I did have some concerns at first. For the first few minutes of play, I found myself thinking that it should have been a rental instead of a purchase. But I played on, gradually getting drawn deeper into the plot, into the city, and into the joy of slipping quietly in where you haven't been invited, and plucking some valuable trinket off a table, from inside a chest, or even off the very person of an unfortunate homeowner or passerby. But this isn't what really got me into the game. How smart my victims were did. Sure, I was a little over-confident at first. I'd boldly sneak around behind marks wandering through their own homes, I'd skulk in the shadows, or creep slowly and quietly behind them, lifting items that caught my eye as I went. But this person lives here, and when they pass through a room and a candlestick is gone, or a chair is slightly out of place from when you less cautious than you should have been and bumped into it, or when a door has been left ajar - they realize it. And they often realize they aren't alone. So you could imagine my surprise, not yet having an appreciation for the depth of AI, when my helpless victim became decidedly non-helpless, and started actively searching for me. But I'm Garrett the Thief, and when backed into a corner, I can put up a fight. So when the owner found me after I knocked a barrel on its side trying to quickly duck into a nearby shadow, and when he drew a weapon with the intent to cause me harm, I quickly dispatched him with my dagger. He was in the light, I was in the shadow, he knew roughly where I was, but I still had the advantage. I stood over my victim, enjoying the moment when I heard a scream. The scuffle had alerted someone else in the house who came rushing in, and upon seeing me standing over the body, shot straight out of the house. She hadn't just fled through, she had gone to get the town guards. So imagine my surprise as I'm casually walking towards the open door to leave, and in burst two guards with weapons drawn. They came right at me, and while I put up a good fight, they took me down. The last thing I saw was the `terrified' woman standing in her doorway again, watching the guards beat me down.

I really enjoyed Splinter Cell, and SC: Pandora Tomorrow. I think it was how much I enjoyed those that led me to finally give Thief a shot. But one thing always bugged me about those titles, as terrific as they are and were. Your enemies had the attention span and short-term memory of mentally disabled goldfish. If two terrorists are in one room together, and you snatch one up and drag him away, the other never notices that he's suddenly alone. Leave doors open, move things, do anything but show yourself or leave a corpse around, and they have no clue anything is amiss. Not so here. Guards have areas of responsibility. And when one is no longer at his post because you've clobbered him over the head with your trusty blackjack, and dumped him unconscious behind some bushes, his captain who may well be wandering around and checking up on his men will notice, and he'll investigate.

The game is outstanding, I am really enjoying it. I'm nearly done, and I've already decided that I will be playing it through again. There's so much to do beyond the main storyline, that there's really no way to get into all the little side plots and scenarios, no way to hit every house and business in your first go. Graphically the game is quite good. Not jaw-droppingly impressive, I would have liked to have seen this in 720p and widescreen, but still a solid visual presentation. The Dolby Digital sound is terrific. The depth of play, and the AI, are really what give this title legs though.

This game, in my opinion, is worth a purchase. Unless of course the idea of sneaking around just bores you to tears. If you're looking for a hack'n'slash, this isn't it. If you're looking for an intriguing storyline, exciting action, and even a few moments where you literally jump at your own shadow, then this is going to be a good time for you. Why 4 out of 5? I would have liked to have seen at least a minimal tie-in to XBLive. Not online play perhaps, given the scope of the game, but maybe expansion and bonus content (new missions, new equipment, etc.) that could have been added over time. I think that really would have gone a long way to put this title over the top in terms of re-playability. Also, I've been trapped (bug) inside or against objects a few too many times. An annoyance, and perhaps a minor one, but a piece of the puzzle when I had to decide upon a rating. To be fair, if we could give fractions of stars in our ratings, I'd give this as high a 4 as possible.

The cover art says it best. "Tension-fueled stealth, variety of gameplay, advanced AI, dynamic lighting and shadow system." Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Pick this one up, you'll be glad you did.


Best "true" stealth game I've ever played.   May 31, 2004
 9 out of 10 found this review helpful

Well I'm not really going into real "depth" about this, I think some of the earlier reviews covered that. I'm just going to type out a few thoughts I have about the game.

First of all, the game play is excellent, it really does stick with the stealthy play the whole time. But the first thing that caught my attention was the lighting. It's not just "lighting" for the sake of viewing.The lighting is actually a part of the game play. It's actually the -most- important part of the game, and in Thief DS, the lighting is beyond perfect. You sneak around in the shadows,and your "light gem" shows how visible you are to the AI in the game. Even having a small percentage of your body sticking out from the shadows will be reconized by the game's AI.

Now the AI... It's near-perfect. Characters will hear your footsteps, notice if you leave doors open, notice if you put out a torch, notice if you steal something and so on. If you kill someone with an arrow, or your dagger, it will leave a pool of blood (which you can wash away with water arrows), which the AI will notice, and alert other characters that something is wrong. One thing that bothers me is when Garrette (main character) gets caught. The guard/enemy will chase him for a bit, but not for long. Basically all I need to do, to lose them, is round a corner and get into a shadow. After that, wait about 20 seconds and they give up. After a while it gets to where getting caught is less of a dangerous problem, and more of a very annoying one. If you get cornered and all you have is a dagger, just hope you saved earlier. Garrette can only take about 5 hits. Which is good, in a way, because the game really is about stealth, not fighting.

Visually the game looks pretty good. At a medium distance you can't tell if a guard has his back turned, or if he's looking right at you (glad Garrette has that mechanical zoom-in eye). Some of the areas are beautifully detailed. And some are just 'okay'. Most of the areas will have great looking textures, and 'okay' textures right beside each other, which makes things look strange. The town is literally a big maze. It takes a while to figure out how to get around, because it all looks the same (besides a few landmarks). The maps aren't much help either, because they don't show any of the alleyways that you use to get around. It can get confusing.

The story is so-so. This game was definatly not made for the storyline, but made for excellent game play and freedom. The town that the story takes place in has no name, and unless you've played the other Thief games, you have no clue what the storyline is about. You just get "thrown" in at a certain point and do whatever you're told. The areas kind of melt in to each other after a while. Most of them seem the same, except a differant look. Hiding in most areas isn't very challenging. The stand out mission is the Abysmal Gale (ghost ship). Everything about it is made perfect. It's eerie, you don't know what lurking around the corners, and the fog and lighting just make everything look extra-creepy.

This game requires alot of patience. Watching which routes guards walk, slowly skulking in the shadows so you will not get caught, slowly pacing behind someone waiting for the right tim the strike, and searching everywhere for loot makes up the entire game.

So if you've read this much so far, I'll give my opinion on whether or not to buy it. For now, while it still costs $50, don't buy it. The game is just too short to pay $50. I got it in the mail 3 days ago, and I just finished it this morning. Secondly, the game isn't going to be one that you will replay more than twice. It's a linear story. Aside from a few side quests, the game goes in one direction and you have to do all the missions in order. After a while the game play gets repetitive. Skulk in shadows, hide from foes, watch the guard, mug him, hide the body, repeat, repeat, repeat.


A good addition to the series   June 24, 2004
 7 out of 8 found this review helpful

I was a little nervous about this game coming from a new developer. But I wasn't let down. I've played the other Thief games and I am a huge fan of the series. It's basically the same game as the others with a few exceptions.

The city hub idea is good-though it seems little once you've been through it couple of times and get used to the maps. The city is also broken up into sections so if you want to go from one to the other you're faced with load times which are a little long and can take you out of the game. The framerate on the Xbox version is a little slow to accomodate the excellent lighting architecture-but it's barely noticeable and a very minor complaint. The enemy A.I. is better this time around-they notice when lights are out or items are missing and will alert their buddies to help search for you-but only for a short while as they tend to 'forget' that they are searching for intruders and continue with whatever they were doing. Good for the clumsy gamer, but not very realistic. A 'faction' element has been added that basically just adds some side quests in order to get Garrett back in good standing with a couple of factions. It's a good idea, it just hasn't been fully developed and adds almost nothing to the game asit doesn't effect the missions. We'll see if they can improve on it for the next Thief game.

The levels are actually pretty big and non-linear with lots of objectives and there's a ton of gameplay. The story moves along quite well within these objectives. The orphanage (where I'm at now) is freakin creepy and a lot of fun. Every mission has been a lot of fun up to now and you're not just doing the same things over and over, there's plenty of variety.

If you have a PC (that can handle the game!) and an Xbox and want this game, buy the PC version. I've heard it's better (and cheaper!). I've played the other Thief games on the PC and decided to give the console version a try. I'm not disappointed, but if I was to but it again I'd go for PC.


Great game but not perfect   June 6, 2004
 6 out of 7 found this review helpful

Overall I really enjoyed Thief 3 Deadly Shadows for Xbox. This is a game focused on stealth. It is not a game were you have the option of stealth but if you get caught you can take on an army of enemies. You'll be seeing most of the enemies from the back as you sneak up on them and blackjack em.

Great graphics and lighting the character models are very well done. The lighting is a huge part of the game since you'll focused on moving from shadow to shadow to stay hidden. The option to change from 1st person to 3rd is a useful choice to have. Unfortunately the city and most of the environments felt pretty underwelming in size and even though it was nice to have the freedom to wander around in between missions there really wasn't much to do in the different areas of the town.

The music and sound effects in the game are well composed and very subtle. Most of the sound in the game is closer to ambient effects than real music. In some the creepier sections in the game the sound effects works really well in raising the fear factor.

The enemy AI is some of the best I've seen. Enemies will do a good job of investigating disturbances. And on higher difficulty setting they will notice if you take loot and if you put out torchs. I wish they were a little more aware of your character when your light crystal is totally dark. Since you become pretty much invisible unless you bump into them.

The story is good but not great. The story could have used been longer and used some more twists and surprises but its interesting. The cut scenes that are shown throughout the game to move the story along are very well done and non traditional. They make good use of the lighting the voice acting throughout these sequences and the rest of the game is of very good quality.

Thief 3 overall is definalty worth picking up if your patient and in the mood for a stealth based game. It also has one of the best stages I've played in any game for a long time. Its called Shalebridge Cradle and you'll know what I'm talking about when you get there. I'd play the game just for the Shalebridge stage so you won't be disappointed if you pick up Thief Deadly Shadows.


Great AI, great game!   June 20, 2004
 5 out of 7 found this review helpful

Looking for a challenging game that tests your mind and your reflexes? Thief 3 rewards stealth and strategic thinking with glory and loot!

If you somehow missed the first 2 episodes in the Thief saga, you are ... a thief. You live in a medieval world full of murky inns, cobblestone streets and questionable denizens of the night. You get told of interesting items to steal by your fences, and do your best to acquire them.

In many ways, this compares favorably to splinter cell, albeit of a different era. Your task is to stay hidden in the shadows. You have to pay careful attention to the level of darkness where you stand, and the type of surfaces you walk over, to not draw attention to yourself. You have interesting tools at your disposal - noisemaking arrows to distract, water arrows to put out candles.

The graphics aren't *quite* up to the level of Splinter Cell, but then again, not much is. You still get gorgeous shadows, dust motes twinkling in light streams, textures on floors and walls. The human figures are a bit clunky, but only a bit.

That being said, the cinemtics are exceptional, both graphic and sound-wise. You really get drawn along with the story.

The sounds are nicely done. This isn't a game of jamming rock music - it's a game of stealth. There are ambient noises that warn you of approaching guards, of a dog in the next room, of conversations of nearby people. The soft music, when it comes in, helps to add to the spookiness and tension.

The AI really deserves special praise. The people around you don't just walk a beat that you watch 10 times in a row and then use. They react to situations with intelligence, keep an eye on things they should be guarding, and take proper caution when tracking down a problem. If they catch sight of you, they don't just go for you and give up. Now that they know there's a strange person in the area, they actively hunt for you.

Sure, you can blackjack people if you have to. But the game isn't about violence. It's about avoiding being seen, avoiding being caught.

Highly recommended!