Thief Review

Box Art

     Hello everyone and happy Wednesday, hope you had a good weekend.  Also happy belated St. Patrick's, hoped you avoided the pinching hands of your friends who stalked you because you weren't wearing green.  Now, to the game.  Last week when I reviewed that fun parkour game called Vector, and in that review I mentioned I was going to review a stealth game, so today I will be talking about Thief.  This reboot of the classic stealth  series redeems itself in a whole new way.  Developed by Eidos Montreal and published by Square Enix, released  on February 25, 2014 for Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and the Xbox One.  Ten years since the last game, Thief: Deadly Shadows, Thief 4 had high standards to meet.  The development team took a turn for a few changes, starting over and simply calling the game Thief.  The setting of Thief resembles that of the last few games.  Taking place in a dark fantasy world being inspired by the Gothic period of the middle ages mixed with the art style of the Victorian era, and technology based on the steampunk concept.  The Thief series take place in a place called "The City", which is currently undergoing an industrial revolution, however guns and other firearms have yet to be invented, the only weapons are bladed weapons like swords and crossbows. In this game, a tyrinical Barren rules over The City with his brutal watch at his back.  As the rich fill their pockets, the majority of the city is mainly poor and starving, dying of disease in the streets.  You step into the silent shoes of Garrett, the Master Thief, armed with a unique set of skills and impressive set of weapons, his mission is simple, steal from the rich and give to himself, working with the underground economy to pawn off items he has stolen from silver cups to solid gold busts,

From left to right: blunt, broad head, dry ice and fire

The Blackjack

though Garrett never shows interactions with this group of people, it wouldn't make sense if grabbed loot suddenly turns in coins and bills when grabbed.  While their is a large amount of story involved in the game, it stays true to its name throughout it's progression, to loot everything you can and use that money for upgrades, tools, and items.  As Garrett you are armed with a multitude of tools that you have at your disposal.  Garrett's most useful and most used tool would be his compound bow that unfolds with ease and shoots multiple types of arrows. Some of these include broad head and sawtooth arrows that are lethal, dry ice arrows that extinguish flame sources, blunt arrows used to hit pulleys and switches from a distance, fire arrows to ignite open oil for a distraction, stun arrows release a gas that stuns guards for a period of time and renders dogs or birds unconscious.  There are also explosive arrows whose name is explanatory
enough as it is.  Another useful tool in Garrett's arsenal is the wrench tool, used for unscrewing bolts on vents, allowing easier paths to be taken.  Probably Garrett's most useful tool right next to his bow is his unique little foldable weapon; the Blackjack.  This little beauty is specially designed to render it's victim unconscious without causing further harm, this Garrett's main weapon in close quarters combat and with a quick tap to the head to knock the unsuspecting target out with ease.

Garrett's home

 Their is also the claw, a tool used to reach out of reach and latch on to navigate to places usually unreachable.  His other tools of the trade consist of the razor tool, used to cut paintings out of their frames and the wire-cutter tool which is used to disable trap systems, I would recommend acquiring all these as soon as possible.  You start with you bow and Blackjack and purchase the rest of these tools from your friendly neighborhood black market dealer. Along with these gadgets, poppies and food can also be bought from these dealers.  Poppies are used to refill your focus meter, which allows you to see things that would usually be unnoticed, thanks to your magic eye.  This resembles eagle vision of Assassin's Creed, for those of you who are familiar with the series.  Food is this games form of health, used to restore a portion of life energy if consumed, they can be found all over The City, same with poppies.  During the course of his heists Garrett can gather collectibles to display in his clock tower (home), these are things that Garrett values over the price of gold.  While collectibles hold no value, they make you feel pretty on top of things when you marvel at your collection of paintings or chases of rings and necklaces.  These items can be found while in free roam or while on missions.

Garrett fighting a watch gaurd

     The wrench tool mentioned earlier can be used to remove city heritage plaques, a series of sixteen plaques spread throughout the city.  The gameplay resembles that of Dishonored in the sense that their is not total freeroam, but something similar.  The player can roam most of The City while not on missions, however only certain portions of The City are available at certain times and becomes available as the player progresses throughout the story.  Client jobs can be unlocked as parts of The City are unlocked, along with side quests in which the objective is to steal, sabotage or simply scout out an area. Garrett can make donations to the Queen of Beggers, who will give focus points to Garrett which he can use to upgrade his abilities such as lock-picking, stealth, combat, pick-pocketing and more.  While review from large game critics were average, as a fan of the Thief franchise, I think it was worth while reboot.  I will be providing a link to a quick informative video about the past Thief's setting and the events that led up to this one here.  I do not own this video and all credit goes to the Lore team.  I hope you have enjoyed this review and I will be back next week with another post.  Until then, stick to the shadows.  This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.

Thief Trailer, full screen HD for maximum effect