Which Thief series do you like the most?

[romeo_longsword]

Just a quick question to ask you guys, since I have played Thief 1(half finished), Thief 2 and Thief 3 (currently on progress), I most say that I find Thief 3 most "real" in terms of the physics in the game world. In terms of the story, I think Thief 2 was rather simple, the other two I can not tell sonce I have not yet finished, but as I say, action wish its pretty good in Thief 3.

Back in thief 1 and 2, I find that the shade/darkness you can hide seems to be very limited, meaning that you could be hidden completely quite easily. Where you in Thief 3, there seems to be a large range of shades and your momenet alter your visability much more (pardon for my spelling), but story wish, I find it quiet strage so far.

Garret, a man who has been a master thief for as long as we know from Thief one, who has been thought some big time events. And yet he is still renting in some little space and have problem in paying rent.

Failt enough, you say big time event such as bringing down the mechines cult in Metal Age does not make you rich, but should not be in the stage where you have problem paying the next/current rent either, if the man is a master thief of the town, he would have stashes of stuff, I mean, beside rent, what else would a person spent his money on?

Woman? A house? Underground politic powers?

I mean, I am guessing that Garret would still do his work beside the time that we were playing him in the three series, he has got to have more than this.

So in tersm of the engine, Thief 3 is great, but story wise, I have no idea. :)

[Tin Star]

I have played all the Thief games and I liked Thief Gold and Thief The Metal Age best and would not be able to pick between the two of them.

I liked Thief Gold because it added more to Thief The Dark Project and the story line was good,besides taking you to places a normal thief wouldn't go to and dealing with all the different creatures in the game.

I liked Thief The Metal Age because it more or less picks up where the first game left off and tells of the new age that was coming in and still had a good story line even if it didn't have as many creatures in it as the first game did.

Both games could keep a person on the edge of his or her set and were packed full of secret areas that you could look for in the games,and the games were longer and better laid out then the last game was.

Tin Star

[Peter Smith]

I agree with Tin Star, in most respects. However, I thought Thief 1 was slightly better than T2 because it was more gritty and darker in atmosphere (I don't mean screen brightness). For example, I don't think there are any T2 misisons that compare with Bonehoard and Escape in terms of atmosohere and tension. I liked the weird creatures of T1 better than the mechanical bots of T2. However, because of better resolution and capability of the engine, I think t2 is much better for FM's, provided the designer takes care not to make them too antiseptic. A recent example of this is Unfinished Business, a T2 mission that improves over the T1 atmosphere. There are many others.

As for T3, I enjoyed it quite a bit, but I thought there were a lot of things about it that did not measure up to the earlier two, in spite of fancier graphics. Fancier is not necessarily better. Things that bothered me about T3, compared with the other two, included lack of rope arrows and swimming, repetitve nature of passing through city streets, smaller maps, load zones, easier game play, no real incentive to gather loot, bluish tint on graphics, arrow trails, and loot glint, to name a few. :) I was not that impressed with T3 physics, either. The rag doll aspects of a KO'ed guard, bent into a pretzel shape, seemed kind of ridiculous to me. And what is the use of a few rattling barrels or chairs? I would have much rather had old-fashioned physics and larger missions, as in T1 and T2.

[ChristineS]

For me, Thief 1 is the best. The atmosphere and the creatures are perfect.
Thief 2 is close to it, but I don't liked the bots very much.
I only played the Demo of Thief 3, there is no German localisation for it, only subtitels, which pop up in the middle of the screen, every standart word of the guard, every noise - most of the time while playing the demo I had some subtitels in the middle of the screen. It takes out the fun of the game and I'll never play it.

[dogsolitude_uk]

Thief 3 was so-so I thought, until I got to the Cradle. It suffered from too much 'plot' and detail about the worlds: developers sometimes forget that depth is often best left as implied rather than a collection of overwritten-devices (faction system, glyphs etc) I'd rather the game went back to the basic structure of Thieves 1&2 and concentrated on testing the skill of the player rather than rolling out a story. Loot glint, arrow trails, clunky interface, bluish haze, console dumbing-down, lack of rope arrows, no swimming, small levels and a contrived plot did not ruin it for me though :)

I'll always go back to Thief 2. I really enjoyed Masks and Life of the Party. The size of the levels made for a very satisfying game too.

[ffox]

I reckon it depends where you started. For me that was T2, and consequently it took me ages to get to grips with the undead, bugbeasts, apemen, etc in T1, not to mention the poor resolution. Peter's favourite Bonehoard was for a long time my least favourite, although I quite like it now.

It also depends on your preferred style of play. I think the most challenging of T1/T2/T3 is probably Soulforge - I make my target the total elimination of the bots. I don't think it would be much fun to ghost it.

I quite enjoyed TDP because of the excellent graphics, but have no inclination to play it a second time.

That said, I prefer some FMs to any of the commercial missions. The T2-based FMs coming out now have a much improved appearance, and there are some unforgettable moments - frobber's cathedral, the snow scenes in CL, etc. Unfortunately (from my point of view) there aren't many FMs with bots!

[John D.]

there aren't many FMs with bots! The second level in Deep Trouble 2 has a few. :)
Just watch out for the plasma guns! ;)

[Nightwalker]

I think my favourite of the original games has to be Thief Gold. The atmosphere drew me in like nothing I'd ever come across before. When T2 came out, I was sorely disappointed in the first 3 or 4 levels and wondering why I'd spent the money. It improved greatly after that but I never really got immersed in it the same way as I did TG. However, many of the FMs made for T2 have greatly surpassed the original missions. The atmosphere, storylines, new objects, etc. have made them seem like it's almost another game!

Thief 3 never drew me in at all. I literally had to force myself to pretend I was playing another game similar to Thief to stop comparing it to the other 2 Thief games and get on with it. I always intended to play it a second time but when I start, I just have no motivation to continue and go back to FMs. I'm hoping that the T3 FMs will do the same thing as the T2 FMs did and improve the game. Adding in rope arrows, secrets, etc. plus cutting down on available money and supplies.

T2X almost counts as another Thief game now, too, with it's 13 beautiful missions. Not perfect but excellent fun. It's a bit too easy on Expert but still has some terrific missions and I would have been far happier with T3 if it had resembled this mission pack. :)

[littlek]

What Tin Star, Peter Smith and Nightwalker said....T Gold my fav. :D

[Huntress]

This thread had me interested to reply one more time about "fav's" as it renews my thoughts about Thief gaming again. I have been a wayward Thief of late being engrossed in a couple of other RPG/Action/Adventure type gaming but Thief will always hold a special place in my gaming pleasure :) I have not played T3 nor will I ever...as for me I was not interested in the "new" idea of Thief and the way it was presented to play. For me, just because I'm not a big fan of undeads, etc., I was more drawn into T2 and did like that more than T1 or Gold although I did prefer Gold more because of the upgrades it offered etc.

However, the Fan Missions that have come out have been most impressive for the large part and have enjoyed them very much over the years. I'm now in the process of downloading T2X as my Daughter gave me a heads up that it became available (heh, thank goodness for DSL :D) although I am aware it's available through BiTtorrent as well. Thief will never die..just get a little dusty sometimes now and then. ;) Ta and Good Hunting!

[Rommel_1891]

I liked TG/TDP the best. TDS is nice but still lacks, mostly in story. TMA was a good addition, and had nice improvements over TG/TDP but lacked atmosphere.

[Optik45]

I prefered T2 because of the bow upgrade. :D

[BrokenArts]

Tosses another fav for Thief Gold in the pot.

[gapottberg]

I havent had too much experince with the later theif titles, but I have Theif Gold and it has been hands down my favorite game of all time since I played the bafford mission demo way back when TDS first came out? (anyone remember the rope arrow trick from that demo that was taken out in TG?)

Anyways, I also liked the demo of theif metal age, but never had a CPU that could really play it till now. I need to get a full copy of the game to see for myself. Instead I bought TDS and have been very dissapointed. I think someone else said it best when they said that they had to pretend it was another game similar to theif to keep playing it. Too much has changed to really compare it to the other titles straight up. My opinions are probably biased aganst this game more than the rest of you however, cuz I bought a peice of poo for a graphics card before i really understood all the lingo and the game is lag city even on lowest detail settings. Now I have to wait till i can scrounge up about $200 to buy a new one :mad: . Reguardless of the lag, the host of things the others mentioned were all on my list of changes i despise. One i dont remember seeing was the chanage form the sword to his fancy butter knife. I mean what was the point? Anyone who uses the dagger to backstab except for fun is retarded (the blackjack has the same effect and no blood) and its next to worthless in cobat with the gaurds. I really liked the swordplay aspect of the first 2 games and spent a lot of time getting good at it. I wish they would have kept that aspect in the new game as well. I kinda see how a dagger fits the character better in some respects but hey, this game broke all the molds from the begining, why start following tradition now?

On an up note the ability to see your arms and legs is super cool :thumbsup: but not so cool it makes up for all the other lameness.

Maybe the next installment will look more like the first (crosses fingers :D)

[twisty]

Thief 3 never drew me in at all. I literally had to force myself to pretend I was playing another game similar to Thief to stop comparing it to the other 2 Thief games and get on with it. I always intended to play it a second time but when I start, I just have no motivation to continue and go back to FMs. I'm hoping that the T3 FMs will do the same thing as the T2 FMs did and improve the game. Adding in rope arrows, secrets, etc. plus cutting down on available money and supplies.
Sadly, I can't help but agree. As I have stated elsewhere before, the drunken, offset movement of Garrett was probably the most annoying feature for me in TDS. I never felt as though I was really in control of my avatar - which was a shame, as I felt that the natural feel of first person in the previous installments were responsible in large part for the immersion felt. I've tried to reinstall TDS a couple of times since completing it but gave up after a short while mainly for this reason.

Oh, and while I'm taking the time to whinge, other things that annoyed me: bland level design; washed out textures; Garrett being transformed into something of a celebrity in the city (as opposed to the shadowy, mysterious character we used to know him as); no motion capture; amateurish CGI; no briefings; too much "humour"; amateurish writing and dialogue (pagans, for example); ladder climbing; no water; no rope arrows; the ending. I enjoyed TDS in parts, but felt that it really failed in reaching those places that the previous games took me.

As far as the topic of this thread is concerned though, I find it almost impossible to pick a favourite between the first two installments. To summarise though, I guess T1 is my favourite with regards to atmosphere and T2 I love for the level design.

Oh, and yeah, another Bonehoard lover signing in. You can definitely see the influence that Praecor Loth's tomb had on that.

[John D.]

Sadly, I can't help but agree. As I have stated elsewhere before, the drunken, offset movement of Garrett was probably the most annoying feature for me in TDS. I never felt as though I was really in control of my avatar - which was a shame, as I felt that the natural feel of first person in the previous installments were responsible in large part for the immersion felt. I've tried to reinstall TDS a couple of times since completing it but gave up after a short while mainly for this reason.

Oh, and while I'm taking the time to whinge, other things that annoyed me: bland level design; washed out textures; Garrett being transformed into something of a celebrity in the city (as opposed to the shadowy, mysterious character we used to know him as); no motion capture; amateurish CGI; no briefings; too much "humour"; amateurish writing and dialogue (pagans, for example); ladder climbing; no water; no rope arrows; the ending. I enjoyed TDS in parts, but felt that it really failed in reaching those places that the previous games took me. You should check out the Dark Mod Twisty, I've seen a beta version of some of it's textures/features and I can tell you New Horizion is doing very well in correcting those problems and bringing back a true T1 & 2 experience in a more advanced engine. :cool:

[twisty]

Yeah, Dark Mod is sexy, that's for sure. I can't wait to play some of the scarier FM's made with the D3 engine in particular.