"So that's the Lost City. Heh, isn't lost no more!"

[nano_moose]

Wha-

Whoa. Hi. I mean - yeah, hi. I-is that sunlight? What week is this?

Oh, uh, I just found out the original Thief works on one of the laptops.

...Man, I trying to downplay my joy here, but it's just not working, so: SQUEEE!

I'm really, really enjoying it. The graphics may be dated and the missions longer and more frustrating than what I'm used to and my left hand may ache after an hour or so of play - but they weren't kidding when they said this thing was great. It is so great. It is full of awesome. It's a little disappointing playing through when I already know what's going to happen, but man, the foreshadowing. Brilliant. So many times I've said, "Oh, Garrett," in response to some offhand remark he made about his luck improving, because man, don't you know? You have hideous luck. He's usually proven wrong about ten seconds later, too. It has great atmosphere, great sound and music and design and gameplay and everything about it is fabulous. It makes you think around corners and look at your whole environment in order to solve the puzzle. I mean to play it for half an hour and find myself still playing two hours later.

Playing it from the other side of Deadly Shadows, there's this sensation that Garrett is still just some punk kid trying to earn a reputation, taking on all these ridiculously dangerous jobs because he wants prestige and quick money. He's - he's young and reckless and much too cocky and I can totally get how Constantine manipulates him: through his ego and greed and oh god, Garrett, you are going to get yourself into such deep shit, no matter how good you are. You young idiot. It's incredible you lived long enough to become the greatest that ever lived, and all that, and yet, somehow, not entirely surprising.

I...get the feeling that he hasn't completely closed himself off just yet? I dunno. Yeah, he's all down with the profit over ethics thing (otherwise he wouldn't be a thief) but he shows moments of...I guess you'd call it regret. Him and Cutty bantering even as Cutty died was weirdly touching. And when he found Felix's body, there's a sigh in the way he said, "Felix...you don't look so good," which just makes me think...regret. For the pointless death or because he wouldn't wish zombie-devouring on anyone or now he's worried about himself - I don't know. It's interesting. I wonder if it was intentional?

WHAT I MISS FROM DEADLY SHADOWS:
Probably I've been spoiled by all the console gaming. Still:
-The light. (Thick shafts of moonlight with motes of dust hanging in them like faint stars, warm torchlight and cold ghost-lamps, the dim blue-grey glow of morning, my shadow warping and dancing behind me, as compared to - a uniform pale shine around anything that emits light. Eh.)
-A relatively simple control scheme. (I mean how many fingers do PC gamers typically have? Fifteen? Or do they just have an extra hand in there somewhere?)
-Analogue controls/dual shock. Waah I want my thumbsticks. :(
-The greater control over my inventory.
-Closing briefings ("Well, I didn't make any new friends ... Not exactly my style in hats, but ... Something about that job has left me with a bad feeling...")
-The permanently on-screen compass.
-The loot glint/snatchable item gleam, although I could have done with the former being a little more subtle.
-The dagger. (WTF Garrett, why are you lugging that stupid sword around? Can't you at least blacken the blade so it's not so damn noticeable? Yeesh.)
-The flashbombs. (They still appear, but there's far fewer of them and they feel cheaty, somehow, since if I throw one I can just blackjack everyone in the room while they flail and rub their eyes. I prefer them as tools of escape.)
-Easy ladders. (Okay, okay, just jump at it and pray to the Watchman and maybe you'll make this ti- oh sodomy.)


WHAT I LOVE ABOUT IT ANYWAY:
Well, primarily, everything. But also:
-HOLY SHIT THE DETAIL. And I mean holy SHIT the detail. Say what you will about the Hammers, but dey got dems some craftsmanship. And some lovely poetry, too. And excellent singing voices, and some very nice hymns.
-What light there is has been done very well, for the software.
-Yay rope arrows. A massive, massive improvement over the gloves, seriously.
-Garrett may be a punk kid, but he's as snarky as ever. "Tombs with piped in music. How classy."
-I can eat stuff! There's something hilarious about being in ur hous, eatin ur foodz.
-The briefings are wow. I can see why the old-time fans were so upset by their absence.
-Big levels. Biiiiiig levels. I have gotten extraordinarily lost within five minutes of mission start, and never once do I see a damn loading area.
S-wimming! Handy. And a lot of fun - taking random running dives off cliffs and stuff is neat.
-The maps are brilliant - scrawled and messy with little notices all over them, like "Heavily guarded!" and "Watch for patrols here and here," and "Where am I?"
-I opened a door, and watched it hit the right angle, come off its hinge and drift silently through the wall. Never saw it again. I hope its happy, wherever it is. (I then spent about a minute giggling at the mental image of Garrett staring at it as it passed him. Living in a slightly glitchy game world must be vastly entertaining.)
-There are machines everywhere! Ticking gauges and fountaining spark-lamps and boilers that seemingly do nothing but boil. So cool. There's this wonderful pointlessness to them, they're so big and clanky and charming. Man, I can't wait to play Metal Age and see the Mechanists. They oughta be creepy and awesome.
-Whoa continuity. The paperwork and seemingly random placement of loot and buttons and things - 's all important, or at least deliberate. Apparently Ramirez likes drinking in the bathtub, and some enterprising builder knew someone was going to flout superstition and rob the dead. Somebody in Cragscleft has an illicit drinking habit, and Constantine has some very peculiar lamps.
-Not to mention? The level design is utterly fantastic. Especially (so far) Constantine's mansion, which is a masterpiece of naff WTF.

Part of me wants to see Thief ala Half-Life 2 - with those spectacular views and glorious skies. Man, this game deserved an engine as crafted by God. I have fallen in love so hard, you guys. I am mourning a company long dead. What they would have done with today's technology, I can only dream of, and that makes me indescribably sad.

Okay, now I need to go back and unlock that Cathedral. Constantine is waiting on his commission.

Comments

[squeemu.livejournal.com]

Oh man! Young punk Garrett! I gotta play it. I've got all these flailing hearts just thinking about there being a time when he wasn't closed off yet, I hate to think what seeing it would do to me.

AHAHAHA NOW YOU HAVE TO DEAL WITH USING A KEYBOARD TO DO THINGS. It's hard to get used to. Is "w" the forward key still? Also, it took me forever to learn how to use both the mouse and the keyboard at the same time, but I don't really notice it anymore. Although I still really wish I could play it on the PS2.

I don't know if it's the keyboard or the game, but I always have a really hard time jumping in T:DS. There was this one part in the Clocktower in particular that I had to reload at least five times to make the jump. After the fifth time, though, I just gave up. ...mostly because the game froze.

I always loved it when they'd have the Hammers hum one of their hymns while patrolling, so I really want to hear it in the first game. (So, I looked it up on Amazon.com, and apparently you can buy it there for less than $2.00? That seems really odd to me and I am highly suspicious of the whole thing, and that they'd send me something I couldn't actually play. But. But it's so tempting.)

OMG YOU CAN EAT STUFF? THAT IS THE BEST THING EVER! And is making me have odd MGS3 and Thief crossovers in my mind. Oh man, can you imagine the team Snake and Garrett would make? Sneakity sneakity sneak, you're down.

The maps sound awesome. I want to play this game just for the maps, now.

[nano_moose]

IT COULD BE MY IMAGINATION! I mean, he's not adopting puppies or anything, he's still a bastard. It's just - I'm not sure if he encountered any such situations in Deadly Shadows...although, he does seem a lot more willing to do really dangerous jobs (and make dorkier jokes, see: entry subject). He's less cautious, I think, which makes a lot of sense. I bet he vowed never to get used like that again after the whole Trickster mess (and that also might tie in with his intense disgust with the Keepers).

I DO NOT LIKE IT VERY MUCH AT ALL. It doesn't help that I'm forced to use the jelly keyboard, which is almost indestructable but very stiff and hard on the digits. And 'w' is the forward key, but only because I fiddled with the settings, which were set to some crazy weird WTF layout prompting the fingers remark. I do like being able to use the hotkeys, though. You know, to select different things with the numbers.

Well, you'll be pleased to know that the old game runs a whole lot smoother than the new, and I haven't had it freeze on me once. And the jumping works well! The game engine pulls a few shenagigans, but they're more amusing than game-breaky. Sometimes you might bounce off the rope arrow ropes. That's a little annoying. I really like being able to quicksave, though.

They really do have remarkable singing voices, and they do it a lot more often than in Deadly Shadows. And most of them are actually voiced by Stephen Russell, which does weird things to my head. Can you imagine Garrett singing? Because I sure can't! (That does sound a bit suss. On the one hand: CHEEP!! On the other: Possible scam. Hmm. I don't know much about intarweb trade, so all I can advise is caution.)

Carrots and apples and bread and cheese and cucumbers and, uh, deer legs. I wonder where he puts it all. There's no real point to it either, it doesn't even give you health. You can just eat stuff. Well, Snake would have to keep a very careful eye on his wallet, for a start. It would be a mighty clash of cynicism and gravelly voices. And now my brain is throwing up arguments about the relative merits of hoods vs. bandanas...okay, whatever, brain.

They are awesome. I'm absolutely certain that you would love them.

[squeemu.livejournal.com]

Well, but it makes a lot of sense and would incredibly awesome if it was done on purpose. Plus, I mean, Garrett's probably not the type to do OMG OBVIOUS character development, so the subtleness works? I mean, obviously I don't know what I'm talking about because I haven't played T:DP or anything. Hee! Dorkier jokes! And, I just -- it sounds so awesome.

HAHAHA. Although, blah, jelly keyboard. It sounds like at least they got the default keys better in Deadly Shadows. The hotkeys are really nice, though. I hadn't really thought about it before.

Hooray! Thankfully, I haven't had any freezes in the Cradle yet, just that CORRUPTED SAVE. The escaping door thing cracked me up, although that might have been more from me imagining Garrett's expression than anything else.

I -- Stephen Russell? Singing Hammer guards? I GOTTA PLAY IT. And no, no I can't picture Garrett singing, except now I'm picturing him getting one of those Hammer hymns stuck in his head while he's robbing them blind. (WHO TRIES TO SCAM PEOPLE FOR ONLY TWO BUCKS? But, er, I did find a used copy for $18, and it comes in the box, so I might try for that one. Once I work up the courage to buy things off the Internet.)

That's almost even better, that it serves no real purpose. Hee! Oh god, I so badly want to see Snake talking to Medic on the radio and Garrett listening in with a slightly raised eyebrow or something. I think hoods would be more likely to get caught on branches? But probably provide better cover, at least in the shadows. Also, think about what Garrett would do with a tranq gun.

[nano_moose]

Argh, I wish I could ask Looking Glass or something, it's going to drive me nuts. Oh, and now there's a bit when he sounds worried about the Hammers. How interesting. Actually, it could very likely be because any death and destruction that occurs is entirely his own dumb fault, instead of someone else so he can snark about them and brush it off. Dude. (By which I mean hooray for fanwank!) And now in Metal Age he's making pirate jokes and also being in an incredibly foul mood. Hee. I love it when he's annoyed, he does it so well. That's because it is awesome. And I really have to stop using that word, it's getting a little frayed, and so I deem it fabtaculous.

It's floppy. Floppy jelly keyboard. Oh well, at least Dad won't be able to melt or spill wine on this one. I swear, my family hates technology so much we have to buy more so we can destroy it faster.

The freeze in the Cradle was probably partly my fault (I'd been playing for hours) and partly our Xbox, which blew up shortly after and had to be replaced. So unless you've been totally mainlining the game, I don't think it should be a problem. Corrupted save was likely just its evil aura.

He does loads of voices! And sometimes it is very difficult to reconcile them with each other! Like, I'm pretty sure he plays Karras, the fluttery-voiced servant, Benny, and a Hammer. And Garrett. Geez, half his voices want to kill the other half while one runs away screaming and another goes for a drink. Hee! That would annoy him so much, it would be great. (SOMEONE WHO REALLY WANTED A CAN OF COKE? I DUNNO. And yay! I hope you can get it to work. If you can't I'll give you some links to the forum faq, they have this whole section for getting it to run on Windows XP. Our copy came with an installer, fortunately.)

I think it does give you health in Metal Age, though. And there's like, pagan fruit that you can eat which heals you. LMAO at the mental image. Good grief, Garrett's from a world with zombies and ghosts and gods and magic and it's not half as weird as MGS, and he'd say so. Man, Snake trying to explain it all would be so great. Or they'd have a glare-off or something. Hee. Oh dear, either no treasure in the world would ever be safe again or he'd forget you can reload and just toss it away when it runs out of ammo. And now I'm picturing him somehow managing to pull it apart and staring in growing confusion and annoyance at all the pieces.

[whitetigah.livejournal.com]

I opened a door, and watched it hit the right angle, come off its hinge and drift silently through the wall. Never saw it again. I hope its happy, wherever it is. (I then spent about a minute giggling at the mental image of Garrett staring at it as it passed him. Living in a slightly glitchy game world must be vastly entertaining.)

Aha, I remember those "WTF?" moments XD
It's been, what? Eight, nine years since I first played the game, and I still can find my way around most of the levels (excluding the extra Thief Gold levels - never got around to playing those). And I still go "OMGWTFBBQ skeleton with a sword running towards me RUN AWAY!!!" whenever I replay the game. Ah, those were The Days, really.
As an aside, have you ever heard of the guide to the Strange and Unusual? It's got some great tips, though I prefer the guide for Thief II. And there's multiplayer Thief (sort of) as a mod for Unreal Tournament (the first one).

[nano_moose]

The game does that a lot, does it? I knew about crate stacking and other quirks of the Dark Engine from lurking around TTLG, but escaping doors was a new one.

It is so much fun! Well, so much fun in that I spend an awful lot of time swearing and hitting reload. Usually it's because I strolled happily around a corner and walked right into, say, a guard. Or because I failed to notice the trap and get myself blown up. I like how many random little touches there are (like that skeleton in Cragscleft).

I have heard of it! I didn't read it because I was afraid of gameplay spoilers, but I'll check it out if once I've finished the game.