Thief

This is a game I really wanted to enjoy but found myself struggling to the whole way through the game. I am a new thief player and have always enjoyed stealth games and was looking forward to see this reboot of the franchise that started it all. And all this game had me saying was I should really be playing dishonored instead. It felt almost exactly the same in every aspect. This would be fine by me if it they had been released close to each other but dishonored came out over 2 years prior which is a standard development cycle.

The main story can get schizophrenic at times and several times I was lost having to look at recaps online of what was actually going on. The game liked to switch between 3 main storylines and not really explain when or why they were doing this. I think this was to make the game seem more mysterious and edgy, which I just found to be irritating. It seemed like the story was mashed together when square needed to stretch out this 7 hour main story.

Now there are some points that I fail to grasp between game play mechanics and the story. The main one being that there is a huge point in this game to say that he doesn't kill people, only the ones who need it. This is brought up at least 4 times in the first 5 minutes of gameplay. Even saying that it was wrong of Erin to kill a guard Yet one of the first things you get is broadhead arrows allowing you to just headshot your way through the game if you wanted. It even gives you slow-motion kill cams, Garrett you hate killing as much as I hate Lord Gaben. I assume this was implemented to help out newer players but it just kind of makes his moral high ground that is referred to countless times fall flat.

This games stealth feels fantastic 95% of the time. Getting to hide in the shadows and climb your way across the rooftops and hiding in the alleys to make it through complex puzzles of guards. In almost ever encounter in this game I found a way to get through it without having to knockout or kill guards.

Another thing that I really enjoyed were the weapon upgrades and trinkets. It seemed like a fair amount of thought went into creating the names for them and what they do each of them made sense and were well thought out that level of immersion added a nice touch when upgrading my health of focus.

I would say that my main gripes from this game didn't come from anything related to the game play but rather that the story was cliche and bland. I feel like if that I had put more time creating a fleshed out story that didn't quite feel so linear and run of the mill I would have enjoyed this game much more. But with nice stealth mechanics and thought put into gameplay I have to say this game works for someone who wants to take their time and not marathon through it and for someone playing on a console.