now on execution of a critical path in one go, my agency is expressed more in where I feel I can take risks and in my planning of a route that I can reliably take each time. Every moment is tense as hell and every time I get a little farther I have to figure out how much I can reasonably steal. If I mess up, it's all over. The game is now about mastery rather than expression.

 

I think Thi4f will actually end up being really important to me in hindsight because of this experience. It's interesting to play a game not in the way the developers exposed, not in the way the fans wanted, but transforming it into something more appealing. I guarantee if these settings were the default and the game was being marketed with a different title and a "Prepare to Hide Edition" subtitle, it would be getting rave reception.

[melmer]

Edge magazine said something similar in their review I believe, it recommend playing it at a higher difficulty with modifiers. I'll have to do a little research before I start, find the right difficulty for me

I don't think I'd have the patients for Master :/

Hell, I'll start on Master, I can always turn it down if it gets too frustrating

[Thrik]

What I find most unsettling about all this business is the suggestion that Eidos Montreal is putting out a game that isn't monumentally tremendous like DX:HR, because the idea of a worthy follow-up to that game leaves me wet. Hope it's a case of all the best guys are working on that right now.

[Frenetic Pony]

What I find most unsettling about all this business is the suggestion that Eidos Montreal is putting out a game that isn't monumentally tremendous like DX:HR, because the idea of a worthy follow-up to that game leaves me wet. Hope it's a case of all the best guys are working on that right now.

 

Two different teams, Deus Ex 4 is currently in development, on Unreal Engine 4 for next gen no less.

 

Good to hear it might be worth picking up in a Steam sale later on, if you max out the difficulty. I'm not sure I really want to play "hidey version of Dark Souls" but I'd probably give it a shot if I was bored and it was $15.

[Salacious Snake]

I've only played the prologue so far, so take this with a grain of salt. I don't mind the random conversations, but the way the audio is mixed for them is really weird. It's like they really didn't want you to miss them. Two people talking in the street below you a block away sound like they are talking in your ear. It's very different than Dishonored or Arkham City, for example.

I've seen this observation in a few places, and it really bums me out. One of the most notable features of the Dark Engine was its sound propagation system.

It may seem like a minor thing, but I think it demonstrates how the developers of the new game fail to understand or appreciate the legacy of 'immersive sims' like Thief. You could say that this is just something else altogether, that they weren't going for that kind of experience and therefore it shouldn't be judged against it, but then more's the pity.

[filk]

I've seen this observation in a few places, and it really bums me out. One of the most notable features of the Dark Engine was its sound propagation system.

It may seem like a minor thing, but I think it demonstrates how the developers of the new game fail to understand or appreciate the legacy of 'immersive sims' like Thief. You could say that this is just something else altogether, that they weren't going for that kind of experience and therefore it shouldn't be judged against it, but then more's the pity.

 

It's definitely true, though. The game is called "stealth action" everywhere. Compare this to the Dishonored interviews which were very upfront about an immersive sim heritage. This is a re-imagining of thief in a different genre altogether. It's much more palatable if you approach it as a AAA action game (Uncharted, Tomb Raider, Gears of War) where the core mechanic is sneaking rather than shooting.