I think it was fun. I’m having trouble remembering some of the missions. Like, I’m sure there was a mission or two at the Chinese Embassy in Myanmar (Burma), and I’m sure there was a mission at the “Georgian Presidential Palace.” There may also have been a mission on a sunken ship or a derailed train or possibly in a very large completely stationary RV with no tires. Made out of concrete.
But the details are receeding from my mind pretty quickly.
Talking points:
Sneaking around. The game had it. Moving through the shadows. Skulking along darkened walls. Hanging from blackened pipes. Standing 3 feet away from guards and having them not see you because a certain line of code determines that you’re invisible.
Grabbing people and then holding a gun to their heads. The game had it. Sometimes you could ask them questions.
Finding keys. The game had it. In the form of “data sticks” (Come on UBIsoft! What KIND of memory? SmartMedia? MemoryStick? Compact Flash? Take a stand!) with keypad codes on them.
Shooting people. Check.
Plot twists. Umm…check? I guess.
Stealing stuff. Kinda check.
Hey! I remembered another mission! Kalinatek! That mission sucked.
Excitement. I’m going to have to go ahead and say no, not really.
All in all, my review would be: Ginger snap. They’re good in the fall with cider, but it’s not like you spend all year waiting for them or anything. It’s certainly not chocolate chip or even oreo for that matter.
Did anybody else feel slightly underwhelmed after all was said and done and shot and knocked out?
P.S. Attention Warren Specter: If you don’t deliver Thief 3 this year or next, I’m going to cry. Hard.
I think I’m around half way through and I see with what you’re sayng. These “sneaker” games have their up and down moments which makes it very difficult to sustain a high level of entertainment throught a long sitting. You begin to see the monotony of “move forward, notice guard pattern, approach from behind, knock out, find next checkpoint, repeat.” Works best in small doses.
For some reason, I find the Thief series more thoroughly fun. Exciting even. Maybe it’s the atmosphere. I think it’s a scarier game too.
I guess my biggest gripe with SC is that the level designs have high production values (they look realistic, the attention to detail is great, etc) but there is really no particular variety to them.
I’ll summarize mission by mission:
Training - Not nearly as fun as the training in NOLF.
Police Station - Infiltrate a building. Ho hum
Defense Ministry - Infiltrate a cool building. Best mission in my opinion.
Oil Refinery - Infiltrate an oil rig. Slightly original.
CIA Headquarters - Infiltrate a building without killing anybody. Yawn.
Kalinatek - Infiltrate a building while killing everybody in sight. Hmm.
Chinese Embassy - Infiltrate a building after sneaking through a sewer. Lava cave anyone?
Abattoir - What the hell is an Abattoir? Infiltrate a meat factory. Ok I guess.
Chinese Embassy 2 - Lazy bastards.
Presidential Palace - Infiltrate a castle. Ok I guess.
There’s just not much real vision or inspiration in these level designs. I think you rappel like once or twice in the whole game. I never did a “split jump.” You need to use the wall jump like three times.
They just didn’t really make the most of the possibilities. A very well put together game that lacks a certain spark.
I didn’t participate in the Splinter Cell=Thief thread because I was trying to avoid spoilers, so I’m glad this topic came back up.
My thoughts exactly. I remember playing at night, with the lights out, straining to hear footsteps in the dark. The tension kept me, quite literally, on the edge of my seat. It was great. I fired up Thief on a laptop recently and it is has held up very well.
Oil Refinery - Infiltrate an oil rig. Slightly original.
Slightly original and pretty accurate, except for all of the chain link fence. The pumps look like high-pressure industrial pumps, and there was even a flare burning off to one side. Pretty slick.
What turned me off was the linearity of the missions, and I guess that’s where Thief trumps Splinter Cell’s graphical ace.
"You begin to see the monotony of “move forward, notice guard pattern, approach from behind, knock out, find next checkpoint, repeat.” Works best in small doses. "
I think I enjoyed it more since I only played like 1 mission a day. I didn’t sit for hours playing it.
I would vote for any sequal to have a more open ended design. The “choreagraphed” levels were fun most of the time, but one were you could choose more than one way to get in a building or base etc would really help.
What turned me off was the linearity of the missions, and I guess that’s where Thief trumps Splinter Cell’s graphical ace.
You guys might consider taking off your rose colored glasses, because Thief had its share of problems-- the game became a monster hunt. All the cool missions involved infiltration, but the first game kept putting you in these annoying-ass combat/monster situations where sneaking was secondary to killing stuff. That’s why I never finished it.
To be fair, Thief 2 did address a lot of the problems of the first game. Maybe Splinter Cell 2 will, too.
You guys might consider taking off your rose colored glasses, because Thief had its share of problems-- the game became a monster hunt. All the cool missions involved infiltration, but the first game kept putting you in these annoying-ass combat/monster situations where sneaking was secondary to killing stuff. That’s why I never finished it.
Nonsense, you (and most people, myself included the first time) just sprang automatically into “monster killing” mode. I’m replaying Thief 1 now on the hardest difficulty and am up to mission 9, and there has yet to be a mission that is more effectively beaten by killing monsters than it is by sneaking past them. The fact of the matter is that you never have enough equipment to kill everything in a level, or even most things, so sneaking is never downplayed. In fact, in many ways, the monster missions involve more sneaking than the infilitration missions, because while you have an infinite supply of “knock outs” for humans, monsters can only be removed from the equation by way of a finite and dwindling quiver of ammunition, and therefore, must be picked more stategically for removal than their human counterparts, which encourages sneaking in a way that the human-only missions are never able to match. If you skip over the monster missions in Thief, you are honestly missing out on most of the best levels in the game.
I actually had this problem with the sainted Thief games as well. Much of the gameplay boiled down to “hide in shadow, detect brief gap in overlapping guard epicycles, move to next shadow.” I guess many games have equally simple gameplay, but it got old after a while. I think Thief’s superb atmosphere and nonlinear level design helped put it over the top, but frankly I sort of groan when newer shooters include the obligatory “sneaker” level. I’d rather just wade into hordes of enemies with a light saber or something…
Spoof, I don’t care what you say, Return to the Cathedral is the best damn mission in that entire game, and it doesn’t have anything besides monsters in it.
YES. I’ll agree to that. There are some games that just do not merit having a “sneaker” level in them - and they usually turn out to be obnoxious as hell. However, I think that’s the price we pay for having Thief do so well.
I think a far better thing to do would be to allow the player to bypass encounters via sneaking if they’re short on ammo or something, or health for that matter. Sneak until you get a refill, then return to laying waste. But please do not FORCE sneak-play on us in the midst of an otherwise shooter.
Spoof, I don’t care what you say, Return to the Cathedral is the best damn mission in that entire game, and it doesn’t have anything besides monsters in it.
I can cite dozens of reviews complaining about the monster factor™ in Thief 1. You’re entitled to your opinion, of course, but realize that you are in the minority here.
I thought the monsters broke up the monotony at least, added some variety. Return to the Cathedral was too damn hard, but I thought Bonehoard (another monster level) was probably the best level in Thief 1.
I’m gonna have to go with the pro-monster guys on this one. I hated the monsters the first time through, but when I replayed I found I actually preferred those levels. I agree with DrCrypt that Return to the Cathedral is the best mission in the game.
Splinter Cell? I love the sneaker genre, so I was pretty wet with anticipation when the demo was released. Then I played it. Reaction? About the same as Spoof’s: technologically impressive, but completely lacking in soul. I found that as soon as I was done with it, I basically forgot I had ever played it. I doubt I’ll even pick up the full game when the price drops.
Sneaking around. The game had it. Moving through the shadows. Skulking along darkened walls. Hanging from blackened pipes. Standing 3 feet away from guards and having them not see you because a certain line of code determines that you’re invisible.
Actually, this is something that I think the graphical upgrade that SC has that made it much more believable than T/T2. Namely that when I would pan the camera around and look at myself from the front while I was hiding in shadows, I could barely see Sam’s model (usually just the glowing bits on his wrist). Contrast with the Thief games, in which you could clearly see any guard, whetehr or not he was in shadow- this diminished the immersion.
