Developed By: Looking Glass
Published By: Eidos
- The reliance on stealth is a welcome addition to the FPS genre
- With the need to remain undetected, Thief forces players to interact with their surroundings in ways never before explored by other games
- Thief begins to fall apart after the first level, as players will need to rely more on brute force than stealth
- Because of its inherent characteristics, Thief moves at a snail's pace
- The Dark Engine's low polygon count is nothing to write home about
- No multiplayer capabilities
At first sight, Looking Glass' Thief: The Dark Project is a low-tech entry into a highly competitive arena. After all, Thief's Dark Engine has no multiplayer capabilities, an almost unforgivably low polygon count and washed, dull textures. How can it compete?
Through clever AI and a level of environment interaction never before seen in any game of its kind, that's how.
Thief forces players to rely on stealth, to walk the shadows and tiptoe around guarded areas instead of utilizing frontal attacks. In fact, Thief is one of the only games that puts the players at a disadvantage for attacking an enemy, even when the element of surprise is intact.
The inherent limitations of the Dark Engine aside, our only gripe with Thief is that deviates from the formula it creates. Almost immediately in the game, after the second level, players are no longer creeping around sleeping guards but instead fighting undead skeletons and weird apparitions head on. We wonder why the developers chose to go off on this tangent. Regardless, what stealth techniques Thief does utilize, we love to death, and applaud the game accordingly.
Be sure to check out our review of Thief.
