Rating: 
Summary: disappointed not supported for joystick
Review: I previously played Thief The Dark Project with a CD from Sold Out, which was joystick supported. I spent hours with a tingling back. It was so much easier playing with the joystick. Unfortunately, Deadly Shadows does not support joysticks. This is a BIG issue with me, otherwise the graphics & look with the 3rd person is unique and I still like it, but hate using a keyboard.
Rating: 
Summary: A Playable Work of Art - Excellent
Review: I'll keep this short and sweet with no spoilers. I was worried when I saw the Ion Storm logo on the box. Looking Glass studios did such a beautiful job from conception to production on the first two of this original stand out series that the idea of anyone else taking over Garrett's story worried me. By contrast Ion Storm is notorious for lots of flash and then a half-assed execution. I was so wrong --the entire design team has made a masterpiece. Thief: Deadly Shadows is the third in the Thief series and it is outstanding in every area; setting, gameplay, story, characters, voice acting, music and intuitive controls. I was also pleased to see the cut-scenes remain as before, lush and moving like watercolors viewed though a smokey lense. The game's steam/medevial world is thick with atmosphere from start to finish. Another reviewer mentions that it's a system hog --it is. Being an elitest and a snob (I admit it) I will mention that I run a top end Alienware machine with dual everything of the latest & hottest and so when I read Thief: Deadly Shadows' Read_Me file I was concerned. Don't be. Just make certain your sound and graphics drivers are the latest versions, grab an icy green tea, turn off the lights and start playing. Thief: Deadly Shadows shouldn't be called merely 'a game' --it's a work of art that you can play.
Rating:
Summary: Thief is GREAT!
Review: First off, let me address the issue of Thief Deadly Shadows being a system hog. I have 512 MB RAM, 2.4 Ghz Pentium 4, and an Nvidia FX5200 sound card, and I run Windows XP and I do not have a problem running this game at all. It looks great, the graphics are fantstic. The gameplay is wonderful, you play a thief, and you have an arsenal of awesome tools to use. I love the fact that in this game, you are free to wander and choose the missions you would like, you can even play a few at once! This game is well worth the money, and it has all of the things I loved about Thief the dark art, Thief gold, and Thief 2. I highly recommend this game for anyone who enjoyed the previous thief games!
Rating:
Summary: One of the most immersive games to date
Review: I don't have enough wonderful things to say about this game. To start off, this game has the best story of any new FPS game that is out right now. Everything seems to click into place towards the end of the game, every piece of information you read, every note you find somehow seemlessly fall into the greater context of the game plot. And did I mention the great cinematics that add even more lustre to an already polished storytelling that this game provides?
Now for the graphics, they are great, but by no means incredible. However, in the context of the game they are perfectly acceptable. The engine does a good job at portraying an old, decaying, decadent city, and all imperfections of the engine just add more to that feeling. If developers used a more advanced engine (like that of Far Cry) with lots of shiny surfaces and much eye candy, it would just be outright silly, and inappropriate for the setting.
Now for the gameplay. This is where the game really shines. I heard a lot of complaints about Garrett using a dagger now instead of a sword and the lack of rope arrows, but seriously, what kind of thief carries a long sword with him? Dagger is much more likely to appear in the arsenal of a thief than a heavy blade. Now for the rope arrows. They were a pain in the first two games. It would always be tricky to hop onto the rope and then to climb off, and then there were issues of clipping and going through surfaces, etc. etc. etc. So not worth it. I think the climbing gloves do just as good of a job. Overall the gameplay is immersive and polished. After the first couple missions I was so into the game that I completely lost track of time. However the apex of immersion comes with the Asylum mission. As anybody who played this game will tell you, this will be one of the scariest gaming experiences you will have, EVER! This levelis done soo well that it puts even System Shock 2 to shame. Just play the game and you will know what I am talking about...
Rating:
Summary: First Person Sneaker Meets Doom 3 Graphics!!!
Review: One word on this one, UNBELIEVABLE. Back in the late 90's when getting into the first Thief on PC I was impressed with the innovative game play, and character development from this developer. That was then. A few days ago I installed Thief 3, and to my amazement was shocked with the T&L (Texture and Lighting) engine in this title. Mind you, I have an AMD 2800XP/ATI 9800 Pro rig with all the "extras", however I know that does not matter due to others reviews. The 4X AA on this game make the shadows of Garrett crisp, and if that's just your shadow, imagine the game!! The textures are truly a notch up from the closest graphical competitor, Halo for PC. I have been looking forward to Doom3 and Half-Life 2 for years now, and this title is not only beautiful, but innovative as well. As in the first of this series, the game play is "amazing", which is an understatment on this new edition. No other genre of game on any platform can you achieve such a medieval taste of dark, evil, and excitement. Excitement for one NOT derived from killing, (ie: GTA3/Vice City), but from actually avoiding detection. Outstanding game, best I have scene in a long time in this market!
Rating:
Summary: This is not "Invisible War". This is a great game
Review: Could it be? That the same studio and publisher that made "Deus Ex: Invisible War" also made "Thief: Deadly Shadows?" Apparently, it is, since the former was a flawed and mediocre effort, and the latter stands out to me as the finest stealth/action game of the past five years. If, for some reason, you have hesitated to buy this game, then hesitate no longer. Technically, you don't have to have played the first two Thief games to play "Thief: Deadly Shadows", but the story and atmosphere tie so closely with the first game, that you probably should. The story in "Deadly Shadows" is great from beginning to end. So while the levels provide you with an interesting challenge, the story is what makes this game addictive. The suspense begins to build early, and it never really stops until the very end. The game provides a sense of mystery that few games manage to do, and then it wraps it all up in a very satisfying manner. In the final cut scene, the game ends the thief trilogy by bringing it full circle. The stealth mechanics for the game are well-refined. Generally, stealth works great here, and the trial-and-error that you find in the Splinter Cell series is nonexistent. This is mostly due to the inclusion of items like flash bombs and sleeping gas arrows, which let you escape from a tight spot. Unlike the previous Thief games, these items are abundant and somewhat cheap, so you can use a lot of them without running out. Of course, there are exploits in the game, just like every other stealth game. Yes, shadows hide you a bit too well and yes, the guards are all lazy. This makes the game too easy, unless you play on the hardest difficulty level or self-impose a "no-kill" rule. You also will have to refrain from using the third-person viewpoint, which has little value besides providing neat-looking screenshots. However, it keeps the game from getting boring or frustrating, which can be a problem for stealth/action games, since they tend to move along slowly. The suffocating, creepy atmosphere of the first "Thief" game makes its return here with a vengeance. The atmosphere is greatly enhanced by what I believe is the greatest ambient sound to ever grace a video game. If you have an EAX-capable sound card, then the sound of the game is so perfect, that you'll forget that you are playing a game. The sound contributes to a general sense of foreboding and danger that I haven't 'hurt either. There is a ton of content here. The number of voice-acted lines and sound bites rivals games like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Deus Ex. You can go a long time without hearing guards' AI barks repeat, although many of the voices sound the same. You also get to overhear a lot of conversations. Some are funny, and many contribute to the storyline. All of it is top notch. There isn't one B- voice performance in the game. This game definitely suffers from being co-designed for the X-Box. Namely, the sizes of the maps are very small. Every mission has to be divided into at least two small zones. Plus, many areas feel tight and cramped, and the game doesn't reward creativity like the previous two did. The levels are still good, but most of them are somewhat plain. The rope arrows are gone, but it doesn't matter, since the small level sizes pretty much prevent vertical thinking. The game also suffers a bit from a dumbing-down effect in some places. The most notable is the tendency for the game to constantly tip you off to special items of loot with conspicuously placed notes. Basically, you find books and letters everywhere out in the open, which give you obvious hints on what should have been secrets. There are still a few hard goodies to find, but the over-reliance on this mechanic removes a lot of the satisfaction from finding special items. One more slightly annoying problem in the game is the HORRIBLE implementation of rag-doll physics. The way that bodies bend like Silly Putty is a distraction, and one of the game's few immersion-breakers. The game would have been better off with motion-captured animations and simpler physics. "Thief: Deadly Shadows" ends up being a long game. It took me over 30 hours to get through it, searching every nook and cranny and trying not to kill anyone. In this time, I rarely got bored or tired of the game. Regardless of how you play, there is a ton of content here, in stark contrast to games that only give you an 8-hour campaign. Once you play this game, it's easy to recognize that a lot of people who worked on the first two games also worked on this game. "Deadly Shadows" is more than worthy of carrying the "Thief" name. The X-Box may have kept this from being "Game of the Year", but at least it didn't keep it from being great.
Rating: 
Summary: question
Review: I have recently played theif 3 at my neighbors house for xbox and noticed that it is optional to use a 3rd person view as well as 1st person view i would like to know if this is the same for pc. Also the 3 stars is because i liked it on xbox but havent tried it for pc so i gave an average score.
Rating:
Summary: So far, most these reviews are ridiculous!
Review: I'm looking at the reviews here and wondering if some of these people are playing the same game I just finished! Some of the reviews here are outright lies, others just lacking in any useful information. And, I'm looking at the Thief: Deadly shadows box and it says that it is NOT SUPPORTED TO RUN under Windows 95/98. The game was perfectly playable on my Win 2K machine with an ATI Radeon 9200. Some fans of the original will dislike the engine that was used for this game despite the fact that it has better graphics and incredible use of dynamic lighting compared to the originals. Actually, I've found that the game just takes some getting used to. After a few levels, the pace picks up and you forget about the flaws because the game really is alot of fun. The compromises that were made for the aging X-Box include a lack of rope arrows, swimmable water and loading zones. These are indeed the games low points, but they are not enough to "ruin" the game as some have claimed. Obviously Eidos put some limits on Ion Storm and one of the limits was that the game had to run on the X-Box. However, the designers made the most of the constraints and the result is levels that are indeed smaller than the largest levels in Thief 2, but in no way too small to be fun. As the game progresses it just keeps getting better. The plot is very thick...the atmosphere is there...the music is not quite as good as the originals but the voice acting is the same. If you are a fan of the originals you will like this game...IF you stop whining and give it a chance on a real computer. And...you will LOVE the ending...and that's a promise.
Rating:
Summary: Fun so far
Review: I've only been playing for a couple hours but it's really fun. And I also want to point out that as long as you have Windows XP and a reasonably modern graphics card the game will run. Another reviewer stated you needed to have a GeForce FX 5900 or beyond. I'm running the game on my laptop and it only has a GeForce FX 5200 Go at 64mb. I tried it on my older desktop with a GF4 and it worked as well. XP seems to be the key to getting it to run. Update your graphics card drivers. You can get them easily from ATI or nVidia's website. Do not, use the graphics drivers that come in Windows Update, as these can be older versions and thus not as stable. Make sure you get the udpate files from the maker of your graphics card.
Rating:
Summary: A worthy successor
Review: We are very lucky and should be thankful that Warren Spector and Ion Storm pushed for this third Thief project. It is a worthy successor - with a fluid interface that some would say is more akin to the console crowd, it extends the greatness already achieved in the first two games. The sound, voiceovers and music are movie-quality; fully immersive 3D. The graphics are drop-dead gorgeous (perhaps except the rather wooden characters) with real-time shadows and lighting. Watching a spluttering torch-bearing guard approach alongside a nubbly stonewall and you fully appreciate the glorious developments that have been made in the video card and Direct X world (reminiscent of that scene in Shrek as the villagers carry torches to find him). The story is expertly written and feels right with the series.
And Garrett, he's still wonderfully cynical, and if played on Expert (totally a must) reveals the true spirit of the original series. He is no Rambo and the game is a truly the thinking person's FPS. Go try the demo at Eidos.com and I'm sure you'll agree. Enjoy taffers.
|
