The "Thief" Games

[Crusader]

Who here has played these games? I find them enthralling.

For those of you who dont kow of them let me explain. Forget Splinter Cell, This is the original and best stealth based game/s in the world. Set in a fantasy world that is a mix between Medieval styles and modern machines. The entire series occurs within the walls of "The City" a huge metropolis of stone buildings as corwed as the people, hundreds of dark alleys and looming houses. The majority of which is in the olde medieval style, except for a few exceptions. The pagans thrive within the city aswell, a cult of people and creatures who worship plants and nature and worship the trickster god. With shamans and warriors they are always a thorn in the side of the city. And their opposite, The Hammerites, who worship the builder, father of all civilisation. They build machines and huge buildings, their warriors carry warhammers as they see the hammer as the builders true tool, they strive for development and construction. The two factions are permanently at war. And between them are the keepers. An order of scholars, mages and so forth, who are all but invisible to the rest of the city, the use the powers of prophecy and glyph magic to keep balance in the city, with hidden libraries full of ancient tomes. Throw in rich aristocrats, a few zombies, some bizzare creatures of the night and much much more and you've got the world of thief, The City.

And also, we have our hero (or anti-hero, depending on how you look at it) Garrett, master theif. I will give you a history of the character (this will have the plot details of both thief one and two, just to warn or spoilers, I will aviod theif 3 as that is the one you are more likely to be aquainted with):

An orphan on the streets, Garret had to resort to pickpocketing to survive, he became a master of the art. One day he saw a man on the street, cloaked in black who seems to be invisible or at least ignored by everyone but him. Spying the hooded mans large wallet he went in to take it, but was caught. The man was surprised enough that Garret could see him and offered him a better life. Taking him to a secret library, The man and the order he followed, the keepers, trained Garrett in their ways. The art of being unseen, the tools of bows, arrows and so forth that the keepers used to keep the balance in the city. Highly promising, the keepers saw a hopeful future for Garrett. But despite their wishes he left for his own ambitions and became a thief, with the skills they gave him he became the best there ever was. But his history with the keepers was far from over, for his name was written in the prophecies they followed.
In the first game (which i havent played so this may be a little off) Farret thieved as always, one day he was hired by someone named Viktoria to steal something from her master, a man named Constantine. After succesfully doing so Viktoria and Constantine told him it was only a test, and that they needed him to aquire an old artifact called "The Eye" After promises of a huge reward Garret set out to get it from the Hammerites who held in safely behind many barriers. After his long efforts he finally got the Eye and brought it to Constantine. But as he handed it over Constantine turned into the Trickster, the god of the Pagans, and Viktoria into a forest nymph. The Trickster planned to use the eye to bring "The Maw of Chaos" (a forest dimension) into the city where the pagans would be supreme, but he found that the eye no longer worked as it once did. In a twist of fate he tore out Garretts left eye and used it to power the artifact and set out to fulfill his plans, leaving Garrett for dead. Garrett woke with only the desire for vengence beating at him, and with the help of the Hammerites he managed to replace the eye for a fake and when the trickster used it he was destroyed. In reward the Hammerites built Garret a Mechanical eye. But once this was done, the keepers came to Garret, and warned him of the coming of the metal age.
Thief 2: The Metal Age: In this game Garret continued his thieving as always but this time he was avidly persued by the new chief of the city Watch Gorman Truart. After a while he was found by the Keepers who brought him to hear the reading of the prophecies, they spoke of the coming metal age, where machines would rule over nature, despite his synical approach to the keepers there was truth in this, There were no longer any plants left in the city, all the trees were gone and a seperatist faction of the Hammerites called "Mechanists" lead by the prophet Karras set out making more new contraptions and filled the city with more metal machines and devices. After a troublesome few days, Garret found that Gorman Truart had been killed, he followed the killer into the "Maw of Chaos" Finding that Viktoria was still alive he agreed with her to help stop the Mechanists. After many excursions into their bases, Garrett uncovered the mad plot of Karras. Karras saw himself as the divine juge of the builder and took his task to destroy all impure organic like and replace it with machinery. His plan was to release a gas from his machines owned by the city people, that would exand on contact with organic life and obliterate it at the same time, leaving Karras safe in his air tight Cathedral. Wiith the help of Viktoria, Garret broke into the Cathedral and send a signal for all of Karras' machines to return to Karras and so all of the gas was released inside the cathedral and the city was safe, Viktoria was killed in the process.

Well thats the summary of the first two games. The third (not called Thief III, because of the attempt to broaden its range to new audiences, due to explaning onto consoles and so forth. It is now called Thief: Deadly Shadows). I got the game for my birthday a week or so ago, and completed it yesterday, and once again I am extremely happy.

I find the entire series amazing, the dark and enigmatic fantasy world of "The City" is a perfect environment for the games. The mystic factions that lie within perpetuate the reality you feel in that world, especially the prophetic keepers. The cynical character of Garrett is a wonder to behold, his seemingly selfish life is complemented by the way he is almost subconciously guided to save the world time after time, the voice actor is perfect aswell (he also does the voice of a comicly sounding guard). One of my favourite things of all are the cutscenes, the dark subtly animated style of them that makes them look as if they are scribed on ancient parchment, the way it is so real and so dark at the same time is amazing. Who else has had the pleasure of playing the games, and what do you think of them?

[Dalleron]

I got thief 2 for my bday a while back. It's a great game even though i wasn't all that good at it. Shooting arrows was fun and challenging at the same time, since you had to account for arc and all that stuff. My lasting moment was sitting in the dark in a room across from Garrets place and nailing a guard with an arrow. Lockpicking was always fun.

[javelin98]

"Thief" rocks. A far better game than any of the D&D products or other FPS games. I especially like the atmosphere; you can feel yourself getting all uptight and nervous while trying not to get discovered.

[Elan Morin Tedronai]

I love stealth games such as this, Thief was an absolute blast, I have fond memories of using "water arrows" to shoot out the torches to envelop myself in darkness, enthralling stuff.

[Crusader]

Thief 2 made water arrows so much better Elan. those big walking robot cannon things scared the hell out of me when the came out of nowhere when I was walking down a well lit corridor. One water arrow at the right hit took them down. Plus in thief 3 they wash away that givaway bloodstain you always leave when backstabbing huards.

[Elan Morin Tedronai]

Cool, thats a good idea, washing away the blood. Its good to see some original ideas coming out ever since the market got flooded with stealth games after the release of Metal Gear Solid. Speaking of stealth action, anyone played any of the Tenchu games ? I love em.

[Dalleron]

i've played the first two Tenchu games. They're good in their own ways. But Thief is still a better sneaker.

[Crusader]

Thief was the original stealth game, back in those days game designers thought however much action you could put into one level made it better. Thief was the first game to say, slow it down and feel the tension of the sneak. Plus the world its based in is so d amn cool its unbelievable.

It got a sequel which was just as good as the first, if not better. But who gets the credit for pioneering stealth games. MGS and Splineter cell, those b*stards.

[Elan Morin Tedronai]

MGS came out on the SNES, a long time before Thief. MGS on PS1 however, pushed it into the mainstream.

[Crusader]

On the snes it wasnt MGS it was just MG 1, 2 or whatever, MGS was the sequel.

But those games werent really stealth games, just shooting/action and the PS1 MGS wasnt much stealth anyway.

[Dalleron]

Yeah, MGS started out stealthy, cuz you had no gun and they did. Then it became an action game.

[Legend]

I only recently finished Thief Deadly Shadows, I was impressed by the AI of the city guards and the other residents. Some of the dialogue had me in fits of laughter, listening to a guard complaining or having a fight and once hed killed him/her saying "thatll learn ya.....cept ya dead" lol, or if you shoot a water arrow at a guard holding a flaming torch he'll say "what the bloody....(drops the torch and draws sword and sets of to find you) yelling "Ill find ya taffer", the darkness of the game makes me shiver in dread at what might be around the next corner, fantastic game, now Im going to try and beat it on expert mode, should be fun.

[javelin98]

I haven't played the latest Thief game. Is it out for the PC?

[Crusader]

yeah, has been for months, Thats how i played it.

[Kain Aldar]

Which one do you reccomned i get????