Played Thief 1-3 before this game and today I finished Thief 4. Played on custom difficulty setting.(Disabled Focus mode , bow aim , mini map, markers , Object highlights and enemy markers)
This game only had 2 problems that really bothered me:
1.Story. It doesn't even feel that it belongs in the same universe as Thief 1-3.(No Keepers,No Hammers, No notes that talk about the events of previous games)
As whole imo Gerratt shouldn't have been the main character in this game.
2.Main missions have some doors and sections that block the path to previous area which makes missions a little less interesting.
But even with these I had 27 hours of fun and enjoyment with this game.
I really can't understand how this awesome game has 70 MC score. In my opinion it at very least deserves 85.
In my opinion this game is a better Thief game than 3. It also brought more new gameplay ideas to the franchise compare to Thief 2.(That was more like an expansion for Thief 1)
-City areas were much better executed compared to Thief 3.City areas were bigger and rooftops were designed far better.
-Enemies are more dangerous and smarter:
1.Melee weapon type enemies can throw daggers at you unlike Thief 1-3 where they can't do anything to you when you jump on the wall.
2.Enemies could see you in dark when you are few meters away from them.
3.In some sections you have 2 guards walking around with each other. in previous Thief games guards are walking alone majority of times.
4.Taking down guards via the blackjack takes much more time.
5.Enemies become Suspicious when they hear a door opening near them.
6.Master Thief difficulty also insta game overs you when you knock out a civilian.
-Caged animals.
-Some new abilities for Garrett like swooping,hiding in closets, enemy take downs and using Blunt arrows to turn off lights. I never wanted a Thief sequel to play exactly like Thief 1&2.(I replay them if I want that gameplay.)
-The whole side missions were the best part of the game for me.(And since I disabled hints it made doing some of them more challenging.) I also loved going into non side mission houses and stealing stuff from those areas.
-That custom difficulty setting was a really nice addition to the game that allows you to customize the difficulty the way that you want.(I also like this that in harder difficulties items become more expensive which wasn't in previous Thief games)
-Picking up animations for items was also a nice addition since they made picking up items more tricky when enemies are near you.
-Yeah, main missions had linear sections but mission also had non linear sections that allow the players to deal with enemies with different ways and even if you want you can sneak past them without knocking them out. I also like this new feature that the game gives you additional money when you do some side activities.(Like staying undetected in the whole mission)
-This new feature that you can collect a set of items and get a reward money for completing a collection.
-And finally the graphics were really nice.
This game is really underrated. As whole I believe that 2014 was the year of underrated games.(The Evil Within 1 and Alien Isolation were also underrated imo.)
Last edited by dg1995; 17th Jun 2020 at 19:17.
You make some good points, I noped out earlier in the game before having a chance to appreciate anything new about it. If it hadn't been a thief game (supposedly), I would probably have viewed it more highly but they always try to latch onto some name recognition (does it even really have that anymore?) but then don't seem to pay too much homage to the franchise. The things that annoyed me might not have annoyed me as much had I not been comparing them to something.
I also enjoyed it much more than T3, and I do feel that it was a better game in most aspects. While I didn't think that highly of the story in T3, I thought even less of the story of T4, particularly the closing level and ending.
Funny that Tomb Raider 2013 wasn't a real Tomb Raider game at all.(It was a 3rd person cover shooter game) and yet that game despite not being faithful to the old games managed to got lots of positive reviews. While Thief 4 despite bringing a good evolution for Thief gameplay alongside being much more faithful to previous games(Gameplay wise) got low scores.Originally Posted by BEAR
Critics generally judge games on their own merits rather than judging by how faithful they are to their predecessors, like fans do. Tomb Raider 2013 is definitely a much better cover shooter action game than Thief 2014 is a stealth game. I mean, I liked Thief 2014, but it's still a mess in a lot of ways, particularly the last couple levels, the terrible bossfights and the nonsense storytelling.
To me, when it's at it's best, Thief 4 is a really heckin' good stealth game that does capture the essence of the original games. When at it's worst, though, it's just a total mess that doesn't know what it wants to be, namely whenever it goes too hard in on the action.
One of the bad thing about Thief 2014 is that it doesn't have a level editor.
It would be awesome to create some FMs that fit within the established Universe, with Hammerites and pagans.
It really is, because the game mechanically has a lot of potential and an editor would have brought it out.
No game these days have any level editor at all.(outside of some low budget ones.)
Tomb Raider fans got a level editor with TR Chronicles. But after that they never got any more LEs.
Star Wars games in the PS2 era had level editors with good mod supports but from the TFU they never got any editors.
Also, did Doom 5 had any editors ?
But yeah, in my opinion if Thief isn't going to get more games, SE should at least release a level editor for Thief 4 to allow fans to have more fun with the game.
>City areas were much better executed compared to Thief 3.City areas were bigger and rooftops were designed far better.
But totally useless. And that slum-dense-packed-non-symmetrical buildings never looked realistic to me.
>Melee weapon type enemies can throw daggers at you unlike Thief 1-3 where they can't do anything to you when you jump on the wall.
It is so game-changing that I don't even remember that fact. Really? Well, who cares about that in stealth game? Just a nice little improvement. I think I saw something similar in one of the Thief2 FM's.
>Enemies could see you in dark when you are few meters away from them.
In the second part I always explained this moment with Garrett's enhanced eye. Like the darkness was much denser, just Garrett was able to see much better in the dark. But ok, yes -- this obviously makes the game a little difficultier.
>In some sections you have 2 guards walking around with each other. in previous Thief games guards are walking alone majority of times.
Cheap and unrealistic method to stealth-force you.
>Enemies become Suspicious when they hear a door opening near them.
Especially in a house full of guards. It is like in a previous part guards were able to distinguish friend from foe by the sound of footsteps.
>Master Thief difficulty also insta game overs you when you knock out a civilian.
Just stupid.
I agree that Thief 2014 is underrated. It's a really good stealth game, with a great game world, and a nice atmosphere. On the downside, the characters are pretty boring, and the story is... well... so-so. When I first played it, I made the mistake to believe that it would be a successor to Thief 1-3. When I started to see it as what it is, a remake, a reboot, or whatever you want to call it, it actually does quite a good job. Maybe not quite as good as Deus Ex, but, at least remotely near the same ballpark.
I thought the city hubs were pretty awesome, BTW. No complaints there. The Basso jobs could have been a bit better though. Most of them are really short one-room-only stuff.
Truth be told I find it kind of sad how this game is forgotten about aside from established Thief fans and the few people who still Stan it.
Games that don't get modding support will be forgotten after few years.
Also it doesn't help that game journalists will shat on this game whenever it is brought up for not being Thief 1&2 reskins.
Especially that PC gamer that I had the unfortunate luck of seeing their crappy articles when I was browsing Thief 4 news(To see the patch notes) on steam.
Even in one of the articles, they were advertising a Thief 3 mod and it started with "Here's a little something to get the taste of the recent Thief reboot out of your mouth.".
Well, when RE 6 was released many reviewers were just bashing the game for being an action focused game instead of actually saying that wether it was a good action game or not.
When Metal Gear Survive was released many reviewers were just bashing the game for being a zombie survival game rather than actually reviewing the game itself.
Major gaming site reviews are a joke these days.
Also, Thief 4's last levels were no where near as bad as Thief 2 last levels.(Thief 3 didn't even have a proper final mission)
Or, y'know, for all the objectively terrible things about it, which have been discussed at length in many, MANY reviews.
I really don't feel that the game was underrated at all. It was pretty much a hot mess. One of the many things about it that bugged me was that it felt like the developers of 2014 didn't play the first two games at all, and was more like they used TDS as a basis, expanding on that. There were so many passionate posts by the fans explaining what did and didn't work in TDS but in quite a number of cases, they just expanded upon TDS mechanics instead of building off the stronger foundation of the first two games.
After the wonderful job the other team at the Studio did with Deus Ex, I was utterly shocked by the Quicktime scripted nonsense, the chopped up levels, dodgy AI and extremely poor sound propagation.
It didn't need to be a Thief game. Could have just been a generic medieval stealth game.
Sabotage at Soulforge is a fairly divisive level among Thief fans, but at least it's memorable. I couldn't even tell you what the last level in Thief 2014 was, and I played through the game more than once. Most of Teef's levels were just boring and dull (and forgettable).
I thought the consensus was that they hadn't played any of the Thief games, and were just riffing on Dishonored.
Quite likely!
It was that alternative reality level, chasing Erin.
Funnily, I remember that more than I remember Sabotage at Souldforge now.TBH, I found that one pretty bad compared to the final mission of Thief 1. Even though I really like Thief 2. It's been a while since I last played it through though, so, that might add to the lack of memoy of the levels.
Last edited by chk772; 27th Jun 2020 at 10:02.
Underrated? Well, while I donīt mind people liking Thief 2014 for whatever reasons itīs not really that.
What we have here is a garbled mess of a game.
A messed up IP where they removed everything that made Thief memorable.
Added own uninteresting stuff. The Thief Taker General is just as uninteresting and stupid as your average movie villain. He has the chance to kill Garrett several times but doesnīt do it. If I want to see cheap stuff like that I watch some flick like "Fast & Furious" or most superhero movies, as it ALWAYS happens there.
Not to mention other characters...we have some old blind mysterious grannyRagswho is however not important in the later storyline...erm. The Baron is just your random douchebag,OnionOrion also an uninteresting character. One strong element of the original Thief games were the antagonists. Heck, even if I donīt like Deadly Shadows much Gamall was at least more interesting than all Thief 2014 characters combined.
Not to mention Erin. Why should we care about her? What special bond does Garrett have to her? Itīs not even implied that she is his spouse or maybe his daughter(very unlikely anyway as he doesnīt seem old enough). But the whole game we trace this stupid girl for whatever reasons. Not really a motivation.
Most story stuff is shameless stealing from the other titles. Even from T2X. Donīt tell me the brothel is not there because of that. This game has no really memorable places, and the ones that are a bit are just a rip-off from other games(not only Brothel, but also Asylum and Bank).
Ok, Dishonored also has a brothel. Speaking of Dishonored, Thief 2014 feels really like a rip-off of that. Which is a joke as Dishonored was inspired by Thief.
While Iīm not such a big fan of Dishonored also due to some gameplay mechanics, at least itīs mostly original and doesnīt like ripping off other games. E.G. the player actually cares for Emily as it is revealed to be his daugher. But Erin? See my sentences above.
Also, donīt tell me the "swooping" was not inspired stolen from Dishonored. It doesnīt make sense at all in Thief. Garrett doesnīt have mighty supernatural abilities like Corvo(and donīt tell me itīs focus related as swooping doesnīt use the focus mana).
Blackjacking as quick-time event is just annoying.
Also I donīt see whatīs so special about the end game. Garrett follows the trace like a dog and then he has to defeat Erin by a scripted sequence? Even the object placement in DS was more intriguing. And Soulfourge, for me itīs a good level, unlike that.
Overall, I donīt see why Thief 2014 is underrated. Itīs just a waste of the IP which got in the wrong hands.
I can't really argue that it wasn't a mess, but I enjoyed the gameplay in Thief 2014 more than either of the Dishonoreds. I even played through it twice. I certainly had to overlook a lot of the corniness and the poor storytelling (it really felt like they were gearing up for an interesting story and then ran out of time to tell it), but the environments were well-designed and fun to explore, the movement was fluid, and stealing stuff was satisfying. It's been years since I've played it, though, so maybe I should revisit.
Thief 4 was just a new development team and studio using the IP to try to capitalize on the fan base. Swooping? Garrett is not a magical being. What's up with that, and that stupid black shroud/cloud that surrounds him? Thankfully when I played through the game, I was able to find a HEX editor hack to disable the shroud effect. If I disregard the previous games and give it a score based solely on the merits of the game itself, I'd have to agree with the MC score of 7/10. I don't see it as underrated. But, like any game, the "enjoyment factor" is completely subjective. I'm sure there are people who would call it trash, as well as people who feel it's a 9/10 or even a 10/10 game.
Personally, I've given up on any game developers ever designing a game based on the original story, characters, factions, lore, and game mechanics. It will never happen. Nostalgia is often better than the real thing anyway.
I thought that swooping was actually a nice new ability!
Apart from that, I agree with what you say.
Especially this.Nostalgia is often better than the real thing anyway.
It's more of a "taken under one's wing" thing, which is pretty obvious IMO. You may like it or not. You may like the fact that you are married, and have to look for your son in Fallout 4 as well, or have to look for your father in Fallout 3. Kind of the same thing: You get pushed into the game, and the developers just assume that you would care, while it might be that you're not.
Anyway, I don't really think it's bad. The whole story kind of evolves around the Erin incident, and, at least I really wanted to know what happened to her when she fell into that ceremony. Not because I cared about her, but, because it was interesting to see what special powers she could have acquired or something.
At the very least, I would say that was one of my least issues with the game.
Yeah, I would totally agree with that. For me, I liked it a bit better than the general ratings, I'd rather give it a 8/10, but, that's simply because I really like the genre. I definitely see how people just would rate it 7/10. That's pretty fair in my eyes. Not a bad game, but, not the best in the world either.
Thief fans are a tough crowd though.Don't think any developer would have been able to please them... understandable. It's always like that with such cult franchises. Just look at TDM. It's really extremely close, yet for some, it's too different to be considered a worthy Thief game.
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