A bunch of new Thief previews are out (
RPS,
IGN,
Eurogamer) and there is a lot of disappointing shit in it.
RPS said:
Garrett spends more time climbing than he has previously, which leads to the already-maligned third-person viewpoint when he attaches to a wall. It was rarely used in the demonstration and explained away with a slightly apologetic shrug, ‘in first-person, you’d only be able to see the wall right in front of you’.
Or, I dunno, maybe Garrett can look
UP or
DOWN, depending on where he's going. And this way maybe you can stop mid-way and look for any guards that might spot you climbing a wall. But no, we spent millions of dollars on that fancy new gothy-looking character model, we have to go into third-person at some point and show you how cool-looking it is.
IGN said:
Creeping overhead you listen in on conversations – “I can’t wear my wedding ring while doing this”, “Can’t one of the other girls f**k him for once?” – emphasising the voyeuristic aspect of Garrett’s profession.
*sigh* The original Thief games had no swearing in them except for their use of their fictional swear word 'taffer'.
This is as foul-mouthed (and hilarious) as any of the previous Thief games ever got. But yeah, you know, it's an M-rated title because of the subject matter so we might as well use as much swearing as we can get away with. We'll seem more 'edgy' and 'realistic' that way.
And then there's Focus mode. *sigh*
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Seriously. Does every game nowadays have to have a Detective Mode so that babies can play it? I'm sick of this shit. The original Thief games had object highlight. That should be enough for people. But no, we're gonna let you push a button (that in all fairness does have a limited resource) that will let you see all the interactable objects in the room. It will also make using the bow-and-arrow easier:
IGN said:
In Focus mode, time slows down, allowing you to target your opponent’s weak spots. At the minute, this seems to be done by dragging a moving cursor over key areas and a matching button press. It makes combat more of a quick-time event sort of experience, but with ‘Focus’ disabled combat is a more traditional affair. This optional mode takes its inspiration from Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes film, in which Sherlock Holmes uses his immense intellect to rapidly evaluate an opponent’s physical frailties – “So alright, because you have this brandy nose, you probably drink a lot, so I’m going to target your liver and it’s going to be very painful. That’s the philosophy behind it,” reveals Roy. The escape itself recalls that frantic Mirror’s Edge-style section, in which you get a sense of Garrett’s agility and speed.
Luckily, as they say, Focus is optional. In fact, according to
this interview with Adam Sessler, the lead level designer says that Focus mode is disabled by default in what they are currently calling "Old School Mode". Hopefully there's an achievement/trophy for completing the game in this mode so that people will want to play it the way the game should probably be played in the first place, even if it's just for a trophy.
So, while I'm disappointed in the obvious "making the game for babies" direction they seem to be heading, I'll still be picking it up as it still seems, at the very least, stealth-focused. Of course, it's Square-Enix and they're gonna want to charge $60 for the PC version, so obviously I'll be waiting on a Steam sale. $40 or less probably.
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