People should read the reviews, the positive and negatives, instead of just basing it off an overall score, thats the main problem with reviews these days, nobody READS them.

Huh, I wouldn't have expected John Walker to be someone who liked it quite a bit. I figured for sure that Rock Paper Shotgun was going to have a deeply negative review. This actually makes me more optimistic, weirdly enough.

Uhhh care to summarize with a score?

7/10

@humanity: quicklooks are the evolution of the review. Here is a guy playing the game for like an hour. Did that hour interest you? Does this look like something you'd like? A review is telling people what to think. a quicklook lets people think for themself.

Very interested to play this game. Feel it's development history must cloud some, thought maybe not all reviews.

In a bizarre twist of events, that review made me really pessimistic. In fact, that review was one of the two I read and decided "naaaaaaaah."

Good to see it getting mostly positive scores aside from Kotaku. Might have to give it a go.

Then it's probably bullshit.

Giant Bomb's own Alex - 2/5

TB and Rock Paper Shotgun liked it. Not much else...

What qualifies as liking it?

@humanity: I see where you're coming from on Thief 1 and 2. A lot of games from the era don't quite hold up that way (the levels feel big and directionless). I find Deus Ex holds up remarkably well though in that regard to this day.

And I agree on Hitman. Defended it up until it came out (took them at their word you could make the game harder) and I was right in a way but it was this super linear cover based stealth game, so I was let down like you probably were.

The multiple review idea is great to me but at the same time, this site is moving away from reviews over time it seems (besides Alex). Seems like we'll just have to make due with the podcast impressions and that kind of thing to get a few different views.

Anyone playing it that liked Dishonored? Bad reviews have put me off but watching a Let's Play it looks so very much like Dishonored that it makes me want to buy it. The "swoop" mechanic basically looks identical to Dishonored's "blink" mechanic. The stealth and abilities also look fun. If it is fun to play perhaps I can overlook a bad story but hearing the world is uninteresting is also off-putting since I loved Dishonored's setting.

Glad that I don't give a shit about game reviews. I am a couple hours into the game and I am really liking it. There's also a trophy for not knocking anyone out or setting off alarms, so...yeah, no forced fighting. Guess people who don't like Thief games are given the review for a Thief game. "Awesome". Anyway, if you like Thief don't pay attention to the reviews.

The thieving part looked clever, appealing, and most of all new, and the city where all that thievery takes place looked efficiently materialised in its engulfing 18th century streets-of-London gloom... but the majority of development energy seems invested into a mediocre storyline which isn't appealing at all, and even the good part of the game is bogged down by technical problems.

It's not even just frame-rate issues: like, it's really cool that you can go into so many houses and rob shit, but requiring a QTE which you can't quit out of every time you do enter or leave a house, so that the game has time to load a new environment, really bogs down that otherwise inviting experience.

And essentially, because the game is so invested in its lame plot (which is apparently pretty bereft of thievery), the parts where you're actually a burglar in an immersive open-world are underdeveloped and overall sidelined for a much less interesting game of narrower paths and crippled level design. Which is a shame.

I really hope they develop a sequel and "get it right" by making the game first-and-foremost about thievery, crafting a storyline that's not shit, and shipping with an acceptable amount of technical issues.

I really wish it was easier to like. They've got some neat ideas in there that really captivated me.

Bought on PS4. Played it for 30 minutes, turned it off and it goes back to the store for credit next week. It can't even hold a steady 30 FPS, it's always around 15-25. I can't bear to play a game like this, especially on a next-gen console. For me, it is completely unplayable. I just don't get why most critics never - ever - mention horrible framerate.

I'm not very far into the game, but I'm enjoying it. Haven't noticed any significant frame dropping outside the cutscenes, which drop pretty bad. There are also a lot of bugs and audio glitches, but I haven't had it impede gameplay. I'm enjoying the thieving mechanics and I think the first person Assassin's Creed style free running is pretty neat. Overall, I think it's a serviceable stealth game. Nothing real great, but certainly enjoyable.

Funny thing is: it's possible that some of these negative reviews come directly from Thief fans anyway. Which means Thief fans have a right to listen to those reviews to see if their concerns are valid.

Hitman...now Thief....Is there any other franchises I enjoyed they plan on fucking up?

Have you seen what they're doing to Legacy of Kain?

@nettacki: I never said I don't listen to them, I just don't pay credence to them. You can tell by what people complain about and say if they are Thief fans or not. Hearing everyone on the Bombcast this week stumble through even talking about the basics of past Thief games showed they've never put any real time into any of them. Having been a fan of all three Thief games and playing this new one I will say it is very much a Thief game. The game is as polished as it could be, but I'm loving the hell out of it. This is definitely not a 2/5 game by any stretch of the imagination.

@sammo21: I know what you mean, to an extent. 2/5 is perhaps a bit low for this game, but depending on how much the flaws mentioned in that review and other reviews bother others, a better score could be anywhere between a 3 and a 4/5.

I've played the first hour or so. I did the tutorial and the first chapter, and I have been enjoying it. It's a little rough, and the framerate in the cutscenes can be pretty dicey, but I've been having a good time.

When I went to pick it up this morning the dude at the video game store said (after I had paid for it) "You have read the reviews for this, right?"

I've done the first couple of chapters, I'm enjoying it so far. :|

@arbitrarywater said:

Yeah, that review threw me for a loop, because RPS seems to almost have an editorial mandate to hate any recent reimagining/sequel to a classic PC game, unless that game is slavishly recreating all the foibles of 80s/90s game design (Xenonauts, etc.) or makes some changes towards modernity but is still obtuse as fuck (Legend of Grimrock, etc.). I was flabbergasted to read that Walker was on board with Thief.

Garbage. Pure garbage. Do yourself a favor and go download some Thief 2 fan missions or The Dark Mod, then buy a bag of cheeseburgers with the money you would have spent on this abominable poop.

I'm enjoying the game so far. The hate for the game seems really weird and pretentious for the most part to me.

Personally I like the game better than Dishonered so far. I prefer the gritty, dark atmosphere/humour and the sense of loneliness.

Had some annoying bugs and I'm not really that into the story. But the game runs fine, no crashes or anything. I'll probably check out the other Thief games because of this game.

One good thing about this generation of consoles is the live streaming. I've been watching a guy streaming on Twitch and it's renewed my interest in the game a bit... might still pick it up. Nice to watch a good quality stream on the TV I'll actually play it on and see a good chunk of how the game plays. Especially for games like this were you might want to play it, but then the reviews dissuade you.

I've been really enjoying spending time rolling around the city hub area and doing odd jobs for Basso. I'm quite pleased with the game so far (mind you, I haven't advanced very far in the main story, so there's still plenty of time for things to go south). My biggest issues with it are the unfortunate loading screens between areas in the city (I wouldn't mind so much if they were purely for level areas) and technical issues like the weird sound bugs, poor audio mix and UE3 texture pop-in. The writing is also, indeed, not very good.

Seems like one of those games where there are enough positives that if you're interested you might just wind up enjoying the game in spite of the poor reviews. Kind of reminds me of when Alice Madness Returns got panned and wound up finding a sizeable chunk of people who actually enjoyed it in spite of its shortcomings.

I've played the game for abit, I'm enjoying it so far.

I ended up picking it up and am enjoying it by playing it how I play all games with any stealth... don't be seen and don't kill anyone.

The game has some hooorrible audio issues though. Like sometimes music plays over dialogue in cutscenes and you can't hear what the main characters are saying. Even more frequently NPC dialogue will do the same thing. I'll be hearing some random conversation instead of the dialogue I want to hear. One time two NPCs started spouting out the same dialogue (one second behind the other) which was pretty trippy.

My favorite part was during a serious cutscene where my character is listening in on the main baddie (the Baron?) and two NPCs are talking about dead guys having cock rings. Yep... so that's all I could hear because its like blaring over the cutscene dialogue.