THIEF 4. Great fun...but that ending...( and frankly the story..)

[Fortysixter_UK]

Possible SPOILERS ahead, please do not read if you have not completed the game yet.

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It is a very good game, certainly worth a solid 8/10 for me. To hell with the professional review sites giving it 6/10 etc etc. THEY ARE WRONG. This is THIEF as you know it from the old series with a few new bells and whistles added. If you liked any of them, you'll like this.
Unless you like to winge and pick fault for the hell of it. ( See comments about review scores above !)

BUT...the story is all over the place. The cut scenes appear to have been made for the game when it had a different story and have been hastily cut & dubbed to match the new story. It didn't work too well. The video quality of the cut scenes frankly look like they came from very old footage. ( original Xbox/PS2 era ) NOT GREAT.

The voice acting is passable, but appears to have been recorded either too quietly a lot of the time, or cued incorrectly ( important things being said when NPCS are shouting in the background etc ).

The more "spacey" or "trippy" elements of the story were not needed nor appreciated. They added nothing to the story and seemed to elevate the trainee thief "Erin" to a level of god like supernatural power at the end. If she was powerful enough at the end of the game to simply wipe out her captors, why not do it a year earlier ?

Oh yes...the "year". Garret gets involved in an accident early on...and loses a year of his life.
And that's about the only mention it gets, he doesn't even ask why he was unconcious for a year !

HOWEVER...all of that criticism is aimed at the story.

The gameplay itself is brilliant and really draws you into the game. Thief 3 had a seriously scary level in an old asylum. This Thief has an asylum level too...and it is the scariest thing I have played since Dead Space 1. Brilliant atmosphere, brilliant level. In fact, apart from the appalling map and the difficulty you have finding where to go, and the duff story, this game is excellent.

Seriously...the ending of THIEF 4 made the Mass Effect 3 ending look sensible. It's utter *******S**H**I**T**E****** !

SO minus 2 points for poor mapping and story, leaving 8 points for fantastic gameplay and level design. Oh, and my save game was just over 22 hours long !

[Meesterjojo]

You did understand that the events in this game mirror the events of the previous games, all condensed into a single narrative? Right? Even Erin's character and what she is. You do understand that, yes?

[Old Skool Raver]

Originally posted by Fortysixter_UK:

Possible SPOILERS ahead, please do not read if you have not completed the game yet.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS


SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

It is a very good game, certainly worth a solid 8/10 for me. To hell with the professional review sites giving it 6/10 etc etc. THEY ARE WRONG. This is THIEF as you know it from the old series with a few new bells and whistles added. If you liked any of them, you'll like this.
Unless you like to winge and pick fault for the hell of it. ( See comments about review scores above !)

Agreed

Originally posted by Fortysixter_UK:

BUT...the story is all over the place. The cut scenes appear to have been made for the game when it had a different story and have been hastily cut & dubbed to match the new story. It didn't work too well. The video quality of the cut scenes frankly look like they came from very old footage. ( original Xbox/PS2 era ) NOT GREAT.

Video quality was certainly an issue.

Originally posted by Fortysixter_UK:

The voice acting is passable, but appears to have been recorded either too quietly a lot of the time, or cued incorrectly ( important things being said when NPCS are shouting in the background etc ).

Bad dubbing and unsynced lips is actually a bug in the game which i never saw, for me the lip sync was perfect.

Originally posted by Fortysixter_UK:

The more "spacey" or "trippy" elements of the story were not needed nor appreciated. They added nothing to the story and seemed to elevate the trainee thief "Erin" to a level of god like supernatural power at the end. If she was powerful enough at the end of the game to simply wipe out her captors, why not do it a year earlier ?

The old thief games also had the sci fi element to them. Erin was not trainee thief but Garrets Sister and she did go on rampages earlier, what do you thing all the trippy stages actually where? Some were her in your head but others were her actually turning real people in those creatures. I do agree though, nothing really changed at the end for her to become all powerful and kill her capturer. Plus the end was really silly, spend ages running around collecting the crystal pieces with her one shotting you everytime she feels like it but then as soon as you get the pieces she gives up?

Originally posted by Fortysixter_UK:

Oh yes...the "year". Garret gets involved in an accident early on...and loses a year of his life.
And that's about the only mention it gets, he doesn't even ask why he was unconcious for a year !

Sure he does, he asks Basso what happened to him and the Baron tells him he was taken to the asylum for the year.

Originally posted by Fortysixter_UK:

HOWEVER...all of that criticism is aimed at the story.

The gameplay itself is brilliant and really draws you into the game. Thief 3 had a seriously scary level in an old asylum. This Thief has an asylum level too...and it is the scariest thing I have played since Dead Space 1. Brilliant atmosphere, brilliant level. In fact, apart from the appalling map and the difficulty you have finding where to go, and the duff story, this game is excellent.

OK so you didn't like the map design and the story but still say its a great game?

Originally posted by Fortysixter_UK:

Seriously...the ending of THIEF 4 made the Mass Effect 3 ending look sensible. It's utter *******S**H**I**T**E****** !

Agreed, i didn't actually get what happened after i saved?/killed? erin with the crystal.

Originally posted by Fortysixter_UK:

SO minus 2 points for poor mapping and story, leaving 8 points for fantastic gameplay and level design. Oh, and my save game was just over 22 hours long !

You criticised the level design earlier?

[Moon Punisher]

uhhh , that is how we are rolling here? Ok then.

This game is a 7/10 , those other reviews and opinions that give it another score ARE WRONG.

So much fun when we do it like this , right?

[mamochcisekanou]

Story was awful, ending was the same... thief-taker battle was pain in the a.s... The only good thing about this game was graphics. Thank god ive got this game via Nvidia coupon included in VGA card. Cant believe the same studio which made Tomb Raider, did game like this -.- ( finished TR 3times :D )

[Barry White]

I didnt like the story and some of the odd out of place elements. I get the supernatural thing and i could appreciate it, in fact at first i thought it was great - the asylum level was probably one of the scariest things ive ever played (though when the crazies came out it was less so).

Yet the boss fight with the thiefcatcher i felt was not welcome, they should just have you pick his pocket - its far more humiliating and comedic. Still it was not as bad as the erin boss fight, i just gave up on no damage eventually because i couldnt be bothered with her silly explosions and petulant nature.

But, by far, my biggest problem with the game had to be the town. It just became a chore to go from one end to the other. The roofs are apparently the "thieves' highway" and yet you can never actually go on them outside of the tiny bungalow houses. I understand that perhaps the technology isnt there to render the required amount of roofs but at least make it easy to go around the town. The missions, however, i felt were all well designed and there wasnt a single one i found annoying. Even all the side missions were excellent.

Oh and also i want to play on master but i want to be able to knock out civies from time to time as they tend to have the most annoying patrol routes. It would have been nice to see that under custom.

Everything else i loved. I loved the gameplay and am hoping to see more thief.

(@mamochcisekanou how can you expect a company which made tomb raider, which is by no means a stealth game, to make a stealth game simmilar or even comparable to it in quality or gameplay. Its also why im a bit worried for Alien:Isolation, because CA have never made a horror game, though im hoping Rome 2 suffered as the talent is on that.)

[Flying Fox]

just wait for Thief 5 and you will see what the ending made

I also think it is a realy odd ending, i hope Erin wasn't killed but survived and is somewhere in the world (but probably she died...) so that she will make an appear in the next thief game (as this one was a reboot i'm pretty sure there will be a next thief in 1-2 years.. at least i hope

other than the ending it was a brilliant game and if a sequel will show you what exactly happended then okay,


My thought to the ending: Garrett throw Erins tool to her in the end which was basically the beginning scene, but the tool was next to Gerritt the scene after so it kinda looked like she was able to survive, although the scene was in the past.
I think it is a nether of past and future so everything got mixed.

only interpreted it though

If she died or not we will see somewhat in the future maybe

because of the footprints probably alive, forgot to mention them, ty draig

[Highduke]

I agree, one thing that was never explained was WHERE Garret was in the 1 year he was unconcious. The game keeps teasing with line like "Wanna know where you were for the past year Garret?" but never gives an answer.

[Draig]

It does, several times if you read the available info. He was in the asylum, at the same time as Erin, and got his eye injected at that time also, which is made from the same power infecting Erin. First time you use the Focus ability Garrett says something like "I feel all powerful and things slow down" or whatever he says, something like that ~ so that is after he is out of the Asylum...

At the ending you see the mace sticking out above his head, the only way it gets there is if Erin used it. Also there are small footprints made by Erin walking away from the scene, so she is almost certainly alive.

I don't know how you miss these things tbh.

[Barry White]

when does it say he was in the asylum? I might have missed it but the barron would have known and he was surpirsed when he saw it had primal in chapter 6.

[Fortysixter_UK]

Some great responses to my initial post. Thanks all :-

1) I completely missed the part of the game thta said you were in the Asylum with Erin for a year and that they injected your eye. I did pick up the comment with Garret stating he was feeling more powerful when using his upgraded eye however.

2) I thought the physical game map was poor, NOT the level design , except when it was an unclear path to another area, through a stack of crates and with you having to lift the beam out of the way.

It's certainly good enough to play again, but maybe after I've played one of the other Thief titles first ( I'm thinking Thief 2 ). Plus, my wow sub closes down in 5 days then I'm off to FF14 for 60 days, and of course during march...Dark Souls 2 comes out on console....then there's that stupid work thing that just gets in the way of life.

There's just not enough time !!!!........Damn we live in great gaming times don't we ?

[Barry White]

im certain garret did not go to the asylum, the Baron doesnt know his eye is primal and was at the asylum to collect primal. You arnt remembering when they inject your eye because the baron says "shes corrupting it".

[Flying Fox]

actually the baron said: "your EYE! YOU WERE THERE!" (meaning, you were at there when eirin fell and you loocked directly into to ritual, therefore Garrett got a bit of the energy from the primal magic into his eyes. (Another explanation could be that Erin corrupted his eyes as he looked through the lock at the beginning from the Assylum and saw Erin.)

I think that is the better explanation, i did not see any detail that Garrett was in the Assylum, he was saved by the old granny beggler and was healed (btter: treated)by her and her kind, Garrett was unconcious and he apparrently woke up a year after while they were carriing him to another place.
Something like that said the old lady. Don't remember what exactly she said.

As i didn't collected all pages in the Assylum though, there could be a page saying Garrett was in the Assylum, but as far as i played i never heard anything that he was there exactly.

[outwar6010]

I didn't kill the thief taker and there was no effect to that or was that just me? i snuck passed him and garret said after that he had dealt with him? is that a bug?

[Puppy Cat Underfoot]

I didn't like that it was actually easier to fight the Thief-Taker General than to simply escape. As I've mentioned on other threads here, I believe that Erin either became the new host body for the Trickster, or will become Viktoria's resurrection.

[Draig]

My opinion (and of course I could be wrong, but it makes some sort of sense to me at least):-

There are documents in the Asylum supporting this, and a cutscene also hints at it.

For example, the documents say about a "master thief" being in there. This mysterious master thief, who isn't given a name, is always nicking stuff and stashing it away, and escaping from his cell.

A custscene shows Garrett tied in one of the chairs and getting injected in his eye.

They (the documents) don't say "Garrett waz 'ere", you have to read them and get the strong hints they are laying down about it. (in my opinion anyway)

So, from all of this, I get the understanding that :-

When Erin fell, he was captured.
He got thrown into the Asylum and experimented on, drugged up and generally abused.
This messed his memory up which is why he can't remember any of it.
During his stay there he gets his eye injected with the power.
He was in the Asylum for a long time being abused/drugged up and experimented on.
The bad guys/doctors don't realise it is actually Garrett, they just think he is a nutjob kleptomaniac.

He eventually escapes, and doesn't know who he is anymore.
The Beggar Lady (or her allies/helpers) finds him, healing him and so on, and smuggling him back into the City, in the cart for chapter 1.
This takes about a year to happen.
Erin takes his escape as Garrett abandoning her to the bad guys by leaving her, which is why she has the hump with him throughout.
She is obviously nuts due to being infected by the power and the abuse/experiments done to her while at the Asylum, along with the belief he has abandoned her.
She starts corrupting people into the Gloomers due to the power she has absorbed.
When the Baron says "Your Eye! You were there!" He finally realises that the guy they were messing up in the asylum was in fact Garrett.
When Garrett uses his eye (focus) for the first time he says "I feel like I can think and act faster than normal when I concentrate...what happened to me?"

So, for me that makes sense as to what happened and fits in with the storyline as it unfolds.