Support NeoGAF

[Cyberpunkd]

I'm talking about Thief: The Dark Project:

Together with Thief 2: Metal Age and Thief: Deadly Shadows:

First two are monumental achievements in the history of videogames and stealth genre in general - you can even say Thief: The Dark Project gave birth to the genre as we know it (even though Metal Gear Solid came out 3 months earlier I would argue the future games took much more mechanically from Thief than MGS).
The third game - Deadly Shadows - is considered weaker than the first two but gave us IMO the best level in the history of Thief and one of the best levels in any game ever - Shalebridge Cradle - which was forever immortalized in this 10-pages feature from PC Gamer in 2005. One of the best videogame articles of all time and a testament to how far "gaming journalism" has fallen.

Buy it, play it and remember - nothing has changed. All is as it was written. The Trickster is dead. Beware the dawn... of the Metal Age.

 

[MrTroubleMaker]

got them a while ago, such good games!

 

[Hrk69]

I'm not playing no 20 year old trash

 

[simpatico]

For any Thief enjoyers, the only modern game that scratches the same itch (and does so very very well) is Gloomwood.

It's early access, only half the game is available. I decided to stop playing and wait for the full course, but holy shit if you love Thief, this is it. Most exciting ImSim project on the market IMO. Made by the good lads at New Blood. Absolute S tier map quality. I mean, every nook and cranny is just chefs kiss.

I'm not playing no 20 year old trash

The next time you wonder why Sony promotes Horizon series so much, or why Bioware has a tampon budget bigger than the GFX budget. The reason the caged bird sings and why Ubisoft no long makes Brothers in Arms. This is the reason. As a whole, we get exactly what we deserve.

 

[SmurfMustard]

I'm not playing no 20 year old trash

Pathetic

 

[GHG]

For any Thief enjoyers, the only modern game that scratches the same itch (and does so very very well) is Gloomwood.

It's early access, only half the game is available. I decided to stop playing and wait for the full course, but holy shit if you love Thief, this is it. Most exciting ImSim project on the market IMO. Made by the good lads at New Blood. Absolute S tier map quality. I mean, every nook and cranny is just chefs kiss.

The next time you wonder why Sony promotes Horizon series so much, or why Bioware has a tampon budget bigger than the GFX budget. The reason the caged bird sings and why Ubisoft no long makes Brothers in Arms. This is the reason. As a whole, we get exactly what we deserve.

There's also shadows of doubt and fallen aces, although both are a tad different from a stylistic point of view:

But yeh, I'd say those are the 3 most promising immersive sim projects on the market.

 

[simpatico]

There's also shadows of doubt and fallen aces, although both are a tad different from a stylistic point of view:

But yeh, I'd say those are the 3 most promising immersive sim projects on the market.

I loved Fallen Aces, but I think it leans toward a beat'em up take on an ImSim Lite. Going to check out Shadows of Doubt though. Gloomwood is almost 1:1 Thief vibes for me, with a few more options at your disposal. A true spiritual successor.

 

[John Bilbo]

It's a steal

 

[LazyParrot]

The game wasn't a looker even back in 98, but the gameplay, audio and mission design are still unmatched 25+ years later.

 

[Lord Panda]

I'm not playing no 20 year old trash

 

[RoboFu]

Would you say.... it's a steal????

 

[TintoConCasera]

To whoever decides to play this nowadays: check out this review, from 0:55 to 2:15 this fine man explains how to restore EAX sound, which makes a ton of difference in this game since the spatial audio actually matters for the gameplay.

 

[Futaleufu]

The game wasn't a looker even back in 98, but the gameplay, audio and mission design are still unmatched 25+ years later.

It was way better looking than anything in PS1 or N64

 

[West Texas CEO]

At that price, it's a no-brainer.
Especially considering how influential Thief was.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Forgot to put this video:



This video is from 10 years ago and it already prophesied the type of videogames that followed and that are right now (hopefully) crashing e.g. concord to to sameness and trying to appeal to everyone.

 

[genesisblock]

God, I should replay the series again. Best stealth game ever made. Period.

 

[samoilaaa]

For any Thief enjoyers, the only modern game that scratches the same itch (and does so very very well) is Gloomwood.

It's early access, only half the game is available. I decided to stop playing and wait for the full course, but holy shit if you love Thief, this is it. Most exciting ImSim project on the market IMO. Made by the good lads at New Blood. Absolute S tier map quality. I mean, every nook and cranny is just chefs kiss.

The next time you wonder why Sony promotes Horizon series so much, or why Bioware has a tampon budget bigger than the GFX budget. The reason the caged bird sings and why Ubisoft no long makes Brothers in Arms. This is the reason. As a whole, we get exactly what we deserve.

this game is amazing

 

[Soodanim]

It's a steal

Would you say.... it's a steal????

Is this a meta joke where you've stolen John's pun, or did you excitedly post when you thought of it and didn't check If anyone else had beat you by 2 hours? (It's the latter but you can pretend it's the former)

 

[Barakov]

I'm not playing no 20 year old trash

 

[Toots]

I'm not playing no 20 year old trash

You're right tho you won't be playing 20 yo trash you'll be playing a masterpiece of a stealth game which mechanics still hold 20 y later and are often even better than current games...

 

[SmokedMeat]

I'm not playing no 20 year old trash

Just ignore the twenty year old trash and go back to playing the modern Sweet Baby AAA greatness.

 

[struggler_guts]

No but really though, was gonnah ask if it holds up today but for a dollar each I might as well just try em

 

[Cyberpunkd]

No but really though, was gonnah ask if it holds up today but for a dollar each I might as well just try em

I does hold up extremely well. Movement might be clunky but you get used to it quickly.

 

[LazyParrot]

It was way better looking than anything in PS1 or N64

That's debatable. But in any case, it's a PC game, and PC already had games like Half-Life and Unreal back then.

Personally, I'm a fan of the graphics and the overall art style, but in my experience most people aren't.

 

[grvg]

I want to love Thief but I am so irredeemably bad at it. How do you get good at the game? I just end up getting seen and doing a Benny hill esque escape adventure and steal everything I can while running from guards at the same time.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Don’t forget the awesome mod for Thief 1 that released last year,



7 ish years of development by passionate fans

 

[Senua]

I'm not playing no 20 year old trash

 

[LazyParrot]

I want to love Thief but I am so irredeemably bad at it. How do you get good at the game? I just end up getting seen and doing a Benny hill esque escape adventure and steal everything I can while running from guards at the same time.

If you're a lost case when it comes to stealth, Thief is actually surprisingly entertaining to play as a pure action game. A lot of the movement tricks found in other 90s games like Quake 1 and 2 like strafe jumping also work in this game, and the NPCs are absolutely not prepared for it. Once you get the hang of it you can easily take out any number of guards with your sword without ever getting hit.

 

[DaGwaphics]

I own the first one, I'll have to grab these others. I will play them someday.

 

[Dr. Acid Avatar]

Grabbed them all and I noticed the Deus Ex games were also similarly discounted. Thanks OP.

 

[struggler_guts]

I does hold up extremely well. Movement might be clunky but you get used to it quickly.

Welp a wonderful gaffer just gifted me all three so

WE IN THERE BOYS

 

[Toots]

I want to love Thief but I am so irredeemably bad at it. How do you get good at the game? I just end up getting seen and doing a Benny hill esque escape adventure and steal everything I can while running from guards at the same time.

That's one way to play it

Really tho from what i remember it's your ability to observe and wait before taking action that is most important here. What are the guards patrol routes*, how can you avoid them and still get where you want, etc. Plus you need to do the levels a lot of times to find the secret passages (like inside the well near the drunken singing guard in the first level if memory serves right). And also grab a bunch of rope arrows and water arrows so you can climb everywhere and extinguish those annoying torchs.

*I cannot emphasize it enough, you need to know where the guard are all the time. Because when you know where they are, you also know where they aren't. By substracting where they are from where they aren't, or where they aren't from where they are (whichever is greater), you obtain a difference, or deviation. Your brain uses those deviations to generate corrective commands to drive yourself from a position where guards are, to a position where they aren't, and it follows that the position that you were, is now the position that you aren't.

Hope its clear enough !

Spoiler

Doing the end of the meme because its fun to rewrite dumb stuff but actually the first half is quite a decent advice for a thief player you need to be where the guards are not and for that you need to know their patrol routes

The guard/player guidance scenario works as follow. Because a variation has modified some of the information you have obtained, you're not sure where you are. However, you are sure where you aren't, within reason, and you know where you were. You can now substract where you should be from where you weren't, or vice-versa, and by differenciating this from the algebraic sum of where you shouldn't be, and where you were, you are able to obtain the deviation and its variation, which is called error.

 

[Shadowstar39]

Already own them on disk, steam and gog. Favorite non rpg games of all time, obviously.

If you don't have these, and have a pc , steam deck, or shit any old laptop from the last 20 years will run these, or even an intel mac, then get them already!

Oh and install tfix and the hd mods and texture replacers. Gives you direct3d9, high res textures, high resolution/widescreen, and a ton of other features.

Once you play thief 1 and 2, there is a 100s of fan made missions for them.
There is even a side story fan made sequel with a female theif (pre woke era, so it's good) called Thief 2x shadows of the metal age.
Other notables multi-mission campaigns in T1 and 2 are:
The Black Parade
The Seven Sisters
Dracula Reloaded
Bathory
The Black Frog
The Gems of Provenance
Godbreaker + Feast of Pilgrims
Death's Cold Embrace

There is literally 100s of awesome missions out there, similar to NWN's campaign scene. Something that we used to get back in the day.

Now theif3, gets a bad rap, but it was actually really good. It has fan missions too, Thief's Rising 1&2 are one such series.

After thief3 and you want something more up to date (although not officially thief) there is the DARK MOD. A idtech (doom3) engine made for thief fan mission content. There are 100s of levels on that platform.
The Dark Mod came out standalone in 2009 and is esentially a theif platform for making missions. A lot of good stuff.

Then we get the abomination of 2014's theif4.... That single handedly killed the franchise, well at least that is what it looks like. It sucks too as all they had to do was keep it close to Dues Ex Human revolution's control scheme, which had jumping, but no the 2014 sequel took out jumping for hand set locations to jump. It took a way a lot of the freedom of doing it your own way.
The same publisher made dues ex, why they didn't just reuse that engine is ridiculous. Sure t2014 looked great, and had atmosphere, but the gameplay was not there.
Buy it cheap as it's still a fun one time playthrough but know its not real thief.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Grabbed them all and I noticed the Deus Ex games were also similarly discounted. Thanks OP.

Similarly, another game is on sale that holds a special place for me in that era

A game I loved a lot back in the days.