Reply With QuoteAs you can see, the AWESOME lip sync and motion capture completely justifies the loss of Stephen Russell.Originally Posted by InfinituS
This just came up.
Last edited by InfinituS; 9th Oct 2013 at 09:58.
As you can see, the AWESOME lip sync and motion capture completely justifies the loss of Stephen Russell.
This is so bad. There's no real words for it.
Yes, these aspects of the game look really terrible in this trailer. And Garrett's face...
It looks almost like some unfinished indie game...
Top comment on the YouTube page:
I can't wait to slow down time in focus mode to get all the sick headshots while dubstep, that consists solely of the Inception claxon, blares away in the background as I run down a narrow, limited path full of explosions that ensures I don't deviate from the highly scripted CINEMATIC EXPERIENCES™ - Just like in the original!
Apparently they removed all third-person climbing. Doesn't mean we won't get third-person sequences though. http://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?t=139742
I'm pissed they didn't sound the Inception horns as Garrett jumped the gap.That would have been so cool.
Did I just see purses actually vanish in a puffs of smoke when snatched? DID I?! After watching that, I'd have to say, this would most certainly qualify for an 'Overly-Stylized-For-No-Good-Reason' award. The environment looks amazingly beautiful. But every aspect seems incredibly heavy-handed. Instead of a subtle sense of underlying darkness and brooding, this appears to jam it down your throat. Everything screams at you, 'NOTICE ME! I'M DARK! I'M MYSTERIOUS! I'M EXCITING!'
The City has changed, for certain. And I might actually enjoy roaming around it, if I can keep from laughing my silly ass off.
Did I hear dubstep?
This city gameplay actually looks good!But why didn't they get rid of this modern distracting HUD?!
Well, at least it looks much better than this animated pickpocketing icon.
I have been following much less closely lately, and I still feel like I am still being inundated with this Heart of the Lion business. Do they not have anything else to show? We have been seeing and hearing the same snippets for months now. There was certainly some new things to see in this video, but enough about that gem. I haven't played the mission once, and I'm already sick of it.
Yeah, I did not like that at all. Environments and assets look beatiful and movement while running immersive, but the actual design seems to be kind of linear (that escape route with rope arrow hotspot and cutscene on the top?). And his face seemed to me paralyzed, like he was not able to move all his facial muscles. But I liked the music, I closed my eyes and imagined this music in System Shock 3 (that bit starting at 1:22 until Inception soundtrack kicks in)... Now, why the hell am I thinking this watching Thief trailer? Also another reminder of DLCWill they have season passes too?
The complete evisceration of a series that I dearly care about is so close to happening, it hurts.
The lack of Stephen Russel especially pissed me off in that video, their justification still stands as complete rubbish.
OMG. Garrett's voice keeps getting worse and worse.
The HUD isn't overly distracting actually. I had a chance to play it for about two hours on that occasion in Germany but it'll take some time to write down. But maybe still this evening, stay tuned.This city gameplay actually looks good!
OK, here we go. I was given the privilege to play two hours of the new Thief game in the stage of development it had about two weeks ago. I owe a big thank you to the guys from SE and EM in both Germany and Canada for setting up a very atmospheric event with fancy decoration, stage props, costumes for both employees and actors (curtisans!), stylistically appropriate chairs and benches etc. etc.... The whole event alone was adorable, so I give credit where credit is due. Joe Khoury from EM gave a little introduction (similar to the one at the Eurogamer Expo) and we saw a little playthrough across Stonemarket, basically the section we were about to play later.
The first difficulty for me as a PC gamer was to get used to an xBox gamepad which we were given even though we played the PC version (never saw so huge PC towers, by the way...) but that worked after some twenty minutes. The section was part of Stone Market which apparently forms the large centre of the City together with Southquarter (?). Dayport is on the east bank and the Old Quarter with the Haunted Cathedral district seems to exist as well; Auldale being on the west bank IIRC. The different City quarters will be more and more accessible as the game progresses. The demo started with the clocktower scene as in the movie above and I had the same uneasy feeling with Garrett's slightly cartoony face. The mask thing probably indicates whether or not Garrett feels safe in some environment or not. This is new but I couldn't blame the devs for it more than an FM author describing how Garrett wears black leather all the time, which would put me off, too. The clocktower looks great (and basically everything looks great in this game) but has a collection of jewel cases for special loot trophies. You can think about this more artistic/emotional interpretation of Garrett's stealing as you wish, but anyhow it looked like Garrett planned his private museum up there. The clocktower was a separate loading zone as was the Crippled Burrick Pub, the rest of what was accessible of Stonemarket (hard to estimate but several times larger than a single TDS City section map) worked without loading zones (or they were cleverly hidden).
The basic level design is great I think (and would be celebrated as an outstanding piece of mapping if it was an FM). Stonemarket is dirty, old, organic and highly three-dimensional. From the gutters to the streets, awnings and rooftops, this map screams "explore me!" from every trim. The AIs tend to appear a bit lifeless but that can probably still be tweaked, AI behaviour is one of the major issues at EM as we were told. The other major issue to be tweaked is the movement. When they said every edge was to allow mantling or climbing, I had hoped the contextual jumping stuff wouldn't be so bad, but at least this demo felt heavily on rails. Spots for mantling, climbing, jumping and speed vaults looked great and gorgeously animated when they worked, but their placement was still arbitrary with e.g. desks you could vault over and other where you couldn't (or jump down/not jump down an edge or jump across/not jump across a gap). All this happens by the way with some sort of "free running" button like in AC which isn't the worst idea IMHO but the implementation is, as described, more than wanting, especially with respect to the original free-form movement in the Thief games. Joe Khoury said that they are working on making it easier for the player to spot where which movement works but he also acknowledged my interjection that this would make the rails even more obvious. So the EM guys are clearly aware of the issues with the new game (and I doubt that they are not interested in solving them), it's just the question what can be done until next February (or in this period of game development in the first place).
I'll now post my notes from the review form because I'm lazy, so please ask me which things need explanation.
Pros:Cons:Astounding graphics (but I’m not a graphics whore anyway), pretty multidimensional level design, gritty and gloomy atmosphere from visuals and music/SFX, attention to detail, nice elements like hiding in a cupboard, free-running looks and feels great (maybe a bit too much Vertigo zoom), side-missions given by NPCs are nice but shouldn’t turn into repetitive no-brainers like in Assassin’s Creed; if the “oldschool mode” will remove all HUD indicators, loot glint, blue glowing interactive objects, aiming assistant etc. that’d be great, non-Focus lock-picking and frame searching felt great, especially when challengingOpinion on the City hub and the missions to do there:Movement feels heavily on rails, context-sensitive actions and animations sometimes feel arbitrarily-placed (dodging over tables, falling from edges―or not, mantling), and even if this will be fixed it will probably deviate very much from the free movement of the originals; animations take control away from the player, sometimes for seconds; some context-sensitive actions don’t seem to work when guards are alert, a general alert state like in Assassin’s Creed would be awkward, too (sometimes the screen tint wouldn’t go away forever); light-shadow and noise levels were sometimes hard to determine, three-stage light gem is insufficient, shroud takes away the awareness of the surroundings that a Thief should have; readables as plain menu text are a bit sterile, auto-save to the notes section is well… a bit hand-holding but anyway (same goes for other one-time actions like searching drawers); contextual music (CRAMPS still?) is great but the “alert” change too obtrusive IMHO; references to the old games sometimes feel a bit lukewarm, same goes for some of the dialogue writing; Garrett’s voice lacks character both in sound and wordsSumma summarum, prepare for a game that is indeed the "re-imagination" of Thief that the devs have always announced. It definitely looks enjoyable but will be a deviation from the original series at least in some basic gameplay aspects, e.g. in how it treats the player.City Hub looks and feels great, hopefully not all side-quests will be set up as such, so actual free exploration is not only possible but also rewarding; existing side quests looked great but shouldn’t turn into cheap no-brainers, so with enough “heart” this might turn out really cool
10/10, well done sir
I won't discredit anyone for things (s)he didn't screw up themselves, if that's what you expected.
Thank you so much for posting your thoughts. I'll need to inwardly digest a bit before I think of any questions.
Needs more dubstep!
Gah, is it my imagination, or has Garrett's face in the video regressed to be a little more emo again? His eyes seem darker. Anyway, apart from that, nothing much to say ... it's mostly a remix of the same lines and scenes we've already seen. The new scenes with Basso don't tell us much afaict.
This all sounds pretty good, however ...
... the bad stuff sounds pretty significant.
Ah well, here's hoping some of the issues get improved between now and release. It's hard to imagine them rescuing contextual movement, though.
One question: was swooping and jumping separated to different buttons on the build you played? Or were they the same button?
Last edited by Chade; 9th Oct 2013 at 19:28. Reason: fix sentence
Linked from http://thiefgame.wikia.com/wiki/The_City, from 1:06 of the trailer
City map showing Dayport (lower right), bridge on a riverin the middle, Power City? (upper right), and "....rt" "....riet of Auldale" (map label)
I think that is "...rict of Auldale" as in District of Auldale.
Power city? so the Hammers built a whole little city to power the rest of the city. Interesting. Could have some nice steampunkish moments in there.
'riet' = 'rict' = 'district' - ????? Just guessing.
LMAO!!!!
*Someone* has been practicing their Stephen Russell impersonation.
Thanks for the information Beleg! That was well written!
How did you find noise in the game? Did guards seem to react as you would expect, or did it seem as though you could remain silent with no effort?
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