Thief: Chapter 1 & 2

 NOTE:

I finally realized that I forgot to embed the videos directly to the posts. While cleaning up the posts to include the videos, I deiced to rename the posts to accurately reflect the game. Below is the original posting, as well as the video that should have been attached.

Since I started playing the game to test the EZCap, I thought I'd do a review of the game as I play it. There are no reviews for the first three parts. The parts are not named after missions. They are named 1, 2, and 3, simply because that's the order they were recorded in. I wasn't planning to play the game, since I didn't like it when I previously played it. So, in lieu of a review / walk through for the first three clips, I'll give you a recap.

The Story So Far (Chapter 1):

You are a master thief, in sort of a steam punk world. As you start the game, you go through a basic theft of an apartment. You learn that the X button takes things, snuffs out candles, open drawers, etc. All boring and basic.

As you move on, you come across a young, arrogant thief. Your time with her is basically to show you how to move around. Hold the RB button to hit or do a sneak attack. Water arrows snuff certain types of fire (light bad! Light lets people see you). Rope arrows attach ropes to beams, that you can then climb, and the A button lets you "swoop" (think sprint) from one shadowy hiding place to another.

After your brief tour of the buttons, you end up on a glass domed roof. There's a cut scene involving some priests chanting inside. "Robes. Robes are always bad." They do some sort of spell, there's a big magical explosion, and the dome collapses. Fade to black.

You awake inside a cart, with two men pulling you. The setting is like a serious version of the "Bring out your dead" scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. After the two men are done talking (which is only to give you a hint about what's going on), the guards get suspicious of them, kills one, and chases the other. This gives you a chance to escape.

Very shortly later, you make it back to your clock tower home, ready to start the story line. This is where Part 4 (as I'm calling it) starts. It is officially Chapter Two. And on a side note, just once I'd like to have a place in real life as nice as some of the run down apartment these computer people have.

You start by exploring your apartment. There is a trunk to store your extra goods, and another to store your collectible items. Head upstairs, and you get a cut scene. It seems your guild uses crows to deliver messages written on match boxes. The box you pick up tells you to meet Basso, the man that arranges your contracts.

After your short, basically uninformative cut scene, you're told that you need to get a ring from someone that has recently died. You're not told why the ring is important. You only need to know that it is, and that you need to buy some supplies before meeting with the Queen of Beggars.

As you're about to leave the neighborhood, a salesman "subtly" calls you aside. He has some interesting upgrades and weapons available, but the most useful for now is the wrench. Batman could kick the grates in this game open without making a noise. Garrett, however, noisily uses a wrench. Another tool you will need before starting side quests is the wire cutting tool. More on that later.

You speak with the Queen, and she informs you about the city, your absence, and the foundry. After you speak with the Queen, you can steal the plaque from the church she uses as a headquarters. Don't worry about your back pack getting too full, since you automatically get the gold for everything. Something I wish more games would utilize.

Once in the foundry, it's hard to be sneaky. There are blast furnaces everywhere. The place was designed to smelt metal, after all. Now, it's being used to destroy all of the dead bodies that the plague is creating. It's up to your play style how you go about navigating the place. You can be very slow and sneaky, go full out commando and kill everyone, or use a combination. I chose the later, since it saved time and supplies.

The first part of the foundry is cookie cutter. Sneak, steal, knock out guards if you have to. To get into the foundry itself, you will need to grab an empty body hook, and play dead. Once you get the prompt, hit the B button to gt off the hook. Explore, grab all of the loot laying around (who puts broaches and coins on top of rafters?), and fight if you must. After you finish the area, move forward to the next.

Soon you come to a very well lit area. You have the option of trying to loot it all (one guard is asleep), or grab another hook and advance the story. If you want to grab loot, avoid the hook. There is no dropping from this one until you hit the next part of the foundry. The game gives you lots of greed over stealth options, and you do receive a rating at the end of each story arc based on what you choose.

The next area starts with a cut scene. The head ghoul is upset because the two guards in charge of stealing all jewelry, coins, whatever, off of the corpses haven't been using the butcher knife to check stomachs. You see him get the swallowed ring that you are after, and leave. Now, you have to get through this well lit room, and find him.

Fortunately, the blast doors of the furnaces shut from time to time. It's easy to sneak behind the guard at the table, do a quiet sneak attack, and grab what's on the table. If you time things right, you can swoop between the next two tables, grab what's there, and swoop to the stairs. The shadows are deep here, and the guards don't turn their heads, so relax. There's a peep hole on top of the landing, which shows you were the ring is. After you peep, just go through the door.

There is no one inside the office, so grab all that you can. The puzzle is very easy and straight forward. All you have to do is use the D-Pad to rotate and move around some tiles to match the pattern. Once a piece is matched, the game sets it in place, so you don't even have to worry about one going out of alignment while working another piece.

Once you grab the ring, the ghoul comes back, and there's a quick cut scene of you pushing him out of the room and blocking the door. Just grab anything you missed, and leave to the courtyard. There are three guards, and plenty of light. If you can, try to pick the guards off one by one. If you try to use the water arrow, one of the guards will relight the torch fast, so don't waste the ammo. You are also given the ability to dodge at this point, by holding LB and using LS.

Leave this area through an opening above a barn door, and head to the next. Don't miss the poppy on the ground. These restore your focus points. Head up the pipes and climbing points to a window. Outside, a very brief cut scene lets you know that ghoulie set off the alarms. Finally. For a general, he isn't very bright.

Your only way to movie is to the roof on the right. After a couple of steps, you fall through. Get up as fast as you can, and hide behind the shelves. You can surprise at least one guard there. Another will enter after you're done with the first. There is also some food on a shelve near the window. Grab it, and eat it if you need health.

Outside, there are some more guards, which are now alerted of your presence. so sneaking will be harder. There are also some caged dogs in the area. Since they're caged, they can't attack, but they do bark, which summons the guards to the area. Yes, it is possible to shoot the dogs with an arrow, but arrows cost money, and as I said, they can't attack. Save your ammo! it's rare to find, and expensive to buy.

There are a couple of crates in the area that you can use to reach a short climbing wall (the walls that look like a bird pooped all over it). Enter the window above it, and crotch down to pass through a small opening in a wall. Simply exit through the window, and your mission is complete. You receive your statistics for the mission, and then have to option to replay, or move on.

The next thing you know, it's five nights later, and you're back in the clock tower.

My review of the game SO FAR:

Eh. I thought the first Assassin's Creed was a lot better. AC let you buy from various vendors throughout the game, pick pockets for throwing knives, and move around more freely. All of the guards in this game seem to know you're a thief, just because you're wearing black leather. If that's the case, shouldn't Garrett (your character's name, by the way), have some sort of disguises that he can use?

If I hadn't played AC, I might enjoy this game more. It does offer some nice flexibility to how you play. Unfortunately, it has one very serious flaw. As I mentioned earlier, some missions cannot be completed unless you have all of the tools needed, such as the wire cutting tool. Once you start these missions, you can't exit it. I had started the game before I was doing capture test, and made the mistake of starting one such side mission. The only option that I had was to restart the game. Period!

As you progress in the game, you'll also find another very annoying element that the design team messed up, the maps There was one area the last time I played that was truly annoying, even though it didn't have to be. The area I was in was roughly two blocks long, in comparison to real life, modern city blocks.To get to the second story window I needed, I had to move from one end of the street, EXIT the area, sneak into a building, and leave through a window. All this just to get to where I was before, but on the other side of the street.

I don't know what your real life is like, but I don't have a lot of time for gaming right now. I don't want to waste ten or twenty minutes of my game time just crossing a street. When I come home from an annoying day at work, I just want to crack open a beer, play fetch with my cat Snorky, and kill a few stream punk guards. Is that really too much to ask from Square Enix, or Eidos Montreal, or any of the other companies behind this game?