I typically try out games I’ve never played before, but this week was a “Try-It AGAIN Tuesday” with THIEF, the reboot developed by Eidos Montreal and published by Square Enix.
I played this game on Playstation 3 and wrote about it back in March 2014. Since then, I’ve played Dishonored, Dishonored 2, Death of the Outsider, Fallout 4 and many more games. I wanted to revisit THIEF with the free demo available on PS4, to see if it was as good — and as bad — as I thought it was three years ago.
The graphics were as beautiful and Garrett just as sexy as I remembered. The demo does not delve into the story of THIEF but does give a good sampling of gameplay, the majority of which is spent sneaking, stealing and avoiding the city watch in narrow alleys of a Victorian-style city.
I managed to fight two jewelry store guards at the same time, without dying, but this game is really about observation, stealth, agility, and patience, not brute force.
The audio is still problematic, with voices that seem to be in the same room when they’re actually outside, and repetitive prattle from the guards. The world still feels cramped and restrictive, and the game mechanics clunky, though perhaps not as bad as before, as I’m a more experienced gamer now. I would have preferred something more akin to Assassin’s Creed or inFAMOUS, and less searching for bird poo to indicate a rare climbable ledge.
As one of my viewers said during the livestream, there’s something endearing about THIEF, in spite of its faults, and I enjoyed playing it again.
THIEF is rated “M” for mature audiences, for blood, nudity, strong language, strong sexual content, drug use, and violence.
~ J.L. Hilton
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