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argurotoxosThief: Deadly Shadows is the third - and, at the moment, final - game of the Thief series that began with The Dark Project in 1998. Looking Glass Studios, who also created System Shock and Ultima Underworld, initially designed The Dark Project as an action/adventure game with additional RPG elements set in a grim version of Camelot. It was only later that thievery became the game's focus and stealth play in a pseudo-medieval/steampunk world the game's trademark.
The Dark Project was successful enough that a souped-up version of the game was released in 1999 as Thief Gold and a sequel - Thief II: The Metal Age - in 2000. Shortly thereafter, Looking Glass Studios closed, which led Thief fans to wonder over the fate of the series. However, the fandom did not die, perhaps in large part due to DromEd, the level editor for the first two Thief games that was released with Thief Gold and allowed fans to create their own missions. It was in this time after the closer of Looking Glass that the concept of Thief2X: Shadows of the Metal Age was born -- a fan-made expansion for Thief II made through DromEd that would be as lengthy and complex as the previous Thief games. If the professional studios wouldn't made another Thief, the the fans would do it on their own!
As it turns out, the studios did make another Thief game -- Thief III: Deadly Shadows, which was released in 2004 and lost its 'III' title in an attempt to access a wider audience who hadn't already played the first two Thiefs. Thief: Deadly Shadows brought with it a number of changes: new developing studio (Ion Storm), new game engine (modified Unreal 2), new technology, and new platforms (both PC and console [XBox]). Nevertheless, a number of ex-Looking Glass employees worked on Deadly Shadows with Ion Storm, including designer Randy Smith and sound master Eric Brosius.
Deadly Shadows continues the story of Garrett, the expert thief lead character of the series who was an orphan living on the streets and stealing to survive until he became part of the Keepers, a secret organization focused on gathering information and maintaining balance in the world. However, after the Keepers trained Garrett, he left them and used the skills they had taught him to become a master thief. Garrett is not a heroic character, nor is he a villain (although it can be - and is - debated among players); rather, he is someone who is primarily looking out for himself and mostly wants to be left alone, only to be manipulated by powers higher than himself into taking action throughout the course of the three games.
That was a far longer introduction to the Thief series than I set out to write, but I think it covers it well. Now, to the gameplay of Deadly Shadows!
Deadly Shadows introduced a number of new features to Thief gameplay, while revising others and taking a few away. Here, I'll go through what I consider the most important features one at a time. This will contain spoilers, but minor ones.
New Features
-A city area. Unlike the first two Thiefs, in which players were transported from mission to mission, Deadly Shadows lets you roam around the city streets and travel to various mission locations on your own. While in the streets, you also have the opportunity to burglarize houses, pickpocket anyone who happens to be wandering the streets, and explore the City. However, you are subject to the same laws as the rest of the citizens and if you are caught, the City Watch will be after you. By the end of the game, five City discricts of the City are open to you -- South Quarter (which is where Garrett lives), Stonemarket, the Docks, Old Quarter, and Auldale.
Unfortunately, for the most part, this city area sounds more exciting that it actually is. Each area is blocked off from the others by a loading zone, in addition to a loading zone splitting Stonemarket in half. In short, what you have is not a freeplay cityscape that sprawl in front of you, but a cluster of small additional areas to navigate before you can start the next mission. The limitations in size which the loading zones place on maps is a detriment, not just here, but also within the missions. (Compare to the vast network of rooftops and buildings seen in Thief II's "The Life of the Party" mission.)
That is not to say that the city area has no positive qualities. I was excited whenever I had access to a new section of the City and thoroughly enjoyed exploring the new area and looting as much as I could before beginning the next mission. Most districts have a few interesting conversations and events that leave 'notes' in your objectives screen, which are the equivalent of optional side quests. My favourite was in Stonemarket, in which you can overhear one of the residents making a deal with 'Garrett' (a thief of questionable skills who is passing himself off as Garrett) to have him steal a dagger. Of course, you can then go forth and steal the dagger yourself and collect the reward. These kinds of stories make the districts more memorable.
At least the first time you go through them. Deadly Shadows is split into nine days and each day the loot is refreshed, although in varying amounts and types. While some might find it fun to go through each district and catch the small differences from day to day, I found it tedious. There's even a pamphlet posted in each district that tallies the amount of loot stolen, citizens killed, etc., for each day, which I thought an unnecessary mood breaker.
There are a few other occasions where the street areas are put to good use, most notably when the Keeper Enforcers have been called out and are searching for you in the streets. This works because it is now a challenge to make your way through the streets and it amplifies the atmosphere of tension. At least until you realize that Keeper Enforcers aren't very hard to avoid or kill (or have other AIs kill for you).
A short word about the architecture of city streets before leaving this section. Almost all sign of steampunk or Victorian influence from Thief II is now gone in the City design. In a way, the City appears even more medieval than it did in The Dark Project. Furthermore, in addition to the limited size of city districts (which can almost make one feel claustrophobic at times), there is little opportunity for vertical exploration. In other words, unlike the first two Thiefs, there are barely any opportunities (or reasons) to mantle onto roofs and explore the City from the top, nor is there any sewer or canal system that could be used to navigate the City from below. The city areas are instead surprisingly straightforward: use the streets.
There's much more I could say about the city areas, but I'll leave it there for now. Well, one last complaint: why can't the city areas mimic the cutscenes more closely? I'm particularly thinking of the destruction of the Clocktower when I say this. In the cutscene, it had collapsed across a good deal of Stonemarket, but when you're wandering around in Stonemarket after the cutscene, all you see is a small pile of burning rubble where the Clocktower used to be in what looks to be an impossibly tiny space for such a large building. Even worse, you never see the top of the Clocktower in the city areas at all!
So in conclusion, it was a good effort. However, the city areas were too bland, too repetitious, and too small. And I promise I won't go as long in the rest of the sections of this review.
-Fences. No, not white picket fences, but blackmarket storekeepers who buy and sell Garrett the thiefing gear he uses. For the most part, there is one buyer and one selling in each district. The loot throughout both the City and the missions has been split up into three categories: metal, artwork, and gems. I like that no fence will take all three times and, similarly, that no fence sells all four elemental arrows (water, fire, moss, and gas). This new fence system took me a little to get used to and it reminded more of an RPG than anything, but it was alright. Also, since Deadly Shadows had a city area and made you travel to the mission locations yourself, it wouldn't make as much sense as it did in the first two Thiefs to purchase your equipment for the mission on a black screen before the mission start. So even though I'm not fond of the fences, they're not bad.
Complaining time again. (Or should we call it constructive criticism time?) Equipment is too cheap. It's aggravated by my tendency to avoid using equipment as much as possible, but I found it ridiculously easy to build up a nearly full inventory. Furthermore, whereas less inventory was made available to expert difficulty players in order to increase the challenge in the first two Thiefs, Deadly Shadows actually gives expert players the most access to items since it requires them to steal 90% of the loot for every mission. I find it terribly ironic since if you're playing on expert, especially if you're ghosting, chances are you don't want easy access to items since you're trying to avoid using them. Not that I think Deadly Shadows should have specifically tried to accommodate ghosting (although that would have been nice, ghosting was a fan-invented gameplay style to begin with), but I think it's a mishandling of expert difficulty. A game-wide difficulty option might have fixed this and eliminated the need to reselect expert when playing the missions (though I would always want the option to change difficulty on missions there, just as it was in the original). This option would have also made the city streets more dangerous instead of defaulting all players back to one difficulty.
-Factions. Another RPG-type element added to Deadly Shadows thanks in large part to having a city area. After the first three missions (not counting the tutorial), you are given the option to ally with either the Pagans (a sect that worships the Trickster and lives close to nature), the Hammers (a sect that worships the Master Builder and is involved with ironwork, cathedral building, and heretic punishing), or both. There area three possible statuses for each sect: enemy (during which members of the sect will attack you on site), neutral (members of the sect will leave you alone unless you enter their territory), and allied (members of the sect will let you enter their territory and help you if you are attacked). To increase your faction status, you must perform certain faction-related tasks, most of which are spread out throughout the city districts. Strangely, nothing you do during missions will affect your faction status (which is good in one sense, since otherwise you'd have to completely rebuild any Hammer status after the Clocktower mission, although I wouldn't be opposed to that).
Initially, my plan was to remain neutral toward both the Pagans and the Hammers since I think that's which the Garrett from the first two Thiefs would have done (to quote Garrett from The Dark Project, "Fanatics make unreliable friends."), but my love of killing undead rose my Hammer status to allied and I eventually allied with the Pagans, too. I enjoyed the faction option more than I thought I would, if one because walking next to a Hammer openly in the light and having him talk to me was a very surreal moment, but it was unnecessary for the game as a whole. However, since all status-building actions are completely optional, it's up to the player how much they even want to involve themselves in the whole business. I must say, though, that being allied with the Hammers made the second half of the game in the city areas easier. Some of the things the Hammers said to me made me laugh (unintentionally, I think) and it thrilled me to actually be addressed by 'Garrett' casually by an AI. Ah, the wonders of modern computer games.
My verdict on factions? Pleasantly surprised. I thought I wouldn't like it at all. The Keepers are also a faction, but your status for them is entirely controlled by the storyline.
-Third person point of view. Yes, Deadly Shadows is the first Thief to not be exclusively in first person. Quite frankly, it freaked me out the first time I switched to third person. However, I barely used it; playing in third person feels completely un-Thieflike to me and takes away some of the immersion and the illusion that I am Garrett, as opposed to a puppet master controlling Garrett. I'm also quite terrible at playing the game in third person; I can't judge shadows as accurately and I occasionally get my camera angles and directions fouled up. Still, to each his own. First person has its own issues, most notably the 'body awareness' that lets you see your arms and legs in first person. I suppose it's a reasonable concept - increase the realism of first person - but in gameplay it's irritating with random limbs coming onto your screen. Also, Garrett's body doesn't always line up properly; I've read it's because his head and legs are controlled separately in first person.
So third person. Use it if you want. If you're used to the first two Thiefs, you probably won't. For myself, the only thing that would tempt me to play in third person are the fan-made high quality skins for Garrett. The only time point of view switches automatically is when you're shooting an arrow (done in first person) or when you die (done in third person, although you can change it by tweaking files).
-Wall leaning. You can now press up against the wall, which makes you as close to invisible as you can get if you're in the shadows. I could never get it to work right until after I finished the game (largely because I tend to play crouched the entire time) and thus have no opinion.
That's all for the new elements section.
Revised Elements
-Lockpicking. Possibly the only Deadly Shadows element that I have no objections to. The new system is more proactive than the old one, although I was terribly confused when I first tried to use it and I didn't realize until near the end of the game that there was a faster way to lockpick. It's definitely not as immediately intuitive as the old system (I wonder if more should have been done in the tutorial about it?), but I find it both more challenging and more entertaining, especially when you turn the HUD off (which can be done by tweaking files).
This isn't related to the lockpicking system, but I noticed that Deadly Shadows had a lack of keys. Unlike the first two Thiefs, there are no unpickable locks for which you must find a key in order to open. Granted, keyhunts aren't to everyone's taste, but I don't think it's unreasonable to require an actual key for important rooms and wish they had used this more in Deadly Shadows.
-AI. Surprisingly, not as impressive as I was hoping.
The good: AI are better at noticing changes in the environment. If you take a piece of loot, they notice and will comment on it and become suspicious. If you pickpocket someone, they'll comment a minute or so later (when they realize they've been robbed) that their purse is missing. AI will also notice open doors than used to be closed, or vice versa. To an extent, this awareness decreases my desire to ghost a mission since it's obvious that the AI already know something suspicious is going on and you receive that feedback both visually and aurally. On expert mode, AI are also sensitive to sounds they weren't previously, such as picking a lock too close to a guard.
The bad: AI are terrible at chasing you, usually with a comment like: "Gotta catch my breath; this armour's heavy." They also move very stiffly. I found it much easier to escape from AI in Deadly Shadows than in the first two Thiefs (or at least Thief II; jumping on top of a table in The Dark Project was a bit too easy). I also can't count the times I made a noise and was afraid the AI was going to find me only to have them go searching in the complete opposite direction or stop searching too quickly. In addition, factions occasionally get fouled up in the city areas, leading AI who you are supposedly allied with to attack you. This seems to be more an AI problem than a faction problem since it always occurred after the AI responsible had been fighting with another (enemy) AI.
Missing Features
-Swimmable water. I could possibly (possibly, mind you) overlook this, even though it is a continuity error (how did Garrett suddenly forget how to swim between Thief II and Deadly Shadows?), if it weren't for what happens when you step in water that's too deep. Namely, the death camera mode activates and you apparently drown, only to wake up in prison. What?! How in the world does that make sense at all? Really, I'd rather Garrett just drowned if you insist on not having swimmable water (selective amnesia?), but prison?! I just don't know what to say to an idea so ridiculous.
Unfortunately, Deadly Shadows just happened to chose a setting for one of its missions that accentuates the lack of swimmable water -- The Sunken Citadel, which is the driest sunken citadel I've ever seen. It seems to have Atlantis inspirations and is inhabited byfish people Kurshocks (along with giant rats which remind me more of jackals, for some odd reason), which would have been the perfect place for some water puzzles. (Speaking of puzzles, Deadly Shadows has a lack of them. Along with secret doors and traps.)
Boo Deadly Shadows and its lack of swimmable water. It's also something of an immersion killer when there was water of some type - usually either rivers or sewers - in at least half of the first two Thiefs' missions.
-Rope arrows. A missing item that affected the lack of vertical exploration and was sorely missed. In an attempt to make up for this, climbing gloves were introduced. The climbing gloves were alright, although they didn't allow for the level of creativity rope arrows did and I got stuck on the outside side of walls (the side you aren't supposed to be on from which you can see the mist of the area beyond the edge of the map) a number of times.
-Mission briefing videos. Not only were they unusual with compelling narration and art in the first two Thiefs, but they helped set the atmosphere of the game and the mood for the mission you were about to embark on. A number of the quotes from various in-world documents at the beginning of the briefings were also quite memorable.
In Deadly Shadows, you get to read plain blue text as Garrett speaks it to you. It just doesn't measure up or incite the same excitement (or dread) in beginning your mission as the briefings did.
I think I've neglected some elements, but I am satisfied with this.
There are a number of aspect in Deadly Shadows I could choose to focus on, but as this review is already longer than either I anticipated or any other review I've written, I'm going to write my overall view of the game (my opinion, obviously) and then conclude with my favourite and least favourite missions.
Was Deadly Shadows a good game? I would say yes.
Did Deadly Shadows live up to the Thief legacy? It tried, and it's still recognizably Thief, but there are definitely improvements that could have been made. I'm still on the fence on this one (no pun intended), though I'm not going to question its title as the third in the Thief trilogy.
Is Deadly Shadows equal to the first two Thiefs? No. Even though the graphics show their age, the first two games (and T2X) have more impressive atmospheres and stories. Deadly Shadows particularly dropped the ball in the briefing and cutscene department, which may seem a minor complaint, but it's a problem when you can't even animate your main character consistently across the game. However, I especially mention briefings and cutscenes because they were beautiful and enthralling to watch in the first two Thiefs (and Thief2X carried on the tradition admirably) and were some of the most memorable moments in the game for me.
In conclusion, something worth playing for Thief fans, as well as those who enjoy stealth games. However, Thief fans will probably find fault, in addition to being less challenging than the first two Thiefs. It's difficult to live up to a legacy and (as of this year) ten years of support and devotion from one of the most talented small fandoms I've ever had the pleasure to encounter and Deadly Shadows doesn't quite manage it. But maybe the fans will.
Actually, strike that. The fans already have. If the over 300 fan missions out there, Thief2X, The Dark Mod, and the still very active fan community over on TTLG doesn't prove that, I don't know what will.
Favourite Deadly Shadows Missions
-The Keeper Compound. At first, I was disappointed. After all, these were the Keepers, the ones who trained Garrett and who we'd only ever seen lurking in cutscenes as silhouettes (or, in Thief II, in the actual mission ["The Life of the Party"]). They were mysterious and experts at stealth with vast libraries full of ancient tomes.
The Keeper Compound is not that. The Keepers are no better than other AI and their facial features are fully exposed. Nevertheless, there was something special about being able to finally explore the Keeper Compound. This is also the only mission I can think of that required you to find a secret door, which Deadly Shadows had a lack of. I also took joy in leaving some, err, parting gifts in Orland's Office in the form of unconscious Keepers sprawled across his bed. (Some things never get old in Thief.)
-The Shalebridge Cradle. Not as scary as I'd heard everyone saying, but I did spoil myself ahead of time when I thought I wouldn't have the opportunity to play Deadly Shadows. Laurel irritated me at first (I strongly dislike 'go fetch' missions; "Return to the Haunted Cathedral" from The Dark Project was the worst and completely ruined the atmosphere for me [the only mission I restarted on a lower difficulty because I couldn't put up with Brother Murus anymore]), but the atmosphere of the Cradle kept it together. Many interesting concepts that are, for the most part, well-realized. Perfect for something Malkavian, if you want to indulge your Vampire: The Masquerade side.
Oddly, I found the Cradle to be the easiest level as far as both stealth and loot go. The atmosphere and music should rightly be praised for keeping the level of dread high.
-The Clocktower. This is an odd choice for me as it is one thing that I think most Thief missions should not be: linear. You start at the top and go down through pretty much one route. Nevertheless, it was a setting that hasn't been used in Thief and I challenged myself ever more so than usual not to let any loot escape me since I figured it would be difficult to go back up. I think I also made this mission more exciting for myself than it actually was; I was really hoping for a few Haunts and at the bottom of the Clocktower. (Unfortunately, the Haunts in Deadly Shadows are whimps and even less scary than the zombies.)
This mission also reminded me of Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption, which was the last time I was in a clocktower in a game.
-St. Edgar's. I generally like Hammerite church missions, although this isn't as large as it could have been (like oh so many things in Deadly Shadows . . .). However, I was initially put off by the new Hammerite skins, which aren't nearly as nice (or as threatening) as the old ones. Nevertheless, ample use of pipes to navigate via alternate routes was nice, although rather too convenient. The chapel itself was beautiful.
Plus, the Hammers now have a room for burning zombies in their factory.
Least Favourite Deadly Shadows Missions
-The Sunken Citadel. I've already ranted a bit about this under 'swimmable water', but it's a sad excuse for a sunken citadel. It's also rather small with many AI clustered together, nearly impossibly to ghost, and relatively boring. I wish there had been more readables about life in the citadel and how these creatures got here, but even that wouldn't have saved the level.
-The Overlook Manse. It almost pains me to put this mission here; it has gorgeous theme music and the way the lightning can reveal your hiding place when you're on the top floor is something that hasn't been done before. Nevertheless, this level gets the reward for most unintuitive side quest ever. It's completely optional, I know, but I had absolutely no idea what to do until I read a walkthorugh online. The quest was to bring Widow Moira a bottle of wine, so I naturally went down to search in the kitchen. Nothing.
So I checked along the railings. Nothing. And in almost ever other room in the house. Again. Nothing.
After forty minutes of searching with my frustration mounting, it was time to look it up online.
The bottle is in the kitchen. It's marked as a junk item. Which is something you normally never, ever want to carry with you, especially as you can't open or shut doors or do anything else with your hands when you're carrying one.
It left a very sour taste in my mouth and I completely broke my ghost after that because I just wanted the mission to be over.
-The Blue Heron Inn. I don't know if I should even count this since this is the tutorial, but it's much worse done than either The Dark Project's or Thief II's tutorial (which, in case of the latter, was simply the first mission). Still, being shown exactly where to step and not being able to explore elsewhere was excessive.
I do have to say of my favourite missions that I'm less partial to them than my favourite missions in the first two Thiefs.
Any and all spelling and other errors are my responsibility and I apologize; I have only edited this a little.
The Dark Project was successful enough that a souped-up version of the game was released in 1999 as Thief Gold and a sequel - Thief II: The Metal Age - in 2000. Shortly thereafter, Looking Glass Studios closed, which led Thief fans to wonder over the fate of the series. However, the fandom did not die, perhaps in large part due to DromEd, the level editor for the first two Thief games that was released with Thief Gold and allowed fans to create their own missions. It was in this time after the closer of Looking Glass that the concept of Thief2X: Shadows of the Metal Age was born -- a fan-made expansion for Thief II made through DromEd that would be as lengthy and complex as the previous Thief games. If the professional studios wouldn't made another Thief, the the fans would do it on their own!
As it turns out, the studios did make another Thief game -- Thief III: Deadly Shadows, which was released in 2004 and lost its 'III' title in an attempt to access a wider audience who hadn't already played the first two Thiefs. Thief: Deadly Shadows brought with it a number of changes: new developing studio (Ion Storm), new game engine (modified Unreal 2), new technology, and new platforms (both PC and console [XBox]). Nevertheless, a number of ex-Looking Glass employees worked on Deadly Shadows with Ion Storm, including designer Randy Smith and sound master Eric Brosius.
Deadly Shadows continues the story of Garrett, the expert thief lead character of the series who was an orphan living on the streets and stealing to survive until he became part of the Keepers, a secret organization focused on gathering information and maintaining balance in the world. However, after the Keepers trained Garrett, he left them and used the skills they had taught him to become a master thief. Garrett is not a heroic character, nor is he a villain (although it can be - and is - debated among players); rather, he is someone who is primarily looking out for himself and mostly wants to be left alone, only to be manipulated by powers higher than himself into taking action throughout the course of the three games.
That was a far longer introduction to the Thief series than I set out to write, but I think it covers it well. Now, to the gameplay of Deadly Shadows!
Deadly Shadows introduced a number of new features to Thief gameplay, while revising others and taking a few away. Here, I'll go through what I consider the most important features one at a time. This will contain spoilers, but minor ones.
New Features
-A city area. Unlike the first two Thiefs, in which players were transported from mission to mission, Deadly Shadows lets you roam around the city streets and travel to various mission locations on your own. While in the streets, you also have the opportunity to burglarize houses, pickpocket anyone who happens to be wandering the streets, and explore the City. However, you are subject to the same laws as the rest of the citizens and if you are caught, the City Watch will be after you. By the end of the game, five City discricts of the City are open to you -- South Quarter (which is where Garrett lives), Stonemarket, the Docks, Old Quarter, and Auldale.
Unfortunately, for the most part, this city area sounds more exciting that it actually is. Each area is blocked off from the others by a loading zone, in addition to a loading zone splitting Stonemarket in half. In short, what you have is not a freeplay cityscape that sprawl in front of you, but a cluster of small additional areas to navigate before you can start the next mission. The limitations in size which the loading zones place on maps is a detriment, not just here, but also within the missions. (Compare to the vast network of rooftops and buildings seen in Thief II's "The Life of the Party" mission.)
That is not to say that the city area has no positive qualities. I was excited whenever I had access to a new section of the City and thoroughly enjoyed exploring the new area and looting as much as I could before beginning the next mission. Most districts have a few interesting conversations and events that leave 'notes' in your objectives screen, which are the equivalent of optional side quests. My favourite was in Stonemarket, in which you can overhear one of the residents making a deal with 'Garrett' (a thief of questionable skills who is passing himself off as Garrett) to have him steal a dagger. Of course, you can then go forth and steal the dagger yourself and collect the reward. These kinds of stories make the districts more memorable.
At least the first time you go through them. Deadly Shadows is split into nine days and each day the loot is refreshed, although in varying amounts and types. While some might find it fun to go through each district and catch the small differences from day to day, I found it tedious. There's even a pamphlet posted in each district that tallies the amount of loot stolen, citizens killed, etc., for each day, which I thought an unnecessary mood breaker.
There are a few other occasions where the street areas are put to good use, most notably when the Keeper Enforcers have been called out and are searching for you in the streets. This works because it is now a challenge to make your way through the streets and it amplifies the atmosphere of tension. At least until you realize that Keeper Enforcers aren't very hard to avoid or kill (or have other AIs kill for you).
A short word about the architecture of city streets before leaving this section. Almost all sign of steampunk or Victorian influence from Thief II is now gone in the City design. In a way, the City appears even more medieval than it did in The Dark Project. Furthermore, in addition to the limited size of city districts (which can almost make one feel claustrophobic at times), there is little opportunity for vertical exploration. In other words, unlike the first two Thiefs, there are barely any opportunities (or reasons) to mantle onto roofs and explore the City from the top, nor is there any sewer or canal system that could be used to navigate the City from below. The city areas are instead surprisingly straightforward: use the streets.
There's much more I could say about the city areas, but I'll leave it there for now. Well, one last complaint: why can't the city areas mimic the cutscenes more closely? I'm particularly thinking of the destruction of the Clocktower when I say this. In the cutscene, it had collapsed across a good deal of Stonemarket, but when you're wandering around in Stonemarket after the cutscene, all you see is a small pile of burning rubble where the Clocktower used to be in what looks to be an impossibly tiny space for such a large building. Even worse, you never see the top of the Clocktower in the city areas at all!
So in conclusion, it was a good effort. However, the city areas were too bland, too repetitious, and too small. And I promise I won't go as long in the rest of the sections of this review.
-Fences. No, not white picket fences, but blackmarket storekeepers who buy and sell Garrett the thiefing gear he uses. For the most part, there is one buyer and one selling in each district. The loot throughout both the City and the missions has been split up into three categories: metal, artwork, and gems. I like that no fence will take all three times and, similarly, that no fence sells all four elemental arrows (water, fire, moss, and gas). This new fence system took me a little to get used to and it reminded more of an RPG than anything, but it was alright. Also, since Deadly Shadows had a city area and made you travel to the mission locations yourself, it wouldn't make as much sense as it did in the first two Thiefs to purchase your equipment for the mission on a black screen before the mission start. So even though I'm not fond of the fences, they're not bad.
Complaining time again. (Or should we call it constructive criticism time?) Equipment is too cheap. It's aggravated by my tendency to avoid using equipment as much as possible, but I found it ridiculously easy to build up a nearly full inventory. Furthermore, whereas less inventory was made available to expert difficulty players in order to increase the challenge in the first two Thiefs, Deadly Shadows actually gives expert players the most access to items since it requires them to steal 90% of the loot for every mission. I find it terribly ironic since if you're playing on expert, especially if you're ghosting, chances are you don't want easy access to items since you're trying to avoid using them. Not that I think Deadly Shadows should have specifically tried to accommodate ghosting (although that would have been nice, ghosting was a fan-invented gameplay style to begin with), but I think it's a mishandling of expert difficulty. A game-wide difficulty option might have fixed this and eliminated the need to reselect expert when playing the missions (though I would always want the option to change difficulty on missions there, just as it was in the original). This option would have also made the city streets more dangerous instead of defaulting all players back to one difficulty.
-Factions. Another RPG-type element added to Deadly Shadows thanks in large part to having a city area. After the first three missions (not counting the tutorial), you are given the option to ally with either the Pagans (a sect that worships the Trickster and lives close to nature), the Hammers (a sect that worships the Master Builder and is involved with ironwork, cathedral building, and heretic punishing), or both. There area three possible statuses for each sect: enemy (during which members of the sect will attack you on site), neutral (members of the sect will leave you alone unless you enter their territory), and allied (members of the sect will let you enter their territory and help you if you are attacked). To increase your faction status, you must perform certain faction-related tasks, most of which are spread out throughout the city districts. Strangely, nothing you do during missions will affect your faction status (which is good in one sense, since otherwise you'd have to completely rebuild any Hammer status after the Clocktower mission, although I wouldn't be opposed to that).
Initially, my plan was to remain neutral toward both the Pagans and the Hammers since I think that's which the Garrett from the first two Thiefs would have done (to quote Garrett from The Dark Project, "Fanatics make unreliable friends."), but my love of killing undead rose my Hammer status to allied and I eventually allied with the Pagans, too. I enjoyed the faction option more than I thought I would, if one because walking next to a Hammer openly in the light and having him talk to me was a very surreal moment, but it was unnecessary for the game as a whole. However, since all status-building actions are completely optional, it's up to the player how much they even want to involve themselves in the whole business. I must say, though, that being allied with the Hammers made the second half of the game in the city areas easier. Some of the things the Hammers said to me made me laugh (unintentionally, I think) and it thrilled me to actually be addressed by 'Garrett' casually by an AI. Ah, the wonders of modern computer games.
My verdict on factions? Pleasantly surprised. I thought I wouldn't like it at all. The Keepers are also a faction, but your status for them is entirely controlled by the storyline.
-Third person point of view. Yes, Deadly Shadows is the first Thief to not be exclusively in first person. Quite frankly, it freaked me out the first time I switched to third person. However, I barely used it; playing in third person feels completely un-Thieflike to me and takes away some of the immersion and the illusion that I am Garrett, as opposed to a puppet master controlling Garrett. I'm also quite terrible at playing the game in third person; I can't judge shadows as accurately and I occasionally get my camera angles and directions fouled up. Still, to each his own. First person has its own issues, most notably the 'body awareness' that lets you see your arms and legs in first person. I suppose it's a reasonable concept - increase the realism of first person - but in gameplay it's irritating with random limbs coming onto your screen. Also, Garrett's body doesn't always line up properly; I've read it's because his head and legs are controlled separately in first person.
So third person. Use it if you want. If you're used to the first two Thiefs, you probably won't. For myself, the only thing that would tempt me to play in third person are the fan-made high quality skins for Garrett. The only time point of view switches automatically is when you're shooting an arrow (done in first person) or when you die (done in third person, although you can change it by tweaking files).
-Wall leaning. You can now press up against the wall, which makes you as close to invisible as you can get if you're in the shadows. I could never get it to work right until after I finished the game (largely because I tend to play crouched the entire time) and thus have no opinion.
That's all for the new elements section.
Revised Elements
-Lockpicking. Possibly the only Deadly Shadows element that I have no objections to. The new system is more proactive than the old one, although I was terribly confused when I first tried to use it and I didn't realize until near the end of the game that there was a faster way to lockpick. It's definitely not as immediately intuitive as the old system (I wonder if more should have been done in the tutorial about it?), but I find it both more challenging and more entertaining, especially when you turn the HUD off (which can be done by tweaking files).
This isn't related to the lockpicking system, but I noticed that Deadly Shadows had a lack of keys. Unlike the first two Thiefs, there are no unpickable locks for which you must find a key in order to open. Granted, keyhunts aren't to everyone's taste, but I don't think it's unreasonable to require an actual key for important rooms and wish they had used this more in Deadly Shadows.
-AI. Surprisingly, not as impressive as I was hoping.
The good: AI are better at noticing changes in the environment. If you take a piece of loot, they notice and will comment on it and become suspicious. If you pickpocket someone, they'll comment a minute or so later (when they realize they've been robbed) that their purse is missing. AI will also notice open doors than used to be closed, or vice versa. To an extent, this awareness decreases my desire to ghost a mission since it's obvious that the AI already know something suspicious is going on and you receive that feedback both visually and aurally. On expert mode, AI are also sensitive to sounds they weren't previously, such as picking a lock too close to a guard.
The bad: AI are terrible at chasing you, usually with a comment like: "Gotta catch my breath; this armour's heavy." They also move very stiffly. I found it much easier to escape from AI in Deadly Shadows than in the first two Thiefs (or at least Thief II; jumping on top of a table in The Dark Project was a bit too easy). I also can't count the times I made a noise and was afraid the AI was going to find me only to have them go searching in the complete opposite direction or stop searching too quickly. In addition, factions occasionally get fouled up in the city areas, leading AI who you are supposedly allied with to attack you. This seems to be more an AI problem than a faction problem since it always occurred after the AI responsible had been fighting with another (enemy) AI.
Missing Features
-Swimmable water. I could possibly (possibly, mind you) overlook this, even though it is a continuity error (how did Garrett suddenly forget how to swim between Thief II and Deadly Shadows?), if it weren't for what happens when you step in water that's too deep. Namely, the death camera mode activates and you apparently drown, only to wake up in prison. What?! How in the world does that make sense at all? Really, I'd rather Garrett just drowned if you insist on not having swimmable water (selective amnesia?), but prison?! I just don't know what to say to an idea so ridiculous.
Unfortunately, Deadly Shadows just happened to chose a setting for one of its missions that accentuates the lack of swimmable water -- The Sunken Citadel, which is the driest sunken citadel I've ever seen. It seems to have Atlantis inspirations and is inhabited by
Boo Deadly Shadows and its lack of swimmable water. It's also something of an immersion killer when there was water of some type - usually either rivers or sewers - in at least half of the first two Thiefs' missions.
-Rope arrows. A missing item that affected the lack of vertical exploration and was sorely missed. In an attempt to make up for this, climbing gloves were introduced. The climbing gloves were alright, although they didn't allow for the level of creativity rope arrows did and I got stuck on the outside side of walls (the side you aren't supposed to be on from which you can see the mist of the area beyond the edge of the map) a number of times.
-Mission briefing videos. Not only were they unusual with compelling narration and art in the first two Thiefs, but they helped set the atmosphere of the game and the mood for the mission you were about to embark on. A number of the quotes from various in-world documents at the beginning of the briefings were also quite memorable.
In Deadly Shadows, you get to read plain blue text as Garrett speaks it to you. It just doesn't measure up or incite the same excitement (or dread) in beginning your mission as the briefings did.
I think I've neglected some elements, but I am satisfied with this.
There are a number of aspect in Deadly Shadows I could choose to focus on, but as this review is already longer than either I anticipated or any other review I've written, I'm going to write my overall view of the game (my opinion, obviously) and then conclude with my favourite and least favourite missions.
Was Deadly Shadows a good game? I would say yes.
Did Deadly Shadows live up to the Thief legacy? It tried, and it's still recognizably Thief, but there are definitely improvements that could have been made. I'm still on the fence on this one (no pun intended), though I'm not going to question its title as the third in the Thief trilogy.
Is Deadly Shadows equal to the first two Thiefs? No. Even though the graphics show their age, the first two games (and T2X) have more impressive atmospheres and stories. Deadly Shadows particularly dropped the ball in the briefing and cutscene department, which may seem a minor complaint, but it's a problem when you can't even animate your main character consistently across the game. However, I especially mention briefings and cutscenes because they were beautiful and enthralling to watch in the first two Thiefs (and Thief2X carried on the tradition admirably) and were some of the most memorable moments in the game for me.
In conclusion, something worth playing for Thief fans, as well as those who enjoy stealth games. However, Thief fans will probably find fault, in addition to being less challenging than the first two Thiefs. It's difficult to live up to a legacy and (as of this year) ten years of support and devotion from one of the most talented small fandoms I've ever had the pleasure to encounter and Deadly Shadows doesn't quite manage it. But maybe the fans will.
Actually, strike that. The fans already have. If the over 300 fan missions out there, Thief2X, The Dark Mod, and the still very active fan community over on TTLG doesn't prove that, I don't know what will.
Favourite Deadly Shadows Missions
-The Keeper Compound. At first, I was disappointed. After all, these were the Keepers, the ones who trained Garrett and who we'd only ever seen lurking in cutscenes as silhouettes (or, in Thief II, in the actual mission ["The Life of the Party"]). They were mysterious and experts at stealth with vast libraries full of ancient tomes.
The Keeper Compound is not that. The Keepers are no better than other AI and their facial features are fully exposed. Nevertheless, there was something special about being able to finally explore the Keeper Compound. This is also the only mission I can think of that required you to find a secret door, which Deadly Shadows had a lack of. I also took joy in leaving some, err, parting gifts in Orland's Office in the form of unconscious Keepers sprawled across his bed. (Some things never get old in Thief.)
-The Shalebridge Cradle. Not as scary as I'd heard everyone saying, but I did spoil myself ahead of time when I thought I wouldn't have the opportunity to play Deadly Shadows. Laurel irritated me at first (I strongly dislike 'go fetch' missions; "Return to the Haunted Cathedral" from The Dark Project was the worst and completely ruined the atmosphere for me [the only mission I restarted on a lower difficulty because I couldn't put up with Brother Murus anymore]), but the atmosphere of the Cradle kept it together. Many interesting concepts that are, for the most part, well-realized. Perfect for something Malkavian, if you want to indulge your Vampire: The Masquerade side.
Oddly, I found the Cradle to be the easiest level as far as both stealth and loot go. The atmosphere and music should rightly be praised for keeping the level of dread high.
-The Clocktower. This is an odd choice for me as it is one thing that I think most Thief missions should not be: linear. You start at the top and go down through pretty much one route. Nevertheless, it was a setting that hasn't been used in Thief and I challenged myself ever more so than usual not to let any loot escape me since I figured it would be difficult to go back up. I think I also made this mission more exciting for myself than it actually was; I was really hoping for a few Haunts and at the bottom of the Clocktower. (Unfortunately, the Haunts in Deadly Shadows are whimps and even less scary than the zombies.)
This mission also reminded me of Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption, which was the last time I was in a clocktower in a game.
-St. Edgar's. I generally like Hammerite church missions, although this isn't as large as it could have been (like oh so many things in Deadly Shadows . . .). However, I was initially put off by the new Hammerite skins, which aren't nearly as nice (or as threatening) as the old ones. Nevertheless, ample use of pipes to navigate via alternate routes was nice, although rather too convenient. The chapel itself was beautiful.
Plus, the Hammers now have a room for burning zombies in their factory.
Least Favourite Deadly Shadows Missions
-The Sunken Citadel. I've already ranted a bit about this under 'swimmable water', but it's a sad excuse for a sunken citadel. It's also rather small with many AI clustered together, nearly impossibly to ghost, and relatively boring. I wish there had been more readables about life in the citadel and how these creatures got here, but even that wouldn't have saved the level.
-The Overlook Manse. It almost pains me to put this mission here; it has gorgeous theme music and the way the lightning can reveal your hiding place when you're on the top floor is something that hasn't been done before. Nevertheless, this level gets the reward for most unintuitive side quest ever. It's completely optional, I know, but I had absolutely no idea what to do until I read a walkthorugh online. The quest was to bring Widow Moira a bottle of wine, so I naturally went down to search in the kitchen. Nothing.
So I checked along the railings. Nothing. And in almost ever other room in the house. Again. Nothing.
After forty minutes of searching with my frustration mounting, it was time to look it up online.
The bottle is in the kitchen. It's marked as a junk item. Which is something you normally never, ever want to carry with you, especially as you can't open or shut doors or do anything else with your hands when you're carrying one.
It left a very sour taste in my mouth and I completely broke my ghost after that because I just wanted the mission to be over.
-The Blue Heron Inn. I don't know if I should even count this since this is the tutorial, but it's much worse done than either The Dark Project's or Thief II's tutorial (which, in case of the latter, was simply the first mission). Still, being shown exactly where to step and not being able to explore elsewhere was excessive.
I do have to say of my favourite missions that I'm less partial to them than my favourite missions in the first two Thiefs.
Any and all spelling and other errors are my responsibility and I apologize; I have only edited this a little.
