REVIEW: Thief

Thief

Thief stole many things from me: time, shelf space, money but definitely not my heart. This game promised so much but delivered very little in my opinion. Its lack of any real depth, bland acting and basic gameplay left me stunned, I was hoping for and expecting a lot more.

Thief stealing valuable shit from Dale
Thief stealing valuable shit from Dale

The visuals of the game are pleasing, but not any better than that of the late last generations games. The gameplay isn’t awful but it could have been so much more, it’s clunky, basic and you can’t even jump!

The leaning round corners is quite a cool thing and so is the swoop ability but that’s about all there is to keep you entertained and they’ve been done countless times before. The guards are really simple, they often can’t see you when you’re right in front of them, or, they can see you wherever you go and hide and just take it in turns to poke you with their swords.

Combat is as clunky as Lego lovemaking
Combat is as clunky as Lego lovemaking

Fighting back makes you feel like a feeble old man hitting out with your little stick, after what seems like fifteen hits on a guard he’ll fall over but then his eight friends will take it in turns to poke you. Having said that this is supposed to be a stealth game, I get that but with one basic path laid out in front of you and very small level areas to try to do things your own way is out the question, and that for me ruined my gaming experience.

The plot entails some cultists messing around with powers they did not understand and ended up bringing a plague to the city. To uncover what happened to your lady friend and get to the bottom of everything you must steal things and sell them and by steal things I mean this game basically tasks you with stealing knives, forks, plates and then sell them to get upgrades and other such helpful things to aid you in stealing more kitchenware. There are also rare things worth stealing to add to a collection at your clock tower usually from safes or locked drawers. The lock picking isn’t really a hard task and this is something I actually liked about the game as no ‘master thief’ would have trouble picking locks or breaking and entering.

Thief is not as cool as this screenshot makes out.
Thief is not as cool as this screenshot makes out.

An open world with many ways to approach the situation may have turned this game into a favourite of mine but it just lacks pretty much everything you’d expect from the last generation of games, let alone what you want from the next.

The only people I’d recommend this game to are fans of the franchise or people I really wanted to have a bad gaming experience. Thief brought nothing new to the table and didn’t meet the bar for quality expected in today’s games.

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