I finally, finally, finally completed Thief. I've had it for the past five years, and every time, I quit during Assassins. I also sucked at it, so maybe that's why.
Pity that I didn't know how much better the game gets after Assassins. Not that it has a slow start, though.
I loved it. Sure, the geometry could've been done on the Quake 1 engine, but the environments still looked great, especially Constantine's areas. The stealth in Thief is done better than in any other game I've played. You need to be slick but not perfect to sneak by, and if you do get caught, you have to work to make things quiet again. Assuming you survive the guards, that is, as anything more than a one-on-one encounter is risky. The general floaty feel of the movement is great, too.
And then there's the audio, which is perfect. The conversations to listen in on, the combat sounds, the music (what's there)... All excellent. And then there's the ambient sound, which can be downright creepy.
And that's another thing. I've always been told how scary System Shock 2 is, but this game was even worse. It's mostly the sound, but Return to the Cathedral is simply fucked up.
Time to go through Thief II, I guess. I've heard that it's a better game overall, and this is easily one of the best singleplayer games I've played. Is Thief Gold worth looking into?
