Thief Gold (1999)

씨프 골드 한글패치를 배포중이니 모두들 이 다시 없을 명작을 체험해보세요~ https://cafe.naver.com/thiefgame/660

In awe that I spent so long unfamiliar with these games. An unraveling of religious cults based on pagan trickster figures, a sect focusing on industrial progress following the tenets of a godlike figure called the builder, a clandestine group of assassins that control the city and its elite from the shadows, piecing together parts from this bible that every mission opens w/ surreal excerpts from; steampunk gothic architecture with an incredible, industrial soundtrack. And mechanically it is perfect, simulating all of your tool and leading to such incredibly emergent gameplay. Very excited to check out the rest of the looking glass games :)

Культовая нестареющая классика, точно выверенный геймплей, один из лучших левел- и саунд-дизайнов в истории игр. А еще здесь потрясающий, тёмный, мрачный лор, прописанный в обрывках найденных записок и подслушанный в диалогах. Обязательно для прохождения всем поклонникам стелс/хорроров.

Will struggle to run on modern computers without community patches. I am very glad this classic is getting a remaster. Its still a masterpiece and a very unique game despite it being the inspiration for many big games that would come within the next two decades.

Good classic game. Seems to work on steadeck.

stealth classic and immersive sim classic 10/10 recommend

Okay so gave this one a try because it's apparently a stealth GOAT, sure. Played just the first story mission because, well, I didn't really like what I saw. Played the Tfix version because ts doesn't turn on otherwise. Graphics/sound-wise, it's a game from the previous century, so I'm cutting some slack here. Gameplay-wise, nah, look, I can play Half-Life today and have fun, but not this "immersive sim". Enemies can apparently echolocate me, but don't care when I extinguish torches in their field of view. I can't mark walls in a "THIEF" game, why? Is it unlocked later on, when the levels get more complex? Inconsistent when deciding whether I'm in the shadows or light, so I have to rely on the extremely immersive indicator at the bottom of the screen. Combat is discouraged, that's fine. This could be done by doing something different than make the enemy animations unreadable (they don't look good either way). I did like having a static map and no quest objectives. It probably slapped those almost 30 years back, but today? Nah. The remaster won't help with these issues either.

I really wanted to like Thief, I really did, but unfortunately there are too many things that add up resulting in a confused experience. There were moments Thief amazed me, especially considering its age. The music, cutscenes, the clockpunk aesthetic, atmosphere and voice of Garrett done by Stephen Russell are all superbly done. The core gameplay and all the tools you can use to your advantage are all really clever. All the different arrow variants like the rope arrows letting you climb places you would otherwise not reach or water arrows letting you extinguish torches. Sword combat is surprisingly developed considering direct combat is usually discouraged. I love the way the game treats difficulty, adding more objectives instead of making enemies more spongey. Every mission shows you the objectives up front (there are a couple exceptions) and lets you decrease or increase the difficulty. I'm not a massive fan of stealth games, particularly games that treat killing guards as mission failure so I would lower the difficulty until the game would let me. Unfortunately all of the positives mentioned above did not make up for the things I did not like about the game. My biggest issue with the game are most of the maps that lean heavily into the fantasy aspect of the game. There are so many levels where you are killing monsters and sure it shakes up the gameplay, but not in a way I found enjoyable. The Gold edition of the game makes changes to the original release and adds extra maps. 2 out of the 3 maps added are terrible, the only one I liked was Song of the Caverns. The Mage Towers is a drag, but the biggest offender of them all has to be the Thieves' Guild. I like that they wanted to expand on Garrett's story, but what the actual f*ck were they thinking when designing the mission. You are helplessly wandering around a maze-like sewer for what feels like hours. Absolutely terrible. I'm not playing Thief because I want to get lost in a cave, killing big dinosaurs or use holy water on zombies to make them explode in a haunted castle filled with ghosts. I am playing Thief to get immersed and rob a giant mansion with clever use of all of the unique equipment while finding hidden stashes of loot. From what I've heard Thief II leans more into the clockpunk aesthetic of the first game and less into the fantasy aspects which sounds more like what I would enjoy. Some of the levels are almost pitch dark at times, so to try and combat that I tried the Thief Lantern Mod by Jax64. It didn't honestly help much because it just creates a small circle of light around your character. I also downloaded Thief Gold subtitles patch from RobinG because it was almost impossible to make out what certain characters were saying. Use PCGamingWiki as a resource. It is undeniable that Thief innovated and pushed the stealth genre of games to extents that are still felt today. So even if the game didn't work entirely for me any big fan of stealth based games would be doing themselves a massive disservice to not experience what Thief has to offer. A day before I finished the game Nightdive Studios announced a remaster of Thief: The Dark Project. They will probably delist Thief Gold like they did with Blood Fresh Supply once the new version comes out. Knowing Nightdive they will almost certainly improve upon the experience and make it a better version. I guess that makes this review obsolete ¯\_(ツ)_/¯