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Thief 1 + 2 ftw but they're so intense I find them exhausting to play more than a level at a time lol
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Jan 8, 2024 23:45
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In Training posted:I recently updated muh Backlog over New years and been eyeing all the thief games I've owned. I've played one of them a couple times and was never into it - I think one of the later ones? I remember the tutorial level being tiny & dark & the lock picking mini game was broken. I need to start from 1. That sounds like Thief: Deadly Shadows, which is the third entry in the series and was done by a different studio after Looking Glass imploded. The chronological order is: Thief Gold Thief II: The Metal Age Thief: Deadly Shadows Thief (2014) I think you can only play OG Thief: The Dark Project if you can find them on physical media somewhere. If you want to get it online, I think you have to get Thief Gold. Lunchmeat Larry posted:Thief 1 + 2 ftw but they're so intense I find them exhausting to play more than a level at a time lol What's your take on the TG missions?
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Jan 9, 2024 00:40
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In Training posted:I recently updated muh Backlog over New years and been eyeing all the thief games I've owned. I've played one of them a couple times and was never into it - I think one of the later ones? I remember the tutorial level being tiny & dark & the lock picking mini game was broken. I need to start from 1. Lockpicking in 1 and 2 has you switch back and forth between two different picks as needed, but it isn't more complicated than "use item on lock." Maybe this was Deadly Shadows? I haven't actually played that one yet. e: beaten like a taffer by a blackjack I've moved onto The Metal Age and you can see the refinements in level design, lighting, etc. right away. Just did the dockyard mission and exploring everything took more than 2 hours. Incredible level. I love the addition of secret caches and bonus objectives. It gives you even more incentive to examine every nook and cranny carefully.
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Jan 9, 2024 00:50
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Oh I nearly forgot, in addition to the official games, there are a buttload of fan-made missions - including the aforementioned Black Parade, which is like THE fan mission. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYk_NoVDyNg
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Jan 9, 2024 01:08
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I have thief Gold. Looks like I'll be trying it after I finish dusk. 
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Jan 9, 2024 03:57
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Seventh Arrow posted:
I don't really remember anything about Mage Towers and honestly I've always been a hater of the Tomb Raider type levels so they all blend into one for me lol
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Jan 9, 2024 10:49
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Sorry to change the subject, but you're right abojt Styx, SA - it's pretty good! Essentially 'stealth comfort food', as you say. It's like they found an old Thief checklist of what every good stealth game needs, then went and did it. Definitely reminds me of Shadwen too, except without the grapple and without the girl to escort. It doesn't do anything revolutionary or anything, but it's just... solid all round, really. I think once I finish the first, I might play another short game as a palate cleanser, then go through Styx: SoD. Definitely what I needed though, this game
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Jan 9, 2024 13:52
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:I quite like Thieves Guild tbh, I can see why it feels a bit redundant but other than the sewers I enjoyed it and the concept. Yeah, Thieves Guild navigation isn't bad once you get a feel for how everything branches out. I want to see a walkthrough of the TDP version of Lost City, apparently the TG version added enemies and made it feel less desolate. As much as I've tried to appreciate them, the "tomb raider" levels do nothing for me. Some people will defend "Down in the Bonehoard" but I hated it, especially the formless grey caves filled with burricks. Major Isoor posted:Sorry to change the subject, but you're right abojt Styx, SA - it's pretty good! Essentially 'stealth comfort food', as you say. It's like they found an old Thief checklist of what every good stealth game needs, then went and did it. Thanks, I love how to the levels are constructed to almost always give you multiple solutions to a problem. I really hope we get a Styx 3!
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Jan 9, 2024 15:26
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Seventh Arrow posted:Yeah, Thieves Guild navigation isn't bad once you get a feel for how everything branches out. I want to see a walkthrough of the TDP version of Lost City, apparently the TG version added enemies and made it feel less desolate. 
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Jan 9, 2024 15:30
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Seventh Arrow posted:I want to see a walkthrough of the TDP version of Lost City, apparently the TG version added enemies and made it feel less desolate. The funny thing about the Gold version of Lost City is they forgot to add a "don't kill anyone" objective on Expert so you can go ham on the mages if you want. Either way I think the level is worse off for them, mainly because it doesn't make sense for humans to be patrolling down there. I really love Bonehoard and the Cathedral levels, but Lost City not so much. I can see why people like the big mansion levels more since in general the level design is better. Assassins is probably my favorite mission in Thief 1 because of the mansion layout and the lead-up to get there. MeatwadIsGod fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Jan 9, 2024 |
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Jan 9, 2024 15:37
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:(but look, they were 3 for £10 in GAME and I got Thief, Deus Ex and Worms Armageddon) what a time to be alive MeatwadIsGod posted:The funny thing about the Gold version of Lost City is they forgot to add a "don't kill anyone" objective on Expert so you can go ham on the mages if you want. Either way I think the level is worse off for them, mainly because it doesn't make sense for humans to be patrolling down there. From what I've heard, the mages heard about the fire glyph down there and decided that they should have it instead of the Keepers. One of the hilarious things though is in Mage Towers, if you pick the wrong earth glyph, it will punch you in your stupid face. I really like the atmosphere of Lost City, and the way everything is laid out; especially how you have to observe your surroundings and how they relate to the map. I just think it would've been a lot better without enemies (except maybe the wandering fireballs).
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Jan 9, 2024 15:46
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Thief rules, I've had a potential Game Club T1/T2 fan missions event on my list for a while now
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Jan 9, 2024 16:13
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thieves guild is rough on the highest difficulty, i remember having to pick up almost every piece of gold on the level
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Jan 9, 2024 17:05
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If it doesn't go to 26:17, then fast forward to 26:17 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZmcbShMFNY&t=1577s
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Jan 16, 2024 05:31
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just grabbed dishonored and dishonored 2 for cheap. enjoying it so far / haven't checked out due to having a broken attention span yet. already failing badly at no-kills
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Jan 16, 2024 05:37
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Last time I played I tried to do a true ghost run but it’s super painful the way the levels/saves are laid out and it forces you to just ignore all the cool abilities. If you want to do a challenge run I’d just suggest doing no kills since they include interesting ways for you to take out the targets that way. Actual stealth sucks balls.
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Jan 16, 2024 05:45
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I don't remember having much problem with a ghost run on Dishonored 1 but haven't tried it in 2.
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Jan 16, 2024 09:42
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Yeah same - I did no-kill ghost runs for both games. Wasn't too bad, although IIRC D2 no-kills was a little better than the original, at least
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Jan 16, 2024 10:19
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By the way, just thought - have any of you played Men of War? It's a WW2 RTS that lets you directly control soldiers and vehicles, without basebuilding or anything. (So kinda like World in Conflict, I guess?) But it also has slight RPG-esque mechanics too, like inventory management for weapons, etc. Anyway, although some missions were straight up battles, a LOT were entirely stealthable. It kinda reminds me of that Partisans 1941 stealth game in a way, except often on a larger scale. Might not be the experience everyone here is after, necessarily - but it was pretty good, tough stealth action. Same for the MoW Vietnam sequel, although I swear that one gave me far more eye strain than any other game ever has, seeing as I was always focused intently on spotting snipers, etc in the jungle 
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Jan 17, 2024 13:47
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I almost bought World in Conflict cuz I wanted a piece of the Berlin Wall.
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Jan 17, 2024 14:54
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How well or poorly have the Tenchu games aged? I found the two ps1 games in my basement and I have no idea how they got there and have no memory of buying them but I guess I'll add them to the backlog lol
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Jan 17, 2024 16:15
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ultimate stealth move
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Jan 17, 2024 16:25
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Good soup! posted:How well or poorly have the Tenchu games aged? I found the two ps1 games in my basement and I have no idea how they got there and have no memory of buying them but I guess I'll add them to the backlog lol I replayed a bit of the first one like 5 years ago but fell off after the first few missions. Controls are stiff as you might expect. I will say the soundtrack is still amazing so it was worth trying again just to hear it.
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Jan 17, 2024 16:30
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Good soup! posted:How well or poorly have the Tenchu games aged? I found the two ps1 games in my basement and I have no idea how they got there and have no memory of buying them but I guess I'll add them to the backlog lol I played III on steam for a few mins and it seemed like one of those sleeper Japanese games that’s rough around the edges but has poo poo you wish all the other stealth games had. Don’t know for sure, twas merely a Vibe.
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Jan 17, 2024 21:51
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Beat Styx tonight. I liked revisiting areas back-to-front with higher difficulty (i.e. during the day, rather than slinking through at night) towards the end, as it was pretty fun. I also liked how the elves were totally right - you ARE the 'Big Bad' to them. More so than the original Styx, since you destroythe Heart, while he merely wishes to steal it. Which COULD lead to the elves recovering it, theoretically.Wormskull posted:I played III on steam for a few mins and it seemed like one of those sleeper Japanese games that’s rough around the edges but has poo poo you wish all the other stealth games had. Don’t know for sure, twas merely a Vibe. Oh interesting - did you ever play Shinobido: Way of the Ninja on PS2? It's by the Tenchu devs IIRC. I haven't played Tenchu, but loved Shinobido. Especially the branching story and being able to make my own poisons and health/buff potions between missions, as the latter was something most games didn't allow for, back then (even watering them down to make more, at the expense of potency)
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Jan 21, 2024 14:13
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I see from your cheevos that you killed multiple guards with a chandelier, that's one of the most fun things you can do in the game! The first time I played Styx I tried to see how many guards I could lure under the chandelier and then let it drop. It's tricky though, because if they see your clone they'll just kill it and walk away.
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Jan 22, 2024 00:15
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Seventh Arrow posted:I see from your cheevos lmfao Cool.
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Jan 22, 2024 00:37
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Seventh Arrow posted:I see from your cheevos that you killed multiple guards with a chandelier, that's one of the most fun things you can do in the game! The first time I played Styx I tried to see how many guards I could lure under the chandelier and then let it drop. It's tricky though, because if they see your clone they'll just kill it and walk away. Oh, yeah I think I got that early on when there was a big speech about not picking on the local elves in the embassy area (I much prefer the working class version of that public decree, for the distillery workers  ) and dropped that giant chandelier on 5-6 guys, which was pretty good!Also drat, I've had the sewer hideout music stuck in my head all week. Just can't kick it!
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Jan 22, 2024 00:47
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Wormskull posted:lmfao Cool. 
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Jan 22, 2024 00:55
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Jan 22, 2024 01:35
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Jan 22, 2024 01:42
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Jan 22, 2024 01:57
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Jan 22, 2024 02:29
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lol
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Jan 22, 2024 03:21
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Jan 22, 2024 04:41
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Thief 2: The Metal Age         - "You've gone too far, you camel-mannered, tunic-wearing mollycoddle! An arrow to the throat ought to shut you up!" A few years after the release of Thief: The Dark Project and a year after Thief Gold, the release of Thief 2: The Metal Age brought the further adventures of Garrett to game store shelves. And then a little after that, the brilliant Looking Glass Studios closed their doors forever after coming down with a serious case of "leaking money left and right." LGS listened to player feedback, and shoved (almost) all of the zombie, burrick, and tomb-raiding stuff out the airlock. One dev is on record as saying that they might have overcorrected somewhat, but nonetheless, what we were left with is a brilliant stealth classic. You begin once again in the tiptoe-y boots of Garrett, who muses aloud about how just a while ago, he was looking at retirement. Now he's scraping together low-level gigs just to pay the rent. However, a new threat seems to be looming, one that will pull our 'good thief' into the center of its vortex. That's the basics. T2TMA is very good at planting clues about upcoming story beats right from the beginning. You will overhear NPCs talking about how the forests and creatures seem to be dying out, only to be replaced by monstrous, soot-belching towers. This is all courtesy of the Mechanists, a splinter faction of the Hammerites who hold to a theology that The Master Builder wants all organic life scorched in order to make way for a new paradise of iron and stone. At the center of all of this mania is Karras (voiced by Stephen Russell), a genius inventor with a steam-powered grudge. Like many geniuses, Karras is a bit of a dweeb, one with a socially awkward speech impediment to boot. Nevertheless, he uses his prodigious inventions to ingratiate himself to the wealthy, all culminating in a plot that could mean doom for anyone in The City's zip code, including Garrett. The story is quite well done, especially considering that they came up with the maps first and then invented a plot to go with them. Karras is undoubtedly one of gaming's greatest villains. At turns clever, petty, sympathetic and utterly narcissistic, Karras poses a legitimate threat to our normally worldly, unphased protagonist. In a chilling moment, K leaves a recording revealing that he is aware of your actions. At least he won't have to wonder where his golden candlesticks went! As before, the game is drenched in atmosphere. The design of the levels, the music, the immersion, all overtake the primitive graphics technology like moss on a pagan stronghold. You are introduced to mechanical guards, all using pre-recorded praises of devotion (recorded by Karras himself), making him seem omnipresent. The music thrums and whirls, giving a menacing undertone even to levels that would seem otherwise sedated. Guards will joke around with each other while rich nobles will complain about extremely banal things. All of this transforms The City into a living, breathing place with its own personality and lurking threats. As mentioned, Thief 2 features more human enemies, less pagan maps, and more mansion break-ins. If these were your complaints with TTDP, then this is the game for you! Shipping and Receiving, First City Bank and Trust, Blackmail, and Life of the Party are some of the greatest stealth missions ever designed, giving you potentially hours of immersive sneaking. Having said that, it's no secret that Looking Glass were under a serious time crunch for this project, and map reuse does rear its ugly head. Ambush and Trace the Courier use the same map of The City's streets with minimal modification. Kidnap uses the 'Lost City' map from Dark Project, again with a few tweaks (and prettier lava). The most egregious of this is Masks, which simply reiterates the map you just played in Casing the Joint - except the first time, you weren't allowed any blackjackings. The map itself is very good, but many players resented having to go through the whole thing all over again, only with the addition of access to the third floor. Other than the aforementioned mechanical guards, Garrett has some new threats to contend with, including security cameras and mechanized turrets. But there are also a few new gimmicks to balance things out, including scouting orbs and invisibility potions. The latter feels a bit too 'cheat-y' for my tastes, but it must be kept in mind that stealth was a relatively new genre at the time and I imagine that they wanted to ease people in to the concept. As before, I'm not going to give a review of every mission, but I suppose that special mention must be made of the last one, Sabotage at Soulforge. As you can imagine, the Mechanist cathedral is a maze of stone and metallic corridors, populated with robots that will immediately dispatch you if you're spotted. On the one hand, this is an improvement over the seemingly on-rails experience of Into the Maw of Chaos from TTDP, yet the backtracking and beacon-assembling chores of Soulforge didn't seem to be much of an improvement. Nevertheless, the latter has much better atmosphere and is preceded by one of the best cutscenes in the series. Thief 2 is a no-brainer for any fan of the genre - if you haven't played it before, play it. If you have played it before, now is a good time to play it again!
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Jan 22, 2024 23:02
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I finished Life of the Party the other day and had a weird bug - the item you need to steal from Karras' office just magically appeared in my inventory when I approached the wall safe so I didn't even need to lockpick it. I dodged a bullet there but even with that weird hiccup at the end it's probably the best mission between the two games. There are so many neat mini-stories scattered throughout the level, and all the chatter from the aristocracy makes knocking them out extra satisfying.
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Jan 23, 2024 14:59
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A lot of people don't even know that there's a switch that disables the alarm in Karras' office. They end up dealing with Mechanists on the rooftops when they don't even need to! Life of the Party is pinnacle stealth design, you get to go on all of these adventures on the City's rooftops before you even get to the enemy's HQ, which provides even more sneaking goodness. And all without loading screens, which would have been pretty impressive in 2000.
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Jan 23, 2024 15:33
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it was
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Jan 23, 2024 23:02
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Thief 2X: Shadows of the Metal Age         Thief fan missions are a huge rabbit hole that I'm not going to go down, but I thought that I might at least take a crack at the two reigning kings of the hill. One of them is The Black Parade (to be reviewed later), the other is Thief 2X: Shadows of the Metal Age - a self-described "unofficial expansion building on the technology that made Thief 2 a classic with critics and fans alike." Released in 2005, this FM has received updates since then and instructions on installing it can be found here. The game plays pretty much the same as Thief 2, but with some superficial substitutions here and there: the sword is more scimitar...ish(?), the light gem is now an orb (which actually looks kind of cool), and instead of a blackjack you have what looks like a ball-peen hammer. Which seems a bit more, uh, decidedly lethal, but ok. I think you can even hear the skulls of your victims crack as you clobber them with it. The sight on the bow is also a bit less intuitive than the one in the main Thief games, but you eventually get used to it. I would add that I actually like the AOE graphic effect on the moss arrows much more than in the base game, actually...it gives you a much better idea of how much moss is carpeting the area. However, the developers did add something a bit new: you get an "elemental catalyst" that will change the way some of your elemental arrows behave. For example, you can use it to change your water arrows into ice arrows - you can shoot them at bodies of water to make ice islands that you can cross and grab whatever secret goodies they've put at the other end. Like in The Black Parade, the protagonist is not Garrett and is not trained by The Keepers. Instead, you play Zaya, a visitor to The City from I guess whatever the Thief equivalent of Egypt is (you can tell because she has kinda-sorta hieroglyphics on her face), off to meet her cousin Kedar. However, Kedar dies a brutal death at the hands of some ruffians, leaving Zaya to vow revenge while going to stealth boot camp under the tutelage of an obviously ill-intentioned Pagan named Malak. The story takes place around the same time as Thief 2, and the last mission even ties in to T2's "Blackmail" mission. You even get to follow a lead on Brother Cavador when he's still a Hammerite - fortunately, tracking him down here is way easier than it was in Lost City. The missions themselves are like a greatest hits medley of memorable stuff from The Dark Project and The Metal Age. I don't say that as a dig, there's something for everyone here. One map seems like a combination of Down in the Bonehoard and Haunted Cathedral. Another takes copious notes from First City Bank and Trust (to the degree that it almost seems like the exterior of The Grand Hotel was a copy-paste of the bank). There are many missions where some or all of the map takes place in the streets of The City, like in Assassins or Ambush. One of the more memorable moments has you inciting a deadly skirmish between the Hammers and a gang of pirates(!) Of course, this also means that for some there's also plenty to dislike as well. However, that's just the nature of the game...if you disliked the "tomb raider" missions from T:TDP then there will certainly be times when you'll be tempted to hit Ctrl + Alt + Shift + End. Overall though, I found all of the levels to be well-designed and providing lots of stealthing fun. Exploration by way of rope arrow is also encouraged, which is a touch I appreciated. There's even a mission with a Mechanist steam train, which was pretty neat. The production values are pretty good for a fan effort: the cutscenes that don't involve moving characters are quite excellent. The music is good, especially some of the organ music in a Hammerite cathedral. On the other hand, the voice acting ranges from average to dire - I appreciate that they made the effort, though (one NPC interaction references Milli Vanilli, I kid you not, that's how old this mod is). All in all, if you liked either (or both) of the Thief games, then you'll find plenty to like here. Not all of the missions may suit your tastes, but overall it's a stealth experience worth investing your time in. Seventh Arrow fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Jan 30, 2024 |
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Jan 30, 2024 21:34
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