The first time I played this game was back in 1998 when I had a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Pentium III with an 8MB graphics accelerator S3 Trio, which was completely incapable of running the game in its glory. Had to play it in software rendering to play it. Even with that compromise in quality, the game offered absolutely amazing immersion factor and gameplay mechanics, meaning no two game modes can be the same. Especially at Expert difficulty, when you're forbidden to kill anyone and are required to accomplish additional objectives, this is where the lore of the game truly shines.

Fast forward 15 years, and I'm amazed at the level of support this game has garnered from its fans. There was a patch recently released by the loyal fan community, which pretty much fixed the game and made it compatible with modern hardware. Running windows 7 with quad core processors, latest GPU technologies & gobbles of RAM, alongwith a 1080p widescreen monitor, no problem. The patch fixes them all. There's even support of OpenAL for Creative's old Audigy 2 ZS cards which makes full use of EAX sound effects which we haven't heard of since XP days. It so good to finally play and listen to the game the way it should be after so many years.

If you're a fan of first person sneakers, and haven't yet played this game. Do yourself a favor and buy it. Games like these only come out in decades, as the sad demise of its deveoper studio meant nobody took the reins and pushed the franchise forward until now. Hopefully, the new development team can do full justice to the game franchise, though the absence of Stephen Russell is extremely unnerving. He was and always will be the voice of Garrett.


Highly recommended.

P.S: In order to help out the community make this game run perfectly on modern hardware. Please follow instructions carefully to the letter as detailed in this thread:

TFIX (The installer for installing the latest dark engine updated binaries which enable modern hardware support)

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134733

Sound Effects Enhancement Pack (Transforms sounds from 22Khz to 44.1Khz)

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119405

Thief Gold HD Texture Mod:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/thief-gold-hd-texture-mod/

Thief Enhancement Pack 2.0 Alpha:

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=141621

That's pretty much it.

First, I must assure you that this review is free of nostalgia. I never played Thief: Gold (or Thief 2, for that matter) before 2014, and was far too young to play and understand video games when The Dark Project was released. I must also note that I patched the game with TFix, as without it I would be playing a 640x480 600% speed mess designed for a computer from the late 90s. I also installed a texture/lighting mod called HDmod, which was not neccessary but did vastly improve the graphics from their dated, fugly appearance.

With that out of the way, I have been wholly impressed with my first few hours of play. The movement feels surprisingly good (after assigning WASD controls, of course), and the bow and arrow feels realistic (though the arrow flies slowly). The melee weapons aren't perfect, but fit their roles nicley. The sword combat is deep but slow (fine, since combat is discouraged) and the blackjack has a limited range and requires you to stand up. It's slightly awkward to use, but it's satisfying to knock out an unaware guard. The level design so far (on level 2 currently) is perfectly balanced in terms of being difficult to navigate but not so much that you get stumped for hours on end. I like how it presents you with stealth situations that have no apparent solution, challenging you to think of your own clever work-around. The animated cutscenes look surprisingly good, and the story has me curious, especially about the Keepers.

I definitely reccomend it so far. I will update this review as I progress through the game.

EDIT (3/30/2014, 14 hours in): Level design is a bit inconsistent. The "Assassins" mission was an absolute joy to play through, giving you a surprisingly large chunk of the city to sneak through in addition to Ramirez's well-designed mansion. I am unfortunately hitting a bit of a rough patch in the "Guild" mission, which started off great but quickly degraded into possibly the most convoluted labyrinth I've ever seen in a video game. Perhaps the new missions introduced with the Gold edtion should have been optional, or just side missions. The story feels both vague and simplistic, with a little bit of backstory on the Hammerites and Keepers between chronicles of Garret's unrelated (as of now) thieving exploits. I sense it's going to pick up soon, though. Still loving the gameplay, of course. Can't wait to finish Guild and (hopefully) get something a bit easier to navigate!

EDIT (4/11/2015, 30 hours): It should be said that this game has a ridiculous amount of content.There is a good amount of variety as well. Levels with human guards showcase the superb stealth gameplay. Levels with monsters/undead focus are weird, but encourage the player to take an action-stealth approach that is very satisfying. Story has picked up nicely, some very interesting characters have showed up and each mission has a purpose and cool backstory. Despite my 30 hours of game time, I am only a bit more than halfway through the game. Even if I never finish, It's been a fun ride and I'm glad this game hooked me into the phenomenal Thief series.

Old but gold, if you don't like the old graphics be sure to download the graphics mod from this link:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/thief-gold-hd-texture-mod

and be sure to download the unofficial patch from this link:

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134733

Thief is the best “Dirk can't read maps” simulator.

Set in a fictional location known as 'The City'. You play as Garrett, a man who's really good at stealing stuff, then got trained by a secret order, and now is even better at stealing stuff. The game starts out with Garrett simply trying to get some cash, but slowly starts to unravel into a plot that may or may not involve SATAN.

Much like my daily life, Thief is based around sneaking into places and stealing everything not nailed to the ground. Each mission has an objective that ends the mission abruptly once its completed, but there are also opportunities to make extra money by nabbing anything that looks remotely valuable.
Like golden cups or a sealed box of Earthbound.

The game takes place entirely in first person, meaning you can only see around objects by leaning around corners or standing up from behind objects. You would think this would be awful but it actually works astoundingly well. In fact its probably one of the best stealth games I've played.

You have a meter at the bottom of the screen that tells you if you're visible or not, staying in the shadows is obviously preferable but it isn't always viable. Fortunately you're capable of eliminating light sources, giving you more shadows to skulk around and not be disturbed while you do important things like check your items or color.

Because everything is in first person, Thief actually has a really remarkable sound system. Guards will constantly be making noises just so you know how close they are without actually having to see them. Clearing their throats, whistling, coughing, talking to themselves, it all isn't just for atmosphere but is almost necessary just by how the game plays.
Its actually really amazing just how well everything works. Once you understand all the systems, you can basically slink in and out with little problems. Though I would suggest saving often.

How enveloped in darkness you are, how much noise you're making, what kind of surface you're stepping on. Then you can mix all of this together with neat items and weapons.
A blackjack for knocking out fools, a sword for awkwardly swinging about and then dying, different kinds of arrows for different things.
A water arrow for taking out torches, a rope arrow for climbing to higher places, noise arrows to annoy everyone, moss arrows to make the ground softer to step on. A clearance sale on arrows.

Missions can be immense in size, with some places being so labyrinthine that I, painful to admit, had to look up a walk through once or twice just see where I was going. The map system works by telling you what area you're in, but not really exactly where you are on the map, so you have to rely on landmarks and other things to figure out where you're standing.
Its a good system, and makes you rely more on your own judgment. But I spent almost an hour trying to figure out where the damn vase was in one quest, only to figure out I need to find the key on the other side of the map, only to come back and have to figure out, on my own, that the vase is actually behind a tabard I didn't know you could even cut down.

That's basically my only complaint with the game. Other than sometimes its feels like the guards know exactly where you are in the darkness and just kind of beeline it towards you. But Thief is a pretty great game, especially if you like stealth games.

There's a fan patch for the game called Tfix which helps with things like wide screen support and graphics. It doesn't change the game outright, it just makes everything less blurry and nicer to look at. I also ended up changing the controls to something a little more modern, since my monkey brain didn't allow me to get use to the default controls.

Thief is all around pretty great. I haven't played it since around 2003 so it was pretty neat to be able to play it now. I'm getting to the weird point where older games feel new and refreshing and new games just don't hold my interest all that much.

I hear Thief II is better, so I'm probably going to look into that one in the future as well. But Thief: The Dark Project: Gold: The Reckoning is worth a play.

Thief gets 9 Dirks stealing your nintendo games out of 10.

Combos in Street Fighter 2 happened because of a glitch.

Join the curator if you want a 2% chance of gaining laser vision.

Still the gold standard of stealth games. No other game comes close. If you are a fan of stealth and immersive sims, you simply HAVE to play this game.

However...

The Steam version is not great right out of the box. It has had no support for modern systems. You need to do a little work to get this game up to snuff. First, download the TFix mod. This mod is essential. It removes persistent bugs, adds a little polish, but most importantly, allows the game to run at modern resolutions. This is really the only mod you need, but if you want to give it a little more of a graphical overhaul, there are two mods worth mentioning. NecroAge mod is a graphical overhaul which makes the world feel darker and grittier, including sharper textures, without changing too much of the original game. It looks great and is the one I use. The other is Bentraxx's HD Mod which is the best way to play if you want the game to look as good as possible. It redoes all the textures, adds moving vegetation, new effects, etc. I've played it before but prefer NecroAge as HD Mod takes too much out of the original.

So buy it, play it, then dream about it.

There's some things you have to know going in:

1. Get TFix. It'll make the game run smoothly. I had fewer issues getting this 21 year old game to run than I have any game that came out even 5 - 10 years later.

2. You'll need to rebind your keys.

3. The pace of this game is very, very slow. Take your time. No need to rush.

4. You absolutely need to use your ears. A large portion of this game is predicated on listening for and identifying sounds for patrolling enemies.

5. It's okay to make use of all your saves, but don't forget to learn from your failures. It's definitely more enjoyable to play when you don't feel like you need to save every two minutes.

6. Guards have different alert statuses. This was easily the most frustrating part of the game until I understood what was happening. You'll carefully sneak up behind a patrolling guard and then WAP! he'll whip around and smack you with his sword like he knew you were there all along. If this is happening, the guard is on high alert (even if he appears to have returned to his normal patrol route), so just wait in the shadows for a couple of minutes and he'll return to a blackjackable state.

7. If your light meter is showing you're in the darkness, enemies can't see you unless they literally bump into you or they're VERY close AND on high alert. There are lots of little invisibility corners you can tuck yourself into to watch.

8. You can move absolutely silent by holding your slow walk key and stutter stepping forward. If you don't hear your footsteps, you aren't making noise.

9. Water arrows OP.

This is a very atmospheric game. Relax- don't rush it- and just enjoy it. I almost quit a few hours in because I was playing too aggressive and didn't understand a lot of the (poorly explained) mechanical necessities. But once I did, the game became way more enjoyable. While clearly dated, the ambiance and stealth gameplay still provide a unique experience. And the story is definitely interesting, with a charming and well-voice-acted main character.

All I could think about while playing this was, "I sure do love saving so much money from not buying modern video games and having fun with things like this instead." And man if that ain't the mantra for these times, huh?

First of all: I do not have any nostalgia for any Thief game, in fact, this is the first Thief game I have ever played
Also important to mention: you need to mod this game with a really short and easy mod to allow customized controls and also widescreen support.
The Guide can be found here: Modding Guide for Thief:Gold

Alright, lets tackle this Beast.

Yes, I do know, that I have about 3 Hours so far and have yet to complete it. But I just have to tell you, that this game is amazing. It is not an easy game, in fact, im such a scrub im totally overwhelmed by the normal difficulty. But thats OK, im getting better and I am learning the game.


What type of Person should AVOID this game?

1. Anyone who wants an easy and fast paced game
   
2. Anyone who wants to fight everything anytime
   
3. Anyone who expects the main character to be a real hero and swordmaster (because you are not)
   
4. Anyone who hates Zombies with a passion (I dont know how much more of them will come, but the two levels I did with them in it, were .. well mostly running like a maniac)
   
5. Anyone who just CAN'T play without a minimap

What type of Person should GIVE IT A SHOT

1. Anyone who wants a well made stealth game
   
2. Anyone who thinks that other games take away the control and are too context sensitive
   
3. Anyone who wants to play with a constant sense of danger because you are not a swordsmaster, you are a sneaky thief. In a fight, you are the underdog
   
4. Anyone who wants to have a risk and reward type of game
   
5. Anyone who is interested in it

I hope this was informative to you and you'll make a wise and well informed purchase decision

Have a good one
Aurelizian

EDIT 1:

Well, like I originally thought, there are more zombie/spider/poison spitting dog levels. Im currently in the mage tower and thank god there arent any zombies there. I feel like im almost through the game and im a bit sad. So sad in fact i bought every other thief game to complete. lets see if the newest is really worse than the older ones, but only after I played them first.

Game still playes well. One of my favorite games ever.

Make sure to install TFix and HDMod for comunity patches. Just Follow the Guides in the Steam community page.
This will enable widescreen monitors and HD textures.

Literally the most atmospheric game I've ever played, and I've play the Silent Hill games.
On top of that it is MILES ahead of even modern stealth games.

This is gonna sound cliche, this makes you feel like a THIEF.
Make sure you get the community made patch Tfix though,
unless you like playing in super small resolution with no cutscenes in between levels.