Thief
I went into this game, as always, completely blind. I had never even heard of this game- let alone seen any actual footage. The concept itself is intriguing- I think the gaming trope of the angsty 'loner' character is becoming increasingly popular (my own observation) and so I was excited to play more games with this type of arc.
The story of Thief is rather intricate, and as a first time player I was somewhat baffled. One minute you appear to be jumping between rooftops, stealing from people's houses, and the next your partner in crime falls through the roof of a church in the middle of a cult ritual to activate some kind of gemstone? It seems a rather vague start to such an otherwise promising premise. I did expect a game with such a simplistic premise to have a more cohesive and straight forward plot. That being said, I did really enjoy the character designs. The under-eye shadows of characters such as Erin were eyecatching and very stylistic. The layered leather outfits were also very fitting for the Middle-age setting and did help with the immersive side of things.
The world building was very much one of Thief's strengths. I really liked that at any point you could almost break out of the 'set' path of a mission and explore the city. There were also multiple pathways you could take in order to complete missions, which allowed me as a gamer to have more freedom and a more individualised experience. This also had a downside for me however: Whilst this concept of being able to roam freely was interesting, I do love games with a little more structure to them and a set path, especially because with freedom there's no way of knowing if what I was doing was 'right.' If Tom hadn't been with me, I think I would have become lost a lot more.
As I have said in my previous posts, I do prefer the feel and experience of using an XBOX controller as opposed to PS; I feel in terms of ludology that when my hands feel more comofrtable, the controller is more an extension of my body as opposed to a tool I have to use. It makes the experience a lot more immersive and therefore more enjoyable. That being said, the controls in the game for me were a major downfall to this game. A lot of the controls were very similar and sometimes the same button did the same job for multiple functions. It also annoyed me that there was no way to actively jump during the game. You have to press LT as you approach objects to jump over them, however there's no way to freely jump. In almost every over game I have tried, 'A' has always been the jump control. The ansence of this sense of familiarity for me was strangely offputting. It also felt strange to me that a lot of the main controls used 'X' which for me was awkward to manoeuvre and would have made more sense to me to swap these 'X' controls with 'A.' The discomfort from these annoying and weirdly similar controls did create a greater distance between me, the player, and the game I was trying to enjoy. It's strange- you'd think having fewer controls would simplify the gaming experience- however I found this made it needlessly more complicated.
Another immersive issue with this game was the character dialogue. I became rather overwhelmed when navigating an area with multiple NPC's, whether they be guards or general citizens. The characters appeared to talk all at the same time, leading to them talking over each other, rendering their words indistinguishable witout reading the in-game captions. This was rather frustrating and could also be very loud with my noise cancelling headphones.
I want to premise my next remark by saying that whilst I did enjoy this game immensely, I am not someone that can handle tension-based gameplay well. I am happy to watch other people play similar things, however the prospect of me actually taking control is terrrifying to me. There were several instances in this game where the tension of the situation did cause me to panic, which was detrimental to my overall performance. I was thinking about why this was and I was reminded of a discussion regarding First Person Shooter games with my lecturer. Within gaming and indeed society there are "imagined communities,' the falsity of security providing us with a sense of safety and longing when infact the concept of community overall is somewhat synthetic. In FPS games, we are indeed are a part of one of these "imagined communities" within our teams. Even if we have no idea who these other players are, the idea of being in a group puts us at ease. The same concept can be applied to Red Dead. I was surrounded by NPC teammates who didn't interact with me in the real world at all. However, their presence did give me a sens eof guidance and comfort- they led me through missions and were there to 'cover' me in shootouts. In Thief however, this was the first game wherein I was completely alone. My teammate, Erin, disappears after 10 minutes of gameplay, and I am forced to navigate these nail-biting/ stress inducing environments without a feeling of safety. In this way, the game is genius in regards to building tension. However, I simply am not very good at handling that.
An aspect of this game which I haven't really seen before is the fact that you are rewarded for taking a more passive approach. With so many games today, FPS's being the prime example, value is often placed on one's ability to kill other players or NPC's, whereas in this game, it's almost detrimental. At the end of each level, you are presented as being one of three types of player: Ghost, Opportunist and Predator, though you receive more achievements for following the first two passing, more undetectablepathways. I think that's another reason I found the game so difficult- in most games, if something goes wrong, you can usually fight your way out of it, however in Thief there is a pressure not to do that, putting more pressure on getting caught. For a more skilled player, I'm sure this more challenging type of play would be very intriguing; for me it was very much out of my comfort zone, though I did appreciate it as fairly unique and innovative.
I was very surprised when Tom told me this game wasn't too well received, though after his explanation I did understand the reasoning of the gaming community. This newfound information, however, did not impact on my own personal enjoyment of the game. According to Tom, Thief is based off of a previously very popular stealth game 'Thief: The Dark Project.' Whilst T:TDP is rated very highly on many gaming forums, Thief by contrast has significantly lower reviews. I think its main issue stems from the fact that Thief can never live up to its predecessor; therefore by associating it with a loved series only sets it up to fall. I feel as though had it been presented as a stand alone game it would have been a lot more successful- it wouldn't have such high expectations to live up to; it cannot (apparently) hold a candle to the original. I think another issue with this is that the two games are separated physically by being on different consoles, T:TDP being released originally onto the XBOX360 whilst Thief was made with the intention of being released onto the XBOX 1. Whilst both games are available on either console, the release across these separate platforms just emphasises that the games should have remained separate.
Overall, I think this was actually one of my favourite games so far. I really enjoyed the tone and gloomy aesthetic of the game, and whilst I found the main character as lacking in personality in some respects, the fact he was a blank canvas in a sense made it easier to immerse myself into the universe. His character was very generalised and therefore easy to project myself onto his character. Despite my own fears of tension driven games, the actual concept was very enjoyable; I really enjoyed the mischievious tone. Whilst I feel there is a safety in being able to easily kill opponents, as someone with a pretty awful aim it was refreshing to be able to play a game through a more pacifist lens.
Tom and I unanimously rate this game
8/10.
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