Seems like it's reviewing "okay" as it is sitting at a 70 average across all platforms, but seems like a steam sale/discounted game.

• Machinima - 8.5/10
• Canadian Online Gamers - 8.1/10
• Game Informer - 8/10
• Gamereactor Sweden - 8/10
• Joystiq - 8/10 [4/5 stars]
• PC Gamer - 7.9/10
• Gamepro Germany - 7.8/10
• 4Gamers - 7.7/10
• Destructoid - 7.5/10
• Gametrailers - 7.5/10
• Playstation Universe - 7.5/10
• SlasherJPC video review - 7.5/10
• EDGE - 7/10
• Gamesbeat - 7/10
• OPM UK - 7/10
• Play - 7/10
• Videogamer - 7/10
• XB1 Magazine - 7/10
• Lazygamer - 6.9/10
• IGN - 6.8/10
• Gamesided - 6.5/10
• NowGamer - 6.5/10
• Eurogamer - 6/10
• Gamespot - 6/10
• GamesTM - 6/10
• Polygon - 6/10
• Rev3games/Sessler video review - 6/10
• Rocket Chainsaw video review - 6/10
• US Gamer - 6/10
• Kotaku - NO

Alex just tweeted

Alex Navarro ‏@alex_navarro 11m

"I still have a bit of Thief's final chapter to finish, but go ahead and mark my eventual review on the lower end of the scale. It sucks."

Should be an interesting review!

I pre-ordered it and looking forward to it, some real differing opinions on this one, Totalbiscuit seems to love it but Kutaku hate it!

So far sounds like Deus Ex HR was to me. The level design being cramped, limited, and predictable.

A big part of the reason both franchises were good before was their open and interesting level design. It's what made all the different abilities and how you played so rewarding.

Well, that's a bummer.

Not unexpected, though.

Was hoping this was going to be a surprise hit, looks like the opposite. Feel sorry for fans of the series.

I have it paid off. Honestly, Kotaku saying that its bad is almost a sign that it is probably good. All of their complaints in the don't section were things they raved about in Deus Ex but they loved that game, so who the hell knows. Again, I have mine paid off and I'm still going to pick it up and play through it. I don't really heed reviews much in terms of purchasing decisions as I go on gut and typically I don't feel wronged.

That's too bad, but I'll definitely play it eventually since it just sounds more interesting than most games that come out. I liked Deus Ex HR well enough and this doesn't sound too far from what that game was.

Good. Was a big fan of the old games and was more than a little disappointed in the new direction they went with it on almost every level. Thief deserved way better.

@dan_citi: I agree and based on how well some subpar games were reviewed in the last 6 months I'm not even sure why we pay attention to these things anymore.

An average above 7 means the game is above average. What's the point of a review anyway if people think a 7 is hot garbage?

Most fans of the series felt sour about this game the moment they began revealing more about the world, plot, mechanics and Garrett himself. I mean, the game was designed with an XP system in mind until they talked about it and people went "FUCK OFF", which is when they dropped it.

But yeah, I'm not surprised. I didn't want this to tank or anything, but so far nothing indicates that they treated the original games with as much reverence and care as Human Revolution did with Deus Ex. 7 is a good score, but considering how review scores work, that doesn't mean great things anymore.

Hell, it's probably going to be a fairly enjoyable romp for a stealth game fan, but I'm voting with my wallet and not getting this game. I'll play it, but I'll get it as a gift/in a bundle/whatever. The Dark Mod is the Thief 4 I wanted and if I have to give money to someone, I'd much rather donate to those guys. Or hell, buy another Human Revolution copy (which I did with the Director's Cut).

PS Plus it is, then.

@ghostiet: Wait...so you think Human Revolution is a great game but this sounds bad to you? I felt Human Revolution was less a good game and more a shoddy remake with lazy design at every turn. Hell, it might as well have been a poor remake of the first game considering its the same pacing and much of the same late 90s level design. And don't get me started on the story and the "choose your door" ending.

The world and plot never bothered me; its a direct sequel to the events of Thief 3 and not a remake or a new character. There seems to be as much combat as in the first three games, and yes they did force you into combat at times.

The sad part is that a game like this will never win, even if its good. There are too many people claiming that that it better not suck and the other 1/2 are sitting there hoping it sucks so they can say, "I told you so."

And again, when did a 7/10 mean "this game sucks!"

I've been playing it for like two days now and I've been enjoying it. .....so -shrug-

The story and choose your door ending that a) was present in the original game and b) had to accommodate to the fact that it's a prequel. Hell, it was a prequel specifically because they didn't want to fuck with the original canon and fan's memories. Thief, instead, throws out most of it out the window.

No, it's not. It's a reboot. They've said as much. They are only taking elements from Thief lore, while eliminating a lot of what made the game's world tick, including the Pagan magic and architechture. No, they did not force you into combat. Not once. I've ghosted all three games fairly recently and never was forced to fight or even knock out anyone. Hell, fighting the Wraiths, which seem as your clear cut melee enemies, is actually counter intuitive. You don't know what you're talking about.

@ghostiet: Yes, unless you knew exactly what was coming and was attempting a second + playthrough you were often thrown into combat, especially when the game wanted you to go up against the supernatural enemies...which coincidentally were always the worst parts of those games. You can get away and you can hide, but there are many times in which you are simply put in the path of an enemy be it ambush or otherwise.

Magic and paganism is still around, but like many evolving cultures in fantasy that aspect gets pushed aside because of invention and industry. Fable 3 used this, Shadowrun used this, and even Thief 2 and 3 touched on this. That side of Thief still exists and even one of the trailers showed some of this. Rock, Paper, Shotgun has said it best:

"That’s the most important thing to take away from my meandering screed. For the vast majority of the time, I had so much fun. It didn’t need to match its predecessors to achieve that. I have spent the last three days crouched in shadows, terrified of light, giggling with glee as I evade the gazes of patrolling enemies (some of whom even deliver a proper Thiefy “Doo be doo be doo”!), and stuffing every twinkly candlestick and golden pair of scissors I could find into my trousers.

Some will be furious about one aspect or other, and they will be loud about it on the internet. The context sensitive jump/climb/swoop button is going to be the launch pad that fires a lot of people out of the game in abject fury. But the truth is, I’ve had a fantastic time playing it. For where it falls short, it far more often had me crouched in a shadow, heart racing, waiting for the perfect moment to dart past a guard’s routine. It may be the fourth best Thief game, but it’s a damned fine game in its own rights."

Its a sequel and a direct continuation to the events of Thief 3 which ends in you taking on an apprentice in the same fashion as Garret was taken up in his early life (shown in the first game). Hell, this is even several years after that even as the apprentice is much older and looks to be in her mid to late teens so there has been some time for the city and world to evolve. Thief 3 even showed how much the game's settings evolved from Thief 1's sword and sworcery setting, followed by 2's plot of industry creeping in hard, 3's underground paganism, and now 4's dirty mix of industry and fantasy. If you don't like that a world has actually progressed then I don't know what to say. Tough? Sorry? I've heard far more people say they enjoyed their time with 99% of the game than those who didn't.

I decided to pre-order this last week from the PS store. I am looking forward to it a lot, as I love me some stealth action. Even if it doesn't follow in the series' true footsteps, not that I am super familiar with it anyways.

As expected. These game remakes, and I do think of it as a remake, area getting to be as bad as movie remakes in that it feels as a though the devs don't get what made the original tick. Thief is from a different era and was always a bit of a niche game.

Thifourf, much like Drivthrur.

Oh hey Square Eidos made it, it's probably not too bad. Sounds worthy of my time when it's on PS+ in like 6 months.

This pretty much meets my expectations, inasmuch as I have no idea what I will think of the game personally but I am leaning towards "mild disappointment". Oh well. Got it pre-loaded on steam so I can find out for myself soon enough.

So essentially, opinion is all over the place?

@arbitrarywater: How much of the Heroes V/VI universe factors into Might and Magic X? For some reason I'm invested in all of those extremely stupid stories, Dark Messiah perhaps being the foremost in stupidity and lovability. Has a lot to do with this thread.

I am a bit disappointed in the scores, but I have it pre loaded on steam anyway. I grabbed a cheap key on mmoga.com for like 23 euro, so don't feel bad about paying that at all. Just need to wait until friday for it to unlock, hopefully the guys put a a quicklook soon.

I honestly thought this was going to be a no brainer for a high score across the board. I'm a bit shocked and a little disappointed it didn't review better. I'm still going to play it but I probably won't hang onto it after finishing it.

It references Heroes VI quite a bit (both in story and borrowed art assets), Heroes V and Dark Messiah a bit less so, but if you like a continual, semi-baffling onslaught of very specific callouts to old New World Computing era Might and Magic then M&M X is for you. I'm almost done, so I'll probably have a write-up sometime later this week if you want some more detail.

Also Thief. I liked those old games quite a bit.

Haven't had the time yet to check out the reviews more in-depth, but I had certainly hoped this would turn out better. I like how Garret interacts with the environments. So handsy.

Good thing I decided to allot my time to Risen 2 next. I was a huge Gothic fan back in the day, but for some reason I've not yet picked this one up yet. Yesterday's announcement of Risen 3 prompted me to check on the price of the PC version of Risen 2. The boxed copy is 15$. Low friction enough to check out a game of my former most favorite RPG developer - Piranha Bytes. So yeah, Risen 2 it is.

Guess I'll grab Thief in a future PSN sale for PS4. Not doing full price for an apparently middling singleplayer-only experience.

well.... almost same reaction as deus ex, not the end of the world or franchise. A very expensive B game.

@crithon: Human Revolution was pretty much universally praised. Not really the same reaction at all.

@seppli: I've been playing through Risen 1 again, is it bad to play those games on easy and just hammer the left click until things die? Pretty much all I did In Gothic 3.

As someone who is terrible at stealth games Thief is the one franchise I wish I could get into, it had such a unique and really grim setting. The mixture of spiritualism, gothic and steam punk elements always made it stand out, if the new one can at least keep some of that tone I'll need to at least give it a shot down the line.

@ghostiet: I remember everyone was outraged at Deadly Shadows when the "hmmmpf console kiddies" sentiment was peaking among PC owners. I liked the original Thief games but they were clumsy to play - a product of their times more than anything else. I thought that Deadly Shadows added a lot more nuance and fluidity to the wooden Garret from days past. The story was also really great, interweaving the mysticism of the originals to make for some truly terrifying levels.

So who knows - Deadly Shadows was hailed as a steaming pile of shit by some and I have incredibly find memories of it. This new iteration seems to have more technical issues than questionable gameplay design choices.

It was also recognized to have a lot of technical problems which seems to be a big issue in Thief as well.

Dunno man. Combat has always been wierd in their games. As long as you enjoy it the way you play it, you're doing it right. Gothic 1 had like the wierdest controls ever, but damn if that game wasn't a revelation at that time. I ended up enjoying it despite the controls, maybe even a little bit because of it. It was oddly satisfying mastering those tank-like controls and directional attacks. My memories of Risen 1 are a bit foggy. Can't quite remember how its combat felt. Nothing to write home about I guess.

I had hoped it would myself, but I had to temper my expectations when there were some previews around a few months back that seemed worrisome. Previews are usually almost always positive, so for this to have some questionable previews was a red flag. So disappointing though, as I LOVED Thief 1 and 2. Never played 3. Also I was trying to decided on what game to get for my PS4 to tide me over until Infamous: Second Son. It was really between this and Tomb Raider: DE, now I'm thinking I might go for Tomb Raider.

Since I had absolutely no faith in the game to begin with I can't say I'm upset, I just hope Thief will see the light of day again and not be buried for another decade.

Then again nothing will ever surpass the original two games for me, fans would have to get together to make another fan-expansion with the original Dark Engine for me to be excited.

The reviews are a good indication that it's probably not "art" enough and isn't a franchise reviewers feel obligated to ignore any flaws of.

After gaming journalism completely forgot every criticism of The Walking Dead they had already made and couldn't get simple gameplay mechanics right for Lightning Returns, I have just about no trust whatsoever in gaming journalism reviews.

@lilywhite: I totally agree. After seeing the reviews for GTAV but then hearing those exact same reviewers go on for hours for about the flaws in various podcasts and write ups show people ignore flaws for things they love and want to love opposed to giving everything the same fair shake. I could go on and on. Hell, I love Battlefield 4 and have over 140 hours into the multiplayer but how that game reviewed on day 1 would means it should have been a 6 or 7, right? Look at, again, GTAV or others over the past 3-4 years. This is why I don't take credence is game/movie reviews. I don't see the point in the format for anyone but a mainstream or casual audience, aka: my dad. I'll judge Thief when I'm done with it opposed to before.

These are about the reviews I was expecting and I'm real good with it.

Wow, Totalbiscuit was totally selling me on the game, it's interesting to see opinions being all over the place. I was pretty close to buying it on steam before I decided to see what other reviews were saying, and I'm glad I did. I still want to play it, but now I'll definitely wait on a sale so I won't be disappointed if it's worse than I'm expecting.

Eh it still looks cool. I'll go buy it.

Though hearing people praise DX:HR and then shit on Thief in the same place makes me wonder if its just THAT bad, or if these people have wildly different taste than me.

Totalbiscuit tends to focus on how gorgeous, or not, a game is. He'll gush on and on if he likes how something looks and if the options menu allows you to crank the video up to 11. It takes 10 minutes to even get into game play. As long as there's no screen tearing or slide shows, who gives a flying f* if something runs at 120fps? If the player has time to sniff the gorgeous butt of a guard then there's little to no gameplay present. All I'm hearing from multiple other sources is how lackluster the plot is and how short it is even for completionists.

@bigd145: None of the Thief game's have had amazing plots.

All this is making me want to do is find my copy of Doom 3 and reinstall the Dark Mod. Or buy Deadly Shadows, haven't decided yet.

I'm eager to see a Quick Look and hear why this game sucks.

Right.

Even the negative ones praise what they are trying to do with the world. Sounds like poor environment and mission design is the issue. I found this to be how I felt about Human Revolution so no surprise to me.

This dichotomy of opinions is always fascinating. Just earlier today I was talking with a person on these very forums that hated everything about Dishonored that I found enjoyable. You seem to dislike parts of Human Revolution that I had no real issues with and as a whole really enjoyed the entire game. It makes me wonder how useful single person reviews really are. I don't remember which magazine used to do it - but back in print there was a gaming mag that had a "Second Opinion" side column where a different editor would weigh in on the same review. Sometimes they would agree but there would be times when the main reviewer rated the game a 6/10 while the Second Opinion editor sang praises about it with a 9/10, offering his contrasting points of view. Obviously Giant Bomb doesn't have the staff or scheduling capabilities to do this sort of thing, but on other major sites it seems like a cool idea to look into.

It's surprising how often I'll read a review for a game I've already finished only to find it completely bewildering in how much it contrasts with my own experiences for said title. While this is merely interesting when contrasting opinions on games I've already finished, it's worrisome to think I'd read a highly negative piece for a game I haven't played yet and be driven away, only to later realize I did not agree with the review at all once I've actually experienced the game.

I suppose I'll go back and play Dishonored once more, while waiting for this to go on sale.

@humanity: and that was me.

It happens all the time if I listened to the reviews I would have never played Alpha protocol. Alpha Protocol is one of my favorite games ever, I've beaten it like 8 times. You gotta know what YOU like. Once you know that reviews are totally meaningless. It's like if you don't like first person shooters and a FPS game got 10/10s from everywhere and game of the year everywhere. That does not mean you should get it, because you don't like FPS games. If a JRPG gets terrible scores everywhere, but you really like JRPGs. You most likely will still enjoy that game.

I guess I won't feel so bad about not getting this right away. I'll pick it up on the cheap eventually but it's not something I need to play right away. Too bad it didn't turn out as great as Human Revolution.

@humanity: I suppose I would agree with your sentiment as I see Deus Ex HR praised for how close it is to the original and all when I think the level design compared to the original is absolutely terrible (and that was the key to exploiting all the freedom and RPG elements of the game). So cramped and so little freedom.

The point of my post is just I've seen that criticism here on this game and think the studio has a history of doing that, even if reviews didn't call it out last time around how I thought they should have. I feel the same way about Thief as a series as Deus Ex, that the level design is the key.

Hey maybe I try it and love it down the road. Reviews certainly were way off base, to me, about HR in the positive direction. From the gameplay I've seen though, the environments look small and predictable how HR's were.

Anyways, for me, I do take reviews as a collective, between critics and fans and across the board. I love Jeff for example but when he says Red Dead is terrible I know we are never going to see eye to eye on it all.

@artisanbreads: I was speaking more generally. Having played the original Deus Ex I understand your complaints about level design in HR perfectly although we probably layer a different level of emphasis on it. Deadly Shadows was downplayed for it's smaller levels but in all honesty some of those Thief and especially Thief 2 areas were way too big for their own good in my opinion. I don't know what to think of the new Thief game. Previews had me excited, the reviews have me doubting myself. As I've mentioned in other threads, I went through something similar with Hitman Absolution where all the videos made me think the game looked great and I simply couldn't understand the negative reviews until I played the game myself and understood the issues which maybe weren't as easy to communicate as they were to experience.

I simply was entertaining this idea of multiple editors tackling the same review at any given outlet to create a broader spectrum of opinions. This way we would avoid the Red Dead situation you mention where a single person becomes the voice for the entire site. I likewise see eye-to-eye with Jeff more often than not but some of his opinions on games are just baffling to me.

@JZ - for some reason your name is unlinkable when I type it out - I totally agree that you need to know what you like, as you've mentioned no manner of persuasion from Brad will get me to play StarCraft or DOTA because I simply don't like RTS games and I've never been any good at them. I'm just curious if there is some way reviews could be morphed to be more useful as we discussed here, they more often than not serve the author more than the audience these days.

TB's video of Thief was rather positive, strange to see the rest not liking it as much.