The game that has so far proven to be the second most disappointing game of the year was 'Thief', a much anticipated revamp of the cult classic series that was kicking about in the late 90s and early 2000s. Whilst some praised its stealth gameplay and graphics, not all were as easily impressed and fans of the original series were unsurprisingly unsatisfied with initial details such as the replacement of the protagonists voice actor and an unimaginative storyline. Here I'll look into what made this game so disappointing and what has rendered this game worthy of this placement in this list.
#2: Thief
Developer: Eidos Montreal
Genre: Stealth
Release date: February 25h 2014
Platforms: Windows, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3.
ESRB: M - Mature
In the end, 'Thief' turned out to be a watered down clone of 'Dishonoured' that insulted fans of the original series and bored those new to the game. I’m of the latter group; I never played the original Thief but knew of it and knew how much beloved it was but, without playing it, I can only talk about this 2014 revamp from my direct experience. To begin with, it doesn’t feel particularly up to date as everything is extremely linear and limited whilst I was expecting a more fluid, open world environment with some minor limitations. Worse still, the environments you’re limited to are extremely bland with hardly anything to interact with and without much room for experimentation leaving you very little point in trying to be creative about the way in which you go about things. Garrett, a character with very little personality and shoddy voice acting, is supposed to have a huge variety of gadgets and tools that you may select from and let loose upon the world but there’s very little opportunity to use them to their full potential. Almost every single gadget may only be used in one particular way so, again, your creativity is squashed and your game experience forced through a narrow tunnel of ‘the way it’s supposed to be done’. This claustrophobic feeling of restriction extends into the main missions where everything is rigid, linear and scripted which is strangely at odds with the more flexible and ‘thank god I can breathe for a moment’ style of the side missions. The side missions, though better than the main ones, still are by no means perfect as everything is split into segments due to the huge amount of loading screens you’ll encounter that totally destroys any illusion of an open world game.
I haven’t actually mentioned the entire point of the game yet and that’s being a Thief, shock horror surprise, so you’d expect a pretty robust thieving and looting system that would justify its position as a strong, substantial stealth game. Well prepare to be disappointed, some more, as Thief is less about being a professional thief and more about picking up any old shit you find lying around that may be of worth. It’s rather like Garrett has found a way to curb his uncontrollable kleptomania by taking it on as a profession as rather than saving up all his skills and energy for one big heist he tends to just grab anything within reach, particularly low valued items that nobody else would bother themselves with. Once again, the influence of ‘Dishonoured’ reared its head as whenever you pick something up its converted into money leaving you with grabbing bits worth 3 gold, 5 gold, 7 gold and so on. At this point, Thief’s lack of individual identity is becoming self-evident and you’re probably wondering what sets it apart from the crowd. Well, not much actually. The storyline is very longwinded and seems to just go on and on endlessly with no sign of stopping and, when it finally gets there, the ending is weak and unsatisfying.
As a next gen console game it’s also graphically inferior with nothing particularly attractive or noteworthy and the overall appearance is simply bland, the controls are clunky and slow leaving you hobbling rather than sleuthing and the FPS is diabolical with long loading times and plenty of stuttering during cinematics and periods of lots of activity such as combat. Oh and by the way, the combat too is just like the rest of the game; slow, irritating, restrictive and clunky. It’s as though the developers attempted to put in some action game features and just ended up with something that was a mix of awkward button smashing, poorly animated takedowns and, due to the loading screens, almost no way to flee effectively from a situation. In fact, the only redeeming feature about the combat system in ‘Thief’ is that you can bypass it entirely and opt for sneaking around enemies instead of confronting them head on. Overall, Thief is unable to live up to the expectation of becoming the next big stealth game and just feels far too restrictive and uninspired. It’s boring, bland, slow and with very little to lift it up from a pit of poor storytelling, poor gameplay and a poor engine. If you are a diehard lover of this genre of game then I’m sure you’ll find some way of getting some fun out of it solely because it’s a new game but I’d recommend waiting until the price drops first as, in this form, it’s simply not worth your money.
The Good:
- Some fairly entertaining moments
- Can be quite cinematic, when it wants to be.
- It's a stealth game and the industry need more stealth games
- The graphics are ok, but not for a next-gen game.
- Substandard AI
- Set paths leaving you very room to move
- Awful voice acting and lip syncing
- Agonizingly boring storyline
- Clunky controls
- Very poor FPS especially during busy periods and cutscenes
- Weapons and gadgets offer little room for creativity
- Garrett is a pretty bad thief; more of a klepto than a professional
- Very little interaction in the environment
- Not actually an open world experience
- Spits on the name of the original series.
Final thoughts: "Thief is a decidedly unworthy addition to the cult classic series of games and will disappoint not only long standing fans but those new to the series as well. Whilst it's a reasonably alright stealth game it's not a patch on 'Dishonoured' and lacks some core fundamentals of a good stealth game such as intelligent AI and flexibility in what you can do and where you can go."
5 Most Disappointing Games of 2014 (So far)
