Thief on GOG - gog.la/TafferMischief TFix & Lite Links - www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134733 Creative ALchemy for EAX - community.pcgamingwiki.com/files/file/28-creative-alchemy-universal/ THE LIST - docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_K3ziSxT9zcUUGCddS4sF1uNJTWHSbOwB1CQX2Rx4Uo More Thief to come.
It’s really been lost to time hasn’t it? Modern music, games, and movies all seem a bit too obsessed with being clean and spotless. I like my media dirty.
At my last job, one of my bosses used to be a manager back at Looking Glass. He was surprised I'd even heard of Thief, let alone played it, beat it, and loved it. In his recollection, it was a bit of a sleeper title, did okay, but didn't really make as big a splash as they'd hoped. I had to point out to him just how big of an impact it left on the industry, because so many titles would later take inspiration from it.
@@hope6840 I know, I know, it sounds far fetched. But the games industry is a little like Hollywood, no matter where you work you end up being fewer than seven degrees of separation from everyone else. In this case, his name was Jeff Hutt. He worked at Looking Glass, then later was the CEO of Lithtech (a subsidiary of Monolith to license out the titular engine.) We both ended up working outside of games for several years and coincidentally at the same non-gaming company, where he became the manager of my division after a few re-orgs. I didn't even know he used to work for Looking Glass until it came up in conversation at one of those "have a beer after work with your coworkers" morale events. He'd assumed I was too young to have played Thief, when it was major fixation of my teenage years.
It's a bit sad that he looks (looked?) back on it as just a sleeper title, considering how massively influential Thief and Looking Glass games in general are to this day. I hope everyone who worked at that studio understands the legacy they created.
@@tsarXadam I hope so. He had a decent career and oversaw a lot of games, some of which were well received some not so well received, some of which sold well and others of which didn't. By the time he was working at the same company as I was, he had pretty much left games development behind him, looking for something lower stress to work the rest of his years until retirement. But with a career like that, it's sometimes hard to tell what you did might have had a big impact and what might not of. As I said, it had it's ups and downs (any career that goes long enough inevitably will and one has to learn to roll with it) and those influences aren't necessarily well signaled when the release is still fresh in memory. But I showed him a lot of other things that were explicitly citing Thief as influence, and I think it made him happy to realize that. He's a pretty good guy, all things considered.
@@apugalypse_now Garret is a flawed dude though who isn't that good at keeping to his principles, so this is in line with his character. I mean he worked for Constantine out of pure stupid "retire with style" greed despite considering himself someone who is careful and street-smart. The subsequent lecture he got from the Keepers, while annoyingly pretentious as is their style, was fully deserved. His anger issues is referenced frequently as well, so the fact that he acts more sloppy than his standards proclaim shouldn't come as a surprise.
'In dishonoured youre hiding to keep the enemies away from you because you're dangerous, in Thief, you're hiding to keep away from the enemies because they're dangerous'. Great analysis and eloquent summary. Love your work Mandalore.
One of the reasons ive never gotten into Dish-Ono-Red, the whole game just feels meh when you can act like a minor god. Would have been a much better game if you could just skip all that magic crap, just stick to basic tools and stealth.
@@SvengelskaBlondie In Dishonored 2, you can just... Tell the spoopy lovecraftian man who gives you your powers that you don't want his dumb magic bullshit. Then you're just a girl who's good at sneaking. Or a guy, if you wanna play as Corvo.
@@fizzledizzle62 The same applies do Disohonored 1, proving that OP Is talking out of his ass. In the first game you can 100% play it with just the basic teleport and never upgrade anything, not even that skill. Dunno if the game actually even requires you to use It beyond the tutorial about magic. So yeah. Disohonored can be played like that. If one wants, of course. When I played It I enjoyed my time on It for different reasons compared to Thief. Not everything Is about gaining you True Gaming Cred with other idiots online, sometimes things can just be for fun
@@fizzledizzle62 " guy, if you wanna play as Corvo." Id totally play as Corvo, mostly cause his name is almost identical to the word for hot dogs in Swedish.
In a lot of older stealth games, it was encouraged because the enemies were overpowered. In newer ones, you are encouraged to sneak because the stealth is overpowered.
@@mojonojo my guess is that in a lot of modern games with stealth, they weren't designed as "stealth games" first and foremost, rather the stealth is added in as an alternate option. In that case, it has to be pretty strong to make it worth using.
@@suspectsn0thing I'm struggling to think of a non stealth game in which i enjoyed the stealth. Only oblivion comrs to mind but i was young and it was my first rpg so i just straight up disappeared into that world
@@VeryPeeved God no, stealth scaled horribly, it is either skyrim stealth archer easy, or if you turn up the difficulty I used up 80 arrows on goblins and only killed like 1 and a half
Then it's time to face them as a man! Also same, the second mission as a kid is a nightmare. I don't think I ever made it to the tombs as a kid. Did beat it as teen though.
Something very important about the game: The horror. This game becomes a full fletched horror game in some missions, and because of the masterful atmosphere, it can be a lot scarier than modern games a la Outlast
yeah when i played this as a kid i was so scared of those zombie noises... and the haunts, jees, they are so well made. took me until i was 16 to "toughen up" and complete the game
The game also conveys the power of money masterfully - richer targets will often have more guards, their mansions will be well lit, later even with electric lamps. They can afford fancier flooring, which for you is louder to walk on. All this, and more, is 100% told to you through gameplay.
@@SyndicateOperative I loved that those rich folks had random knick-knacks kicking around that were worth so little that even a career thief often struggling to make ends meet with a dedicated fence wouldn't even bother taking. You could maybe justify it as Garrett only being able to carry so many things, but that man must've had a Bag of Holding because some levels had a LOT of random crap to take. Love those games.
Hey, they may have steampunk electric doodads but they still gotta wear hobnail boots. It’s in the steampunk rule book, after the giant mechanical spider section.
In my 35 years, I never found another game that made me fall in love with the idea of stealth so much. And the writing, the voice acting, the world-building... Top notch.
Same here. Same here. While there have been great games like Splinter Cell or MGS # games since Thief and Thief II, even Thief DS, I have never found a game since playing Thief TDP and Thief 2 that pulled me so into the game world. I enjoyed Deus Ex HR, Deus Ex MD, Dishonored 1 and 2 but I never felt like I was actually in the game cowering in a corner and literally holding my breath hoping that the guard walking by me wouldn't catch me like these first two Thief games. I miss Looking Glass Studios to this day
@@magnubeido832 Looking Glass studios definitely knew how to built up tension and create the proper atmosphere. Not that they are the only studio to do that, mind you, but they had the amazing ability to tie this to the game's world and aesthetics and make it feel "natural", in a way. Same is true for System Shock and System Shock 2, especially the second game. Now I am wondering if Night Dive Studios will manage this with their System Shock remake. The first Deus Ex and Dishonored games were amazing, entertaining games but their atmospheres were not as gripping as others, if I may say so. When it comes to more modern games, one of the best ones (tension- and atmosphere-wise) I've had the luck to play was Darkwood... which is not a stealth game, though.
In my 35 years also. If I were a billionaire I would actually hunt down the original team, imprison them and force them to create a proper Thief 4 under pain of being thrown into an enclosed cold shower with 6 maine coons ductaped to their naked bodies 🤌
@@QuintessentialWalrus Same here, I think that's exactly why I just don't like pure stealth games, I want to be afraid of being seen or having to fight, I don't want it to be the easy way out.
@@alexnoman1498 I do kinda feel that in spesifically the mark of the ninja that it ties into the story of the game. The whole story it's emphasising how those marked with the tattoos become mad and bloodthirsty, and the fact that you as the player are only sparing the enemies out of obligation rather than fear, and that this obligation is becoming more and more of a chore is honestly some pretty good ludo narrative, if possibly unintentional
MGS2 still gets me tense whenever I get detected. The AI for the Clearing Team were more efficient in searching the room, they had better weapons and usually had a riot shield on point. They especially didn’t fuck around when they had the Shotgun.
That's why all those Egyptian pharaohs stopped building pyramids. Their subjects kept stealing their shit after they kicked the bucket and they figured a pyramid may be too conspicuous. Didn't help much.
25:45 And this is why I love garrett as a character. He's so damn human, and one of the few heroes or protagonists in any series that cowers genuinely, like a real person would.
It really depends upon the person in question. I like Garrett, too, but assuming virtually anyone badass enough to do what he did would "cower" in front of two pagan gods might be erroneous. It's less "real" and more telling of the type of person Garrett is. He's not really a fighter. He's a thief. It's in line with his personality. If you got a bunch of Hammerites in that room, those dudes would have bumrushed the Trickster and tried to beat him to death. After all, it was the Hammerites' opposition to him and those who worshipped him that made him and his wood nymph side piece go into hiding in the first place. That level of fearless zealotry is definitely realistic, but it depends upon one's background/training/so on. Garrett's just a sneaky dude trying to make rent. He's not cut out for this crazy shit. He's no fearless paladin who willingly charges into death for grand ideals. He's just trying to earn a living.
@@thecandlemaker1329 I mean, he liked how nonsense and bat-shit crazy the story was, but he was obviously frustrated by the nonsense and batshit crazy gameplay (c.f. the "Salt Arc").
Also Godbreaker. I'm a spelunking, pagan, woodsie lord, fantasy/horror, Lost City kind of guy and the second mission is one of my favorites (and the secret in the third mission is really cool as well). Lady Rowena's The Tower is also an excellent starting mission for people new to Thief.
Usually this is where I'd say *"the return of the king"* , but mandy amazingly manages a stable upload schedule *AND* amazing content, almost an anomaly on RUclips...
It's mainly because he dislikes content creators that somehow slowed down in video projects when they finally got a Patreon, instead of churning more of them now that they're paid to do it. Those creators are his anti role models
@@StrikeWarlock There are are exeptions though: Shammy had a dreadful upload schedule, got a Patreon, and now his schedule is STILL dreadful :D I cant wait to see what video he makes this year...
@@void-creature to be fair, even before Patreon, Shammy's release schedule was always slow. Iirc in his Q&A video if was more about content creators that incetivized more videos the more money they get from Patreon, but end up not doing it. Also Shammy is his best friend so there's that.
I am a 50 year old gamer who has been playing computer games since 1983. NO games then or since have blown me away like Looking Glass Studio's Thief series and System Shock 2. Absolutely masterful & immersive works of art.
I didn’t find this series until like five years ago and Thief 1 and 2 are still some of the most impressive and immersive games I’ve ever played. I can’t imagine how much they would have blown my mind as a kid. I miss the days when games development was cheap enough that a video game didn’t need to reach a large audience like they do today.
I can only hope that Night Dive Studios buys the rights to the Thief games or gets permission to remaster the games for modern hardware and game consoles.
My first playthrough scared me so much with the constant ambience... Now its more soothing but i still get the chills up my spine and shiver when in game.
All those year ago, and I can still remember the epiphany I had playing this game - at a specific moment that was nothing at all special in the game. I had played a few levels and the game had more or less taught me the proper way to approach its problems. At one point I popped out of my trance and realized I had just spent 5 minutes in the shadows, just motionless, observing and LISTENING! Basically I wasn’t “doing” anything ... but I was totally enthralled the whole time. This was absolutely something at the time I had never before experienced in a computer game. It was something that never before even occurred me as possible in that context. It is now pretty obvious that my life long love of stealth in pc games derives from that exact moment.
11:27 This is a great point. I still find stealth tense in Dishonored or Deus Ex or whatever but it's really just the fear of missing an achievement or not telling the narrative I want to tell, not the fear of what will happen if I'm caught. Because I know what will happen: I'll massacre everyone in the room then reload a save so I can still get the good ending.
@@Masta2Playa True but it's not the reloading, it's the fact that the enemies are not a threat. I reload because I'm not satisfied with killing them, not because they killed me.
It's a legit criticism, but's is more a matter of taste. I mean, Dishonored is both stealth and fighting if you want and Corvo ain't your random asshole, he is supposed to be a badass. Only stronger enemies like other assassins, the witches or military officers should be that damaging in 1vs1. If there is something that truly puts Thief on a higher level is the additional objectives and how the stealth mechanics are much deeper compared to their time
I always choose to play Deus Ex on hardest difficulty possible, because getting caught results in a very swift death. But to give it credit where its due, some missions force you to be stealthy and there's fear of being responsible for some NPCs life because you got caught.
Well surprisingly that's the thing about VTMB's stealth run, enemys will destroy you if you are spotted and it is quite difficult in some areas to sneak pass without an alert. Is not about making a perfect stealth run, is about surviving in a stealth run.
Some of my fondest childhood memories are of me watching my mom play Thief Gold. Thief is definitely one of my all-time favorite series. Also, referring to Garrett as a "property reassigner" got a good chuckle out of me.
"Alternatively you can let all the tax collectors get murdered in the streets, and instead ask the thieves guild to diplomatically convince the peasantry to fork over their tax money." ~SsethTzeentach, 2018
"Holding a health potion until the end of time" Makes me think of a playthrough of Fallout 3 I had where I pretty much collected every stimpack I came acrosss, bought every one I found at a trader.I also went out of my way to heal in ways that avoided using stimpacks, my favourite was sleeping in beds (only requires 1 hours of sleep to fully heal) Edit: almost forgot, I used to also drink copious amounts of water since it was much cheaper to heal by drinking water and then either visiting a doctor or using Rad-Aways to get rid of the rads (Led belly perk made this even more economical). By some point I think I was lugging around at least 400 stimpacks, then I decided to play the Mothership Zeta DLC. That caused me to burn through more than 100 of the stimpacks I had, it was quite crazy how much damage the aliens did with their weapons.
YE SHALL NOT ROB FROM THE HOUSE THAT I HAVE BUILDT, OR COMMIT ANY THEFT OR UNRIGHTEOUSNESS, LEST YE BE STRUCK DOWN AND DRIVEN INTO THE EARTH FORTHWITH, AND THE LAND OF THE HEATHEN CONSUME YOU.
"Before death came, the liars were made to feast upon the hands of the thieves, and the thieves were made to ingest the tongues of their liar brothers, and we praised the Master Builder for his judgements." -The Hammer Book of Tenets
Thank you so much for making the sound and audio a central part of your reviews. As a college student studying sound design and minoring in music and looking into getting into designing video games, it’s really awesome to see some of these amazing examples of audio design in games I wouldn’t have thought of. Thank you!
Found your videos after the Arcanum video. A piece of art if you ask me. I love that you are reviewing these older games and are bringing them back to light.
Hey.... It's that non-horror game that filled me with more fear & anxiety than most horror games did. Honestly, I couldn't even start Theft 2 because of my PTSD experience with the first game.
@@alexxx4434 Well,I'd say it went from scary creepy to uncomfortable creepy. You don't get borderline survival horror sections anymore,but you get to witness the masked servants,and hear Karras lose his grasp on sanity when you get closer to the end
@@silverhand9965 You forgot the mech spiders in Karras temple... Damn that last level can still be scary af, everything in there is out to cut you into pieces or blow you up, all the while you hear Karras losing his shit on the microphone. Mostly as you said it's not on the horror level as is T1...but those mech spiders are evil, creeps me out more than haunts.
To be honest the first Thief is as much a horror game as it is a stealth/thieving game. With more than half of the levels designed to outright scare, creep out or disturb the player. I would definitely not call it a non-horror game as horror is integral part of the entire game. The sequels dropped the horror almost completely save for a single level in the each subsequent game and lost majority of the atmosphere.
@@lukasvolsan3933 Exactly, I'd say the sequels have horror elements instead of being a semi horror game. T3 almost have two horror levels tho, there is the boat, but it is quite a small area, and then there is that damn hospital. I wouldn't say they really dropped the horror tho, it's still there in a lot of levels, but it became tiny encounters that you can mostly miss or bypass, not quite the same as T1.
I just love how much the game design shifts at The Sword mission. It makes you realize that level designers weren't held back from making levels look unsettling and wacky, and game could take a turn into horror at any other level.
At my work the show most often on in the break room around lunch is a show that's like Kitchen Nightmares but for bars called "Bar Rescue" and I was amused learning the host of the show is named "Jon Taffer."
I once played a dwarfen builder cleric at one of my tabletop games (not DnD but still fantasy), who quoted all those Hammerite scriptures. No one knew where they came from, but they were both, impressed by my skills with the hammer and anvil, an scared by my fanatiscm and derangement.
That time when a Stealth Game meant you actually had to memorize patrol patterns and pay attention to the ambient noise instead of just activating your wallhack, sonar, bullettime and invisibility powers.
You don't have to memorize patterns in Thief though, that's what makes it so great. You can explore organically through the levels at a fairly brisk pace as long as you stay alert. Thief, unlike most stealth games, is not about playing boring "Simon Says" in various contrived rooms with conveniently placed desks to hide behind.
The epitome of a good stealth game: Thief, Hitman, Deus Ex, Splinter Cell, The first three MGS. The epitome of a crap action game trying to be an even more crap stealth game: Dishonored, Cover system FPS games, any time a GTA clone tries to have a stealth mission. The epitome of "Meh, it's so down the middle between action and stealth that it's up to you": Assassin's Creed, Batman: Arkham, MGS IV and V, Tenchu. And here's a preempt "Fuck off, you don't know shit!" to anyone who wants to try putting "Dishonored" and "good" in the same sentence. If it's so good, why was one of the biggest reasons people hated the sequel was "Because it felt like we were playing Dishonored"?! Yeah, that's how you know a game's complete shit that was just popular off a hype train- When people hate it's sequel for feeling like a game from it's series.
The tomb raid level was what really pushed me into DMing. It was *sick nasty* to the point I was too terrified to finish the level for weeks, and I just couldn't wait to share the terror with everyone.
If you think the Bonehoard mission was unnerving, you should try the Shalebridge Cradle mission from Thief 3. It is still to this day one of the best tension-filled missions in a non-horror game.
I wonder how you felt first time playing the Haunted Cathedral and Return to the Cathedral. First time going all through the city and coming right to the entrance to the Cathedral as the music goes from that haunting drone to the sounds emanating from the cursed place itself made me think "oh fuck I am really in the shit now".
Lesser known facts: In combat, enemies can be Ko'ed from behind, as long as you are in a dark enough place when you strike. Use strafing, and jumping will give you speed. You can KO enemies by smashing their face in through partially open/closed doors. Enemies in this game don't collide with open doors, and as they clip through, a bonk to even an alert enemy is a Knock out, for some reason.
Stealth games where you can knock people out and still keep fighting when you're spotted in a non overpowered way are so cool. That's why I live dishonered 2, theif and dues ex so much.
I LOVE the voice acting in this game. The guards always make me laugh. I especially love when you are above them and make noises and how frustrated they get haha.
I always thought the classic Thief games had fun combat. The sword-fighting system had different types of swings, parrying, swords could collide if you both attack at the same time. etc. Guard Ai was also pretty impressive for the time. Sword guards would run away to get a bow guard if you climbed somewhere they couldn't reach, etc.
@@user-og6hl6lv7p Apart from the fact that, well, I would love to see more proper stealth games (even more if immersive sims like Thief tbh), it depends on what they are designed to be. Dishonored was sold as a somewhat modern immersive sim, but one where you could take both approach and both were, in their own way, legit. I liked the idea actually, having some swordplay into it could have been a fun option to use at times, but indeed the powers made it was easier to kill. Still, my no powers at max difficulty of Dishonored 2 was a blast
@@fourcrippledhorses aye, too many forget (or never knew) that Lovecraft's stories were about the dread and humanity's insignificance on a cosmic scale, and not about hentai fun times.
@@ihavenoson3384 I remember how the EAX popped onto the screen when firing up the game - it was a cool intro knowing you would get the best experience possible. I guess that was before Nvidia and especially EA Games overused it.
I can't wait for his review of The Mystery of the Droods 2: Moment of Silence.. Although Halligan nonchalantly eating human flesh could rhyme with many horror villians like Resident Evil 7 ones.
Yeah Thief is very special in this. Tech wise its outdated as fuck, but the art style is so strong and the gameplay forces you to treat the environments seriously... It just hypnotizes you into believing this world is real. All this crookedness and imperfection is just how the character SEES it.
The thief fan mission community is genuinely amazing, some real gems out there. The main vanilla story missions are really just the tip of the iceberg.
@Char Aznable Which is interesting because the rest of Thief 3, while pretty OK, is mostly average. Not terrible, not incredibly amazing either IIRC. Yet the Cradle just knocks it out of the park.
@@poyo714 Thats probably more because he goes out of his way to review shit that is nothing but jank, e.g. the one that went up...minutes after this video actually Meds must be wearing off again
This game literally defined how I play games. I play sneaky in every game that lets me do it and even try it in those who don't even advertise it as an option. Going for minimal amount of kills (if the game lets you, that is) and so on. It both encouraged me to develop a style of playing games that is patient, efficient and yet explorative. The Thief-series, and this title in particular will always have a special place with me. Might also be that I was waaaaaaay too young to play this when I did. But I have an older brother and he sat me in front of several games, icluding this one. Still love it.
I wish it wasn't so janky to stealth. Seal hopping around to avoid sightlines that largely have a delayed UI tracker really makes stealthing some of those missions miserable.
@@dancinginfernal Yeah its pretty easy to cheese and abuse the Ai that under normal circumstances you're waiting an eternity to get out of your way. The build variety you see in loud heists is nowhere to be found either, everyone is using the same skills for stealth. Completely homogenized. I noticed the best stealth heists that play to the game's strengths are the ones where you can do multiple objectives at once or are expected to juggle various hazards with your team I.E. Go Bank, Shadow Raid, The Big Bank, No Mercy, The Yacht. Shame a lot of the other ones are more optimal to just solo or they can be made a non-threat by killing everyone.
@@missingaforest3639 imo Payday 2 is best played Loud on Overkill because you can get enough of a challenge that there’s a risk of failure but be able to pull off auteur build shit. Love me some silenced crit builds with a silenced Tommy Gun
I just spent minutes looking for the song in the background due to how much it stuck out in my mind at 10:34 to 11:05 because I recognized it but I couldn't confidently state which song it was. It's the impending victory theme from Sacrifice, one of my favorite games. It has such a good soundtrack, you have some fine taste Mandalore!
“Did you think those ancient phrases were mere words, man-fool? LOOK AT ME!” Fey-Satan just had one of Garret’s eyes torn out...and he’s so damn terrifying that he can _successfully_ _order_ _Garret_ to keep looking at him. Jimminy Christmas, that’s a well-done sequence.
Thief is honestly one of the most aesthetically interesting worlds to me, Deadly Shadows isn't as well regarded by a lot of people but so much of it is ingrained in my memory. I wish it wasn't seemingly abandoned after Thief 4.
@@I_Cunt_Spell I've played through the Cradle I don't know how many times now, and I still get frozen in pure panic multiple times throughout. One of the crown jewels of the series.
Sucks, i really like thief 4 and i've almost 100% it, i hope arkane studio buys the rights to it and gets as many og devs working on a new thief game some day. But until then, i'm gonna play my dark mod. Got a lot of unfinished missions there :)
The great debate among fans, which is better. For me The Dark Project is the definitive masterpiece, but The Metal Age has some very strong levels as well.
The thief intro: "I am the son And the heir Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar I am the son and heir Of nothing in particular You shut your mouth How can you say I go about things the wrong way? I am human and I need to be loved Just like everybody else does"
The bonehoard is my favorite level in thief, not because of the change in gameplay, but because the atmosphere is just so damn captivating. The map really made you feel like you were exploring a lost tomb, seeing things you were not supposed to see and that have been lost for centuries. I don't think i've ever played a game that got that feeling right before, which is kinda insane.
I like how the cutscenes are, to a degree, technically FMV. When they're moving in shadows, you can tell it's a real person. But when they come into light, it's a drawing again. I love that.
2 type of games: Thief: Steal an ancient artifact for the devil just to pay rent. Skyrim: Deliver John's grandpa's ashes from the guy standing 5 meters close to him, 500 gold added.
@@beetheimmortal Its a design mentality. In most games you can barely do anything that wouldbt somehow advance your position, but in a rare few you need to work out the few profitable ventures that exist before you can get anywhere.
@@laffyman8218 Well, successor as a sound-focus FPS stealth game. Other stealth game nowadays focus mostly on visual. (Unless they are horror, but that's different genre altogether.)
I love Thief 1 & 2 sooo much, they're probably 2 of my favorite games ever. They are so unbelievably immersive and the writing is stellar, as you said...
Thief 1 & 2 are the best games of all time for me. Mr Stephen Russell as Garrett is such a great voice actor, and Mr Eric Brosius who created the creepy ambient music is outstanding, love the hand drawn cutscenes also.
He is also the voice of dishonored 2’s (and by extension although he never talks in it, the first dishonored) protagonist, or at least one of the options. This means that Stephen Russel is simultaneously voices the protagonist of the inspiration of Dishonored, and the protagonist of dishonored.
Thief on GOG - gog.la/TafferMischief
TFix & Lite Links - www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134733
Creative ALchemy for EAX - community.pcgamingwiki.com/files/file/28-creative-alchemy-universal/
THE LIST - docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_K3ziSxT9zcUUGCddS4sF1uNJTWHSbOwB1CQX2Rx4Uo
More Thief to come.
Well I guess my wallet is getting lighter......AGAIN!
Add No Man's Sky to the list!
And just where the heck have you been?!
Don't gimme that "I've got a life" excuse.
I Can't be the only one who thought the newes Thief game was ok.
Please do outward
My favorite thing about this game is the fact that every guard sounds like they belong in a Monty Python sketch.
I can hear their voices even now
"Alright, where are you?"
Wait until my friend Biggus Dickus hears about this
The argument between the two groups in the second game seems like it's straight out of Holy Grail.
get back here...you...tafferrr
I love that late 90s "vague, grungy, and unsettling" aesthetic.
It’s really been lost to time hasn’t it?
Modern music, games, and movies all seem a bit too obsessed with being clean and spotless. I like my media dirty.
I would love more stuff in that style tbh
@@pureevil9496 it's sort of what I'm trying to do, I just haven't gotten it "right" yet 😅
@@immortaluglyfish2724 I really like what you're doing so far, subbed
Also respect for Oney knowledge/animations
Yeah I immediately think of the original Quake with that description of it
At my last job, one of my bosses used to be a manager back at Looking Glass. He was surprised I'd even heard of Thief, let alone played it, beat it, and loved it. In his recollection, it was a bit of a sleeper title, did okay, but didn't really make as big a splash as they'd hoped. I had to point out to him just how big of an impact it left on the industry, because so many titles would later take inspiration from it.
And everyone clapped
@@hope6840 I know, I know, it sounds far fetched. But the games industry is a little like Hollywood, no matter where you work you end up being fewer than seven degrees of separation from everyone else.
In this case, his name was Jeff Hutt. He worked at Looking Glass, then later was the CEO of Lithtech (a subsidiary of Monolith to license out the titular engine.) We both ended up working outside of games for several years and coincidentally at the same non-gaming company, where he became the manager of my division after a few re-orgs. I didn't even know he used to work for Looking Glass until it came up in conversation at one of those "have a beer after work with your coworkers" morale events. He'd assumed I was too young to have played Thief, when it was major fixation of my teenage years.
@@FearlessSon Based
It's a bit sad that he looks (looked?) back on it as just a sleeper title, considering how massively influential Thief and Looking Glass games in general are to this day. I hope everyone who worked at that studio understands the legacy they created.
@@tsarXadam I hope so. He had a decent career and oversaw a lot of games, some of which were well received some not so well received, some of which sold well and others of which didn't. By the time he was working at the same company as I was, he had pretty much left games development behind him, looking for something lower stress to work the rest of his years until retirement.
But with a career like that, it's sometimes hard to tell what you did might have had a big impact and what might not of. As I said, it had it's ups and downs (any career that goes long enough inevitably will and one has to learn to roll with it) and those influences aren't necessarily well signaled when the release is still fresh in memory.
But I showed him a lot of other things that were explicitly citing Thief as influence, and I think it made him happy to realize that. He's a pretty good guy, all things considered.
"Killing is a mark of an Amateur"
-- Garrett
Most games: "do not kill people, it's bad"
Thief: "killing people is sloppy work, plain unprofessional"
*puts an arrow in a guy in the opening cinematic*
@@apugalypse_now it's before Garrett reloads his save, the guard is messing his full ghost playthrough and he is tired of save scumming.
@@apugalypse_now Garret is a flawed dude though who isn't that good at keeping to his principles, so this is in line with his character. I mean he worked for Constantine out of pure stupid "retire with style" greed despite considering himself someone who is careful and street-smart. The subsequent lecture he got from the Keepers, while annoyingly pretentious as is their style, was fully deserved. His anger issues is referenced frequently as well, so the fact that he acts more sloppy than his standards proclaim shouldn't come as a surprise.
Same for hitman, "only eliminate the targets"
'In dishonoured youre hiding to keep the enemies away from you because you're dangerous, in Thief, you're hiding to keep away from the enemies because they're dangerous'. Great analysis and eloquent summary. Love your work Mandalore.
One of the reasons ive never gotten into Dish-Ono-Red, the whole game just feels meh when you can act like a minor god. Would have been a much better game if you could just skip all that magic crap, just stick to basic tools and stealth.
@@SvengelskaBlondie Then it would've been just another stealth game.
@@SvengelskaBlondie In Dishonored 2, you can just... Tell the spoopy lovecraftian man who gives you your powers that you don't want his dumb magic bullshit. Then you're just a girl who's good at sneaking. Or a guy, if you wanna play as Corvo.
@@fizzledizzle62 The same applies do Disohonored 1, proving that OP Is talking out of his ass.
In the first game you can 100% play it with just the basic teleport and never upgrade anything, not even that skill.
Dunno if the game actually even requires you to use It beyond the tutorial about magic.
So yeah. Disohonored can be played like that. If one wants, of course.
When I played It I enjoyed my time on It for different reasons compared to Thief.
Not everything Is about gaining you True Gaming Cred with other idiots online, sometimes things can just be for fun
@@fizzledizzle62 " guy, if you wanna play as Corvo."
Id totally play as Corvo, mostly cause his name is almost identical to the word for hot dogs in Swedish.
In a lot of older stealth games, it was encouraged because the enemies were overpowered. In newer ones, you are encouraged to sneak because the stealth is overpowered.
I wonder why that is. Maybe the action-heavy combat appealed to more people since the slow-paced nature of stealth isn't really everyone's thing?
@@mojonojo my guess is that in a lot of modern games with stealth, they weren't designed as "stealth games" first and foremost, rather the stealth is added in as an alternate option. In that case, it has to be pretty strong to make it worth using.
@@suspectsn0thing I'm struggling to think of a non stealth game in which i enjoyed the stealth. Only oblivion comrs to mind but i was young and it was my first rpg so i just straight up disappeared into that world
@@piotr78 in Oblivion, stealth was great, because it alone avoided the horrible scaling issues that game had if you leveled up too much.
@@VeryPeeved God no, stealth scaled horribly, it is either skyrim stealth archer easy, or if you turn up the difficulty I used up 80 arrows on goblins and only killed like 1 and a half
I'm ashamed to admit that I've never finished Thief because the undead monsters freaked me out as a kid.
It'll give you something to do while you wait for Splinter Cell VR 😉
Then it's time to face them as a man!
Also same, the second mission as a kid is a nightmare. I don't think I ever made it to the tombs as a kid. Did beat it as teen though.
They only stopped scaring me in my latest playthrough a year or two ago. I'm 32.
Hey man listen close
I died to the cleric beast in bloodborne
There is absolutely no shame, this series is so spooky, especially the undead and ghost parts
Something very important about the game: The horror. This game becomes a full fletched horror game in some missions, and because of the masterful atmosphere, it can be a lot scarier than modern games a la Outlast
yeah when i played this as a kid i was so scared of those zombie noises... and the haunts, jees, they are so well made. took me until i was 16 to "toughen up" and complete the game
@@grunerkaktus "Join us... Join us NOW" That was the moment where little me decided that he didn't really need to play videogames this evening.
Outlast is not scary? Other than people considered it and fp coward sims what horror should be...
This^^ The freaking sound design does most if not all the job to make places and creatures so creepy I was legit scared in my first playthrough.
I did not beat Thief in 1998 because I was too scared of 2nd mission with zombies.
This game oozes personality. So many good old games make me feel like I'll never see a game so immersive, unique, and crafted with such passion
Given that we haven't had anymore immersive sims outside of Arkane Studio's work, it'll probably be a long while before we see another game like this.
@@gunswinger3110 I don't think we can reasonably expect immersive sims from AA- or AAA studios. But I'm optimist we'll see a few from indie developers
you need to play prey 2017
@@gunswinger3110farcry?
@@lukaslefevre8007farcry is an action game with OP stealth, not a stealth game with OP enemies. Not the same at all
The game also conveys the power of money masterfully - richer targets will often have more guards, their mansions will be well lit, later even with electric lamps. They can afford fancier flooring, which for you is louder to walk on. All this, and more, is 100% told to you through gameplay.
Though they are weirdly poor in other regards; owning maybe 4 cups to their name, etcetera.
@@SyndicateOperative I loved that those rich folks had random knick-knacks kicking around that were worth so little that even a career thief often struggling to make ends meet with a dedicated fence wouldn't even bother taking. You could maybe justify it as Garrett only being able to carry so many things, but that man must've had a Bag of Holding because some levels had a LOT of random crap to take. Love those games.
I wouldn't say that showing that "rich people have more stuff" is masterful
I like how he wears tap shoes to give the town guards a chance at finding him.
He’s got to look like a gentleman. What do you take him for, some footpad?
a master thief needs to be challenged SOMEhow
stealing this
hehe
Yall haven't worn hard heeled boots on stone, and it shows
Hey, they may have steampunk electric doodads but they still gotta wear hobnail boots. It’s in the steampunk rule book, after the giant mechanical spider section.
In my 35 years, I never found another game that made me fall in love with the idea of stealth so much. And the writing, the voice acting, the world-building... Top notch.
Same here. Same here. While there have been great games like Splinter Cell or MGS # games since Thief and Thief II, even Thief DS, I have never found a game since playing Thief TDP and Thief 2 that pulled me so into the game world. I enjoyed Deus Ex HR, Deus Ex MD, Dishonored 1 and 2 but I never felt like I was actually in the game cowering in a corner and literally holding my breath hoping that the guard walking by me wouldn't catch me like these first two Thief games. I miss Looking Glass Studios to this day
@@magnubeido832 Looking Glass studios definitely knew how to built up tension and create the proper atmosphere. Not that they are the only studio to do that, mind you, but they had the amazing ability to tie this to the game's world and aesthetics and make it feel "natural", in a way. Same is true for System Shock and System Shock 2, especially the second game. Now I am wondering if Night Dive Studios will manage this with their System Shock remake.
The first Deus Ex and Dishonored games were amazing, entertaining games but their atmospheres were not as gripping as others, if I may say so.
When it comes to more modern games, one of the best ones (tension- and atmosphere-wise) I've had the luck to play was Darkwood... which is not a stealth game, though.
In my 35 years also. If I were a billionaire I would actually hunt down the original team, imprison them and force them to create a proper Thief 4 under pain of being thrown into an enclosed cold shower with 6 maine coons ductaped to their naked bodies 🤌
That part about most stealth games focusing on protecting the enemies from you instead of yourself from them hits so true...
I loved that, too, great insight. Mark of the Ninja, the game that started the 2d stealth trend, suffered from this as well.
It really is an amazing insight. This vague feeling I've had for the past 10+ years has now been perfectly realized in words.
@@QuintessentialWalrus Same here, I think that's exactly why I just don't like pure stealth games, I want to be afraid of being seen or having to fight, I don't want it to be the easy way out.
@@alexnoman1498 I do kinda feel that in spesifically the mark of the ninja that it ties into the story of the game. The whole story it's emphasising how those marked with the tattoos become mad and bloodthirsty, and the fact that you as the player are only sparing the enemies out of obligation rather than fear, and that this obligation is becoming more and more of a chore is honestly some pretty good ludo narrative, if possibly unintentional
MGS2 still gets me tense whenever I get detected. The AI for the Clearing Team were more efficient in searching the room, they had better weapons and usually had a riot shield on point. They especially didn’t fuck around when they had the Shotgun.
"A tomb is just a country club version of a graveyard for rich people."
Stealing this.
Ironic
In the spirit of the game I see
Calm down Garret.
That's why all those Egyptian pharaohs stopped building pyramids. Their subjects kept stealing their shit after they kicked the bucket and they figured a pyramid may be too conspicuous. Didn't help much.
25:45 And this is why I love garrett as a character. He's so damn human, and one of the few heroes or protagonists in any series that cowers genuinely, like a real person would.
And the games surely shows that by making him so vulnerable to danger
It really depends upon the person in question. I like Garrett, too, but assuming virtually anyone badass enough to do what he did would "cower" in front of two pagan gods might be erroneous. It's less "real" and more telling of the type of person Garrett is. He's not really a fighter. He's a thief. It's in line with his personality. If you got a bunch of Hammerites in that room, those dudes would have bumrushed the Trickster and tried to beat him to death. After all, it was the Hammerites' opposition to him and those who worshipped him that made him and his wood nymph side piece go into hiding in the first place. That level of fearless zealotry is definitely realistic, but it depends upon one's background/training/so on. Garrett's just a sneaky dude trying to make rent. He's not cut out for this crazy shit. He's no fearless paladin who willingly charges into death for grand ideals. He's just trying to earn a living.
Property Reassigner: The Project Without Light
The Dim Endeavor
Possession Transporter: The Gloomy Enterprise
He is an expert of simplified transactions
@@pierre-mariecaulliez6285 non-mutualistic exchanger of goods
The top advert for me on this video was a removal specialist, obviously partaking in umbral undertakings
I love his PTSD from Druids and Limbo.
He liked Droods.
@@thecandlemaker1329 Yeah, but then Droods kept popping up in a bunch of games he did afterwards and his mind broke.
Limbo literally stole from 2 of his childhood favorites.
@@thecandlemaker1329 I mean, he liked how nonsense and bat-shit crazy the story was, but he was obviously frustrated by the nonsense and batshit crazy gameplay (c.f. the "Salt Arc").
It must have taken all the restraint on earth to not cut to a clip of Limbo while showing off the haunted cathedral
This video helped me re-contextualize my preference for theif 2.
>creator of madness combat comments and nobody notices
@@Brapgod I did a double-take when I saw Krinkels.
hey, nice to see you here, man!
Praise Karras etc
What is theif 2? Is that a parody game of Thief 2?
If you want a few excellent fan-made missions, try: Endless Rain, Lost Among the Forsaken, Rose Garden, The Scarlet Cascabel, The Chalice of Souls.
Thief 2 but THief 2X and Heist Society
Also Godbreaker. I'm a spelunking, pagan, woodsie lord, fantasy/horror, Lost City kind of guy and the second mission is one of my favorites (and the secret in the third mission is really cool as well).
Lady Rowena's The Tower is also an excellent starting mission for people new to Thief.
Endless Rain is especially excellent. I also like Catacombs of Knoss for more stellar tomb raiding.
Between Thief 1, 2, Deadly Shadows and The Dark Mod I have ~200GB+ of fan missions on my external.
@@MandaloreGaming soooo nobody gonna talk about the amazing T2 FM: The Seven Shades of Mercury?
Usually this is where I'd say *"the return of the king"* , but mandy amazingly manages a stable upload schedule *AND* amazing content, almost an anomaly on RUclips...
It's mainly because he dislikes content creators that somehow slowed down in video projects when they finally got a Patreon, instead of churning more of them now that they're paid to do it.
Those creators are his anti role models
Mandy has been really good at taking his meds lately
@@StrikeWarlock
There are are exeptions though:
Shammy had a dreadful upload schedule, got a Patreon, and now his schedule is STILL dreadful :D
I cant wait to see what video he makes this year...
@@void-creature to be fair, even before Patreon, Shammy's release schedule was always slow. Iirc in his Q&A video if was more about content creators that incetivized more videos the more money they get from Patreon, but end up not doing it. Also Shammy is his best friend so there's that.
@@StrikeWarlock yes, that was the joke
I am a 50 year old gamer who has been playing computer games since 1983. NO games then or since have blown me away like Looking Glass Studio's Thief series and System Shock 2. Absolutely masterful & immersive works of art.
I didn’t find this series until like five years ago and Thief 1 and 2 are still some of the most impressive and immersive games I’ve ever played. I can’t imagine how much they would have blown my mind as a kid. I miss the days when games development was cheap enough that a video game didn’t need to reach a large audience like they do today.
Same for me and I’m only 18 years old System shock 2 & Thief gold is like my favorite of all time.🙌🏾 I beat system shock 2 last year it was dope. 👌🏾
@@jamesbrincefield9879 well there are still indie games to do that. check out the demo for the upcoming game Gloomwood, heavily influenced by Thief.
I can only hope that Night Dive Studios buys the rights to the Thief games or gets permission to remaster the games for modern hardware and game consoles.
ok boomer...
Compliments to the chef 👌🏻
🧂👌
Compliments to the thief 👌
It'sa me, Chef Vulcan 😙👌
Mmmm chef
Perfect 👌
I love how genuinely creepy the ambient sounds can be in this game
Hey what are you doing here you've got pokemon to beat >:(
Right off the bat, the sounds in Baffords are creepy as hell. And The Sword and the Haunted Cathedral.
My first playthrough scared me so much with the constant ambience... Now its more soothing but i still get the chills up my spine and shiver when in game.
Word
i just broke the very fitting 666 likes on this comment
All those year ago, and I can still remember the epiphany I had playing this game - at a specific moment that was nothing at all special in the game. I had played a few levels and the game had more or less taught me the proper way to approach its problems. At one point I popped out of my trance and realized I had just spent 5 minutes in the shadows, just motionless, observing and LISTENING! Basically I wasn’t “doing” anything ... but I was totally enthralled the whole time. This was absolutely something at the time I had never before experienced in a computer game. It was something that never before even occurred me as possible in that context. It is now pretty obvious that my life long love of stealth in pc games derives from that exact moment.
"I've never robbed a god before. It'll be a challenge."
I'll honestly never forget that line or how badass it is...
garret is one of the coolest characters ever. the medieval steampunk setting is awesome too. what a great game/series.
@@jungleGSC I couldn't believe they changed the character and voice actor in the fourth game/reboot. Game publishers are stupid.
@@Yusuke_Denton original garret is best garret
Garret has the best lines of any thief in any franchise ever.
11:27 This is a great point. I still find stealth tense in Dishonored or Deus Ex or whatever but it's really just the fear of missing an achievement or not telling the narrative I want to tell, not the fear of what will happen if I'm caught. Because I know what will happen: I'll massacre everyone in the room then reload a save so I can still get the good ending.
But in Thief u can just reload too
@@Masta2Playa True but it's not the reloading, it's the fact that the enemies are not a threat. I reload because I'm not satisfied with killing them, not because they killed me.
It's a legit criticism, but's is more a matter of taste.
I mean, Dishonored is both stealth and fighting if you want and Corvo ain't your random asshole, he is supposed to be a badass.
Only stronger enemies like other assassins, the witches or military officers should be that damaging in 1vs1.
If there is something that truly puts Thief on a higher level is the additional objectives and how the stealth mechanics are much deeper compared to their time
I always choose to play Deus Ex on hardest difficulty possible, because getting caught results in a very swift death. But to give it credit where its due, some missions force you to be stealthy and there's fear of being responsible for some NPCs life because you got caught.
Well surprisingly that's the thing about VTMB's stealth run, enemys will destroy you if you are spotted and it is quite difficult in some areas to sneak pass without an alert. Is not about making a perfect stealth run, is about surviving in a stealth run.
"Art thou the hammer, or art thou the nail? From the view of the beam, 'tis all the same. But for the nail, 'tis very different."
"My hammer awaits thee"
"The hammer is my penis"
Some of my fondest childhood memories are of me watching my mom play Thief Gold. Thief is definitely one of my all-time favorite series. Also, referring to Garrett as a "property reassigner" got a good chuckle out of me.
you have the coolest mom in the world
Damn dude that's crazy.
Man, i couldnt even imagine having a gamer mom, damn.
What a cool mom.
@@Largentina. I dont think it's an old lady playing hard computer game kind if situation tho
"A property re-assigner known as Garrett".
A practical true Marxist
"Alternatively you can let all the tax collectors get murdered in the streets, and instead ask the thieves guild to diplomatically convince the peasantry to fork over their tax money."
~SsethTzeentach, 2018
47: Corporate Liquidator
Snake: US staffer
Geralt the pest controller
"Holding a health potion until the end of time"
Makes me think of a playthrough of Fallout 3 I had where I pretty much collected every stimpack I came acrosss, bought every one I found at a trader.I also went out of my way to heal in ways that avoided using stimpacks, my favourite was sleeping in beds (only requires 1 hours of sleep to fully heal) Edit: almost forgot, I used to also drink copious amounts of water since it was much cheaper to heal by drinking water and then either visiting a doctor or using Rad-Aways to get rid of the rads (Led belly perk made this even more economical).
By some point I think I was lugging around at least 400 stimpacks, then I decided to play the Mothership Zeta DLC. That caused me to burn through more than 100 of the stimpacks I had, it was quite crazy how much damage the aliens did with their weapons.
thats because of the free healing.
The opening music gave me "you wouldnt download a car" vibes
STEALING
IS
AGAINST
THE LAW
YE SHALL NOT ROB FROM THE HOUSE THAT I HAVE BUILDT,
OR COMMIT ANY THEFT OR UNRIGHTEOUSNESS,
LEST YE BE STRUCK DOWN AND DRIVEN INTO THE EARTH FORTHWITH,
AND THE LAND OF THE HEATHEN CONSUME YOU.
I love that shit.
Garret would seed a car.
What's ironic is that I always see those ads on the bootleg DVDs my dad bought.
"Before death came, the liars were made to feast upon the hands of the
thieves, and the thieves were made to ingest the tongues of their liar
brothers, and we praised the Master Builder for his judgements." -The
Hammer Book of Tenets
Thank you so much for making the sound and audio a central part of your reviews. As a college student studying sound design and minoring in music and looking into getting into designing video games, it’s really awesome to see some of these amazing examples of audio design in games I wouldn’t have thought of. Thank you!
>Payday 2's planning theme at the end
Well played Mando.
yeah i also heard that
Big Smoke: You came to the wrong house fool!
CJ: Big Smoke, its me, Carl, chill, chill!
Big Smoke: CJ? 8:37
My dawg! What's up homie? Hey you ok man?
Well done
@@weirdeurasianboy8091 "what ? no hug ? no love ?"
I swear I saw this in a Jerma video, and it's still funny.
I love that this is a thing.
Found your videos after the Arcanum video. A piece of art if you ask me. I love that you are reviewing these older games and are bringing them back to light.
Hey.... It's that non-horror game that filled me with more fear & anxiety than most horror games did. Honestly, I couldn't even start Theft 2 because of my PTSD experience with the first game.
Funnily enough T2 dropped the creepy atmosphere, unfortunately.
@@alexxx4434 Well,I'd say it went from scary creepy to uncomfortable creepy.
You don't get borderline survival horror sections anymore,but you get to witness the masked servants,and hear Karras lose his grasp on sanity when you get closer to the end
@@silverhand9965 You forgot the mech spiders in Karras temple... Damn that last level can still be scary af, everything in there is out to cut you into pieces or blow you up, all the while you hear Karras losing his shit on the microphone. Mostly as you said it's not on the horror level as is T1...but those mech spiders are evil, creeps me out more than haunts.
To be honest the first Thief is as much a horror game as it is a stealth/thieving game. With more than half of the levels designed to outright scare, creep out or disturb the player. I would definitely not call it a non-horror game as horror is integral part of the entire game. The sequels dropped the horror almost completely save for a single level in the each subsequent game and lost majority of the atmosphere.
@@lukasvolsan3933 Exactly, I'd say the sequels have horror elements instead of being a semi horror game. T3 almost have two horror levels tho, there is the boat, but it is quite a small area, and then there is that damn hospital.
I wouldn't say they really dropped the horror tho, it's still there in a lot of levels, but it became tiny encounters that you can mostly miss or bypass, not quite the same as T1.
"join us... join us... join us now!" AAAAAH *gets scary flashbacks of Mandalore's Limbo of the Lost review*
Ahhhhhhh
I've never played this game before and I genuinely thought he added them in post at first
I just love how much the game design shifts at The Sword mission. It makes you realize that level designers weren't held back from making levels look unsettling and wacky, and game could take a turn into horror at any other level.
there is so much artistic value in "sword" I still have a save where platforms lead into the void just listening...taking in the atmosphere
6:21 : IT'S QUIET IT'S QUIET IT'S QUIET ... Sorry, having PTSD from this alarm noise..
IT'S QUIET
*IT'S QUIET*
IT'S QUIET
IT'S QUIET
The greatest part of Thief is still making TAFFER the most common insult
Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief
Taffy came into my house and stole a leg of beef
@@taffer4515 me too
YYYYou taffer!
At my work the show most often on in the break room around lunch is a show that's like Kitchen Nightmares but for bars called "Bar Rescue" and I was amused learning the host of the show is named "Jon Taffer."
I once played a dwarfen builder cleric at one of my tabletop games (not DnD but still fantasy), who quoted all those Hammerite scriptures. No one knew where they came from, but they were both, impressed by my skills with the hammer and anvil, an scared by my fanatiscm and derangement.
lol
That time when a Stealth Game meant you actually had to memorize patrol patterns and pay attention to the ambient noise instead of just activating your wallhack, sonar, bullettime and invisibility powers.
"You can't see me cuz I'm leaning!"
Don't forget that one
@@commisaryarreck3974 that got fixed in the second game though.
WHich also might be boring for some people, stealth games is my least favorite genre, i would take super powers any day over them.
You don't have to memorize patterns in Thief though, that's what makes it so great. You can explore organically through the levels at a fairly brisk pace as long as you stay alert. Thief, unlike most stealth games, is not about playing boring "Simon Says" in various contrived rooms with conveniently placed desks to hide behind.
The epitome of a good stealth game: Thief, Hitman, Deus Ex, Splinter Cell, The first three MGS.
The epitome of a crap action game trying to be an even more crap stealth game: Dishonored, Cover system FPS games, any time a GTA clone tries to have a stealth mission.
The epitome of "Meh, it's so down the middle between action and stealth that it's up to you": Assassin's Creed, Batman: Arkham, MGS IV and V, Tenchu.
And here's a preempt "Fuck off, you don't know shit!" to anyone who wants to try putting "Dishonored" and "good" in the same sentence. If it's so good, why was one of the biggest reasons people hated the sequel was "Because it felt like we were playing Dishonored"?! Yeah, that's how you know a game's complete shit that was just popular off a hype train- When people hate it's sequel for feeling like a game from it's series.
Civvie: "Alright now its your turn"
Mandalore: "So....who should play this after me?"
????: "Hey Hey People"
It probably runs in his blood.
But Sseth already played this, you're commenting on his video about it.
Seth here.
speaking of sound in thief: there is an interview with a dev at ars technica channel that explains origin and process of this complex mechanic
The tomb raid level was what really pushed me into DMing. It was *sick nasty* to the point I was too terrified to finish the level for weeks, and I just couldn't wait to share the terror with everyone.
Haha you fucking batman, "Dungeons frighten me. Its time the world share my dread."
@@icecold1805 "I cannot wait to tell others about my adventures with the pair of spherical polygons." :D
@Char Aznable ayy even the red comet has fears, godamn newtype zambies
If you think the Bonehoard mission was unnerving, you should try the Shalebridge Cradle mission from Thief 3. It is still to this day one of the best tension-filled missions in a non-horror game.
I wonder how you felt first time playing the Haunted Cathedral and Return to the Cathedral. First time going all through the city and coming right to the entrance to the Cathedral as the music goes from that haunting drone to the sounds emanating from the cursed place itself made me think "oh fuck I am really in the shit now".
Thief is a pretty cool guy that doesn't afraid of anything.
Doesn't afraid of anything you say?
*Releases reboot*
Thief is afraid of everything but does it anyway making him truly the bravest of all.
Doesn't afraid of anyone indeed
@@MandaloreGaming I was gonna say "now that's real bravery, folks" and then I realize I'm quoting you from your Dead Space 2 review.
A shame what happend to him, he was such a dashing rogue
Fun Fact: Garret from Thief 1 and 2 and Corvo from Dishonored 1 and 2, have the same voice actor.
THERE’S A DISHONORED THREE!?
@@fuzzydunlop7928 death of the outsider, kind of?
From what I know from playing whole dishonored franchise Corvo has no voice in the first dishonored game.
@@sanek8645 they still hired him for corvo
@@jmjedi923 only in Dishonored 2
"Someone asked me about Bannerlord in one of these a long time ago."
Hey, that was me!
♫ Who could it be?
Believe it or not / it's just me. ♫
The sound effect of picking up some of that loot is so satisfying, I think I'm going to go play Thief again just to hear it.
Lesser known facts:
In combat, enemies can be Ko'ed from behind, as long as you are in a dark enough place when you strike. Use strafing, and jumping will give you speed.
You can KO enemies by smashing their face in through partially open/closed doors. Enemies in this game don't collide with open doors, and as they clip through, a bonk to even an alert enemy is a Knock out, for some reason.
The actual way to play the game is a "less known fact"?
Ah the good ol matador trick
@@ayyyyph2797 "I am ze spy!" -Garrett
Stealth games where you can knock people out and still keep fighting when you're spotted in a non overpowered way are so cool. That's why I live dishonered 2, theif and dues ex so much.
The T Posing guard coming at you at the end genuinely terrified me
It was worth it to wait to the end
I LOVE the voice acting in this game. The guards always make me laugh. I especially love when you are above them and make noises and how frustrated they get haha.
I always thought the classic Thief games had fun combat. The sword-fighting system had different types of swings, parrying, swords could collide if you both attack at the same time. etc. Guard Ai was also pretty impressive for the time. Sword guards would run away to get a bow guard if you climbed somewhere they couldn't reach, etc.
19:29
Garrett: ,,You'll get your rent when you fix this damn door!"
"fuck it I"m gonna squat in a clock tower"
Hey, I'm going to the Bear Pits tomorrow. Ya wanna come with?
They just don't make bears like they used to.
@@MandaloreGaming How did they make bears?
@@pleasantlymixed5860 Different than now
@@Tomahawks360 They need to go back to using the old methods, these new bears are weird.
@@pleasantlymixed5860 Don't tell me you're some kind of Bear Justice Warrior.
modern stealth games are now:
" I cannot be seen by anybody is there is *no one left alive* "
more like:
"It's a stealth game, but you don't *have* to use stealth"
@@user-og6hl6lv7p more like:
It's call of duty, but you have waist high bushes, where you are literally invisible
@@user-og6hl6lv7p yes
@@laylance days gone checks in! 😂
@@user-og6hl6lv7p Apart from the fact that, well, I would love to see more proper stealth games (even more if immersive sims like Thief tbh), it depends on what they are designed to be.
Dishonored was sold as a somewhat modern immersive sim, but one where you could take both approach and both were, in their own way, legit. I liked the idea actually, having some swordplay into it could have been a fun option to use at times, but indeed the powers made it was easier to kill.
Still, my no powers at max difficulty of Dishonored 2 was a blast
That part where Garrett just cowers really hit hard, I could feel it.
Same, i wish more games had it in them to make protags like that
All these years gaming and that cutscene hit harder than anything I've ever seen. I was legit terrified when the next mission started.
Something like that is way more "Lovecraftian" than all the tentacle-100 eyed-dicknipple clusterfucks pretenders have churned out in a century
@@fourcrippledhorses aye, too many forget (or never knew) that Lovecraft's stories were about the dread and humanity's insignificance on a cosmic scale, and not about hentai fun times.
"Who even has a soundcard anymore?"
Well I'll just go take my EAX somewhere else then
Yeah go EAX off somewhere else. :D
@@ihavenoson3384 I remember how the EAX popped onto the screen when firing up the game - it was a cool intro knowing you would get the best experience possible. I guess that was before Nvidia and especially EA Games overused it.
I am now completely convinced the Sly Cooper cut scenes were directly inspired by this game. It is insane how similar they are
By that logic then Thief 1 was inspired by Comix Zone. Its not the first game to use drawn comics to make for cutscenes
Oh god, I REALLY hope every Mandy video moving forward finds some way to reference "The Mystery of the Droods".
Well, you do deal with druids and pagans in pretty much all Thief universe.
I can't read it without singing it XDD
I can't wait for his review of The Mystery of the Droods 2: Moment of Silence.. Although Halligan nonchalantly eating human flesh could rhyme with many horror villians like Resident Evil 7 ones.
I remember looking at this graphics and thinking 'Damn, so realistic.'
Yeah Thief is very special in this. Tech wise its outdated as fuck, but the art style is so strong and the gameplay forces you to treat the environments seriously... It just hypnotizes you into believing this world is real. All this crookedness and imperfection is just how the character SEES it.
It's a sign that a game's artstyle has aged well that I agree with you even now. Just like Half Life and Deus Ex.
I am really happy to see the bonehoard getting more love. It is just one of the best dungeon crawls in almost any game ever.
The thief fan mission community is genuinely amazing, some real gems out there. The main vanilla story missions are really just the tip of the iceberg.
That weirdly melodic zombie moan is still etched in my mind to this day
Fucking hell
Looking forward to Thief 2, especially the long heist missions. And 3, for those two words: Shalebridge. Cradle.
@Char Aznable Which is interesting because the rest of Thief 3, while pretty OK, is mostly average. Not terrible, not incredibly amazing either IIRC. Yet the Cradle just knocks it out of the park.
This will be interesting after Civvie11's series on the game.
Mandy even mentions it when talking about the thieves guild
Thanks for sharing the channel
Civvie11 tends to focus mostly on the jank of the games in his videos rather than what they do right. Still his videos have some entertainment value.
@@poyo714 Thats probably more because he goes out of his way to review shit that is nothing but jank, e.g. the one that went up...minutes after this video actually
Meds must be wearing off again
Those hammer sounds and the ambience in the cutscenes gives me the chills everytime.
This game literally defined how I play games. I play sneaky in every game that lets me do it and even try it in those who don't even advertise it as an option. Going for minimal amount of kills (if the game lets you, that is) and so on.
It both encouraged me to develop a style of playing games that is patient, efficient and yet explorative. The Thief-series, and this title in particular will always have a special place with me. Might also be that I was waaaaaaay too young to play this when I did. But I have an older brother and he sat me in front of several games, icluding this one. Still love it.
The Payday Music at the end is a really good choice! A first person "stealth" game that can go loud at any moment. Incredible work
I wish it wasn't so janky to stealth. Seal hopping around to avoid sightlines that largely have a delayed UI tracker really makes stealthing some of those missions miserable.
@@dancinginfernal Yeah its pretty easy to cheese and abuse the Ai that under normal circumstances you're waiting an eternity to get out of your way. The build variety you see in loud heists is nowhere to be found either, everyone is using the same skills for stealth. Completely homogenized.
I noticed the best stealth heists that play to the game's strengths are the ones where you can do multiple objectives at once or are expected to juggle various hazards with your team I.E. Go Bank, Shadow Raid, The Big Bank, No Mercy, The Yacht. Shame a lot of the other ones are more optimal to just solo or they can be made a non-threat by killing everyone.
@@missingaforest3639 imo Payday 2 is best played Loud on Overkill because you can get enough of a challenge that there’s a risk of failure but be able to pull off auteur build shit. Love me some silenced crit builds with a silenced Tommy Gun
"property reassigner" that took me a little bit to get
I can't believe someone would call the twist bad, it was one of the most genuine WTF moments I ever experienced in a game
I just spent minutes looking for the song in the background due to how much it stuck out in my mind at 10:34 to 11:05 because I recognized it but I couldn't confidently state which song it was. It's the impending victory theme from Sacrifice, one of my favorite games. It has such a good soundtrack, you have some fine taste Mandalore!
I love the reliable theme of every old game being better on the GOG version.
I mean ... good old games would be pretty shit if none of their old games worked
@@carlosthejakl8493 This is true. Lol.
it was GOGs early trademark, taking old Games and make them playable on modern systems. Before they also had newer games and sales and such.
“Did you think those ancient phrases were mere words, man-fool? LOOK AT ME!”
Fey-Satan just had one of Garret’s eyes torn out...and he’s so damn terrifying that he can _successfully_ _order_ _Garret_ to keep looking at him.
Jimminy Christmas, that’s a well-done sequence.
Im not gonna lie having seen Civvie11 videos on thief it was a natural progression to check mandalore out on thief aswell.
"Hey hey people, Garret here."
“Today, I will not be commuting warcrimes, but instead snatching anything and everything not bolted down in a Renaissance dystopia.”
"You might be wondering "is this any less legal than a warcrime?", to which I will answer that the Hague convention doesn't cover jewelry theft."
This is my favorite series, and I'm so glad it's sort of having a strange resurgence with people.
22:44 "Why is the laughter in the walls getting louder?". Yeah that about sums up why The Sword is such a freaky level
I was trying to find the source of this laughter so much in my first playthrough until I understood it was an ambient sound :O
Thief is honestly one of the most aesthetically interesting worlds to me, Deadly Shadows isn't as well regarded by a lot of people but so much of it is ingrained in my memory.
I wish it wasn't seemingly abandoned after Thief 4.
Shalebridge Cradle brrrrr
@@I_Cunt_Spell I've played through the Cradle I don't know how many times now, and I still get frozen in pure panic multiple times throughout. One of the crown jewels of the series.
@@GentleHeretic
I got my first silent panic attack from sheer terror due to Cradle back in '04 ☺️
Just play Dishonored, a lot of the Looking glass crew went on to join Arkane studios
Sucks, i really like thief 4 and i've almost 100% it, i hope arkane studio buys the rights to it and gets as many og devs working on a new thief game some day.
But until then, i'm gonna play my dark mod. Got a lot of unfinished missions there :)
I leave the closed captions on for all your videos now, I enjoy the little Easter Eggs and appreciate the extra work that gets put in!
They just don't make bears like they used to.
Whoa, killer bears?
Invisible bears?
Ya wanna come with?
"No paw-hooks? What'd they do? Just bump into each other?"
All the necessities are hairy?
"What's the best stealth game?"
"Thief"
"Thief The Dark Project or Thief The Metal Age?"
"Yes"
The great debate among fans, which is better. For me The Dark Project is the definitive masterpiece, but The Metal Age has some very strong levels as well.
@@Wind_Falcon lemme just... put this here..
Thi4f
and now the fanbase shall explode
@@kharak6204 There's literally no debate around nu-Thief. Even mainstream journalists don't like that game. World is unanimous in its opinion of it.
The Dark Mod
>:D
@@kharak6204 What? Thief ended with Thief 3, what are you talking about.
One of the most immersive games in gaming history
My only regret is that we only get 1 or 2 of these masterpieces per month.
So they're up to, what, Thief 270 now?
@@ms.aelanwyr.ilaicos I mean Mandy's videos.
@@rubz1390 ;)
"I'll pin all this stuff for later" but he didn't pin Fatal1ty's gamer food. HOW WILL I EVER FIND IT NOW, MANDY?
Wow, you killed me with the “Matrix through a wristwatch” line! Haha, great vid and one of my favorite gamesz
The thief intro:
"I am the son
And the heir
Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar
I am the son and heir
Of nothing in particular
You shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way?
I am human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does"
SEE I'VE ALREADY WAITED TOO LONGGG
AND ALL MY HOPE IS GONEEE
God that takes me back
The bonehoard is my favorite level in thief, not because of the change in gameplay, but because the atmosphere is just so damn captivating. The map really made you feel like you were exploring a lost tomb, seeing things you were not supposed to see and that have been lost for centuries.
I don't think i've ever played a game that got that feeling right before, which is kinda insane.
Yeah love the atmosphere in it.
I like how the cutscenes are, to a degree, technically FMV. When they're moving in shadows, you can tell it's a real person. But when they come into light, it's a drawing again. I love that.
2 type of games:
Thief: Steal an ancient artifact for the devil just to pay rent.
Skyrim: Deliver John's grandpa's ashes from the guy standing 5 meters close to him, 500 gold added.
They aren't even in a similar genre though
@@beetheimmortal Its a design mentality.
In most games you can barely do anything that wouldbt somehow advance your position, but in a rare few you need to work out the few profitable ventures that exist before you can get anywhere.
Civvie11 did a great play through of this. Awesome review. Still waiting on Omikron. Keep up the good work.
Nowadays Hunt:Showdown is ironically the closest thing to Thief's successor.
How so? 300 hours in hunt but never touched thief.
@@laffyman8218 Well, successor as a sound-focus FPS stealth game. Other stealth game nowadays focus mostly on visual. (Unless they are horror, but that's different genre altogether.)
Me, bored in homeoffice: Gee, maybe I should watch some yt
Mandalore: THIEF
I relate.
Still working, late night?
You: GEE, IT SURE IS BORING AROUND HERE
Mandalore: MAH BOI
@@hubertborusinski1647 nah, Central Europe Time
The fact that the horn playing music in the tombs is an actual item emitting the sound blew my mind
"Others skills"
**Shots a 3-pointer**
"Ah yes, the most usefull skills"
"Sign him up for the Knicks!"
System Shock 2 has a basketball too. And a robot that dances Macarena.
@@oz_jones as all good games should be
Civvie: Okay mandalore your turn to play thief
Mandalore: alright, you have to play fear now
You might be onto something
Civvie's video from today has clips from FEAR. It's happening.
@@CertMediocre yea alpha prime, originally I was gonna write system shock but then I remembered that
He still needs to play Opposing Force, he can’t hide from Randy Gearbox forever.
I love Thief 1 & 2 sooo much, they're probably 2 of my favorite games ever. They are so unbelievably immersive and the writing is stellar, as you said...
Thief 1 & 2 are the best games of all time for me. Mr Stephen Russell as Garrett is such a great voice actor, and Mr Eric Brosius who created the creepy ambient music is outstanding, love the hand drawn cutscenes also.
Was expecting you to mention that Stephen Russell is like half the voice acting in Skyrim.
Also he is Nick Valentine and Codsworth in Fallout 4
@@dogelero6324 that guy goes to work!
He is also the voice of dishonored 2’s (and by extension although he never talks in it, the first dishonored) protagonist, or at least one of the options. This means that Stephen Russel is simultaneously voices the protagonist of the inspiration of Dishonored, and the protagonist of dishonored.
@@dogelero6324 What.
He is quite talented, our little Garret.