Daveman on 16/2/2009 at 02:10
After finishing farcry 2 and other recent great looking games, I went back playing Thief 1 & 2 using 1680x1050 resolution and was surprised how great everything looks. This is excluding the use of any enhanced visual mod pack of course (except the widescreen mod). Anyone feel the same way? Maybe it's the engrossing atmosphere, art style, interactions, but the visuals aged quite well.
Thief13x on 16/2/2009 at 02:14
Amen to that! My roommate always laughs at me when he looks at them, but I feel since they kinda have a midevil atmosphere the more or less 'square' architecture of the games fits nicely.
I really do feel the games look great. Then again, my computer has 256 megs of ram, so Thief is pretty much all I have played for the past 5 years:p
Xorak on 16/2/2009 at 07:01
Personally, I don't think they're the best looking games in the world. For example, I'd like to see the people actually move their mouths when they talk rather than just standing there waving their hands or half-bowing. However, other times the graphics seem great. In fact, I was just trying out Crom's Blade, and the sewer area close to the beginning looked just as good as Thief 3.
But with that said, it doesn't bother me in the least that the games generally have older graphics. Once I get immersed into whatever level I'm playing, I rarely think about the graphics. I wish instead there were better gameplay options. I hate when the companies waste their time on graphics and then the gameplay mechanics come second (hello Thief 3,) and sometimes are just thrown in at the end. To me, that's a wasted game. Of course, I still play old Commodore 64 games and old DOS games that I played when I was a kid. I find the games I like and stick to them forever.
Tintin on 16/2/2009 at 09:15
The graphics weren't even very good for their time, so no, I don't think they look great. What makes Thief so great is the lore, the game-play, the atmosphere, the characters, The City. Good graphics hardly matter when you have all the other parts down-pat.
atolonen on 16/2/2009 at 11:39
I do think Thief looks good. Not from a technical perspective but from a design one - I mean that the choice of visual style, lighting, and such work really well, and help mask the technical shortcomings of the engine to a great degree. I especially love how pitch black shadow is used in Thief 1 (the cell block in Cragscleft comes to mind immediately), and I'm a bit sad that they abandoned this approach in the later games, even though it's easier to see the surroundings in them.
Melan on 16/2/2009 at 12:05
I am with atolonen - Thief is no longer cutting edge technologically (although it can do an astounding number of things which are not necessarily graphical, and may be missing in modern engines), but it has a fairly consistent visual design (TDP more so than The Metal Age), top-notch music and sound effects, and a still not often copied attention to the Z-axis.
Muzman on 16/2/2009 at 13:33
Quote Posted by Tintin
The graphics weren't even very good for their time, so no, I don't think they look great.
If we're talking Thief 1, everybody says this but you'd be hard pressed to think of anything that's better other than Half-Life.
Anyway back to the point; In terms of polygonal detail and so on they are pretty clunky and dated fairly quick in that sense. But the soft lighting and phong shading in that engine was way ahead of its time and they knew how to use it well with the textures. The animation and physics too are so good it is still a very, let's say, visually potent game. I've always got that 'I'm there' sense much more with these games than with any number of more recent and prettier titles.
PotatoGuy on 16/2/2009 at 13:39
Even with the graphics, I always had and still have the "I'm there" feeling at Thief. Personally, IF they would create a Thief 4, I'd have the Thief 1 and 2 graphics rather then Thief 3.
fett on 16/2/2009 at 18:54
Quote Posted by PotatoGuy
Even with the graphics, I always had and still have the "I'm there" feeling at Thief. Personally, IF they would create a Thief 4, I'd have the Thief 1 and 2 graphics rather then Thief 3.
QFT.
When a game with 10 year old graphics can still suck you in so much, what does that say about immersion? Same thing for SS2. Notice how often you are willing to pause the game when playing Thief or SS as opposed to HL2 or Fallout. Doesn't bother me a bit in newer games. With LGS games, I literally feel like I'm going to miss something in the game world if I walk away from the computer - like the world is still functioning and moving even when I'm not there.
That says a lot to me about believability being about much much more than graphics. There is something to be said for imagination playing a major factor in immersion. Compare playing D&D the old way to playing it in a MMORPG. World's of difference because you are supplementing the material with your own fantasy. Same thing with Thief - the graphics may lack a contemporary look, but I simply don't notice it because I'm so lost in the game world.
jtr7 on 17/2/2009 at 02:19
Thief is great for the theatre of the mind!
I don't much compare Thief to other games' graphics, but I do compare other games to Thief. Having played video games since Atari's Pong, graphics were rarely an issue. Playability, challenge, inventiveness, and fun were the motivations. Many games have a unique feel to them, but Thief was the first game that created an atmospheric experience I just wanted to soak in. It's a wonderful bonus that just parking it in a shadow to watch and listen is an intentional part of the game play. I've never wanted to just study the constructs and objects in a game before. I would never want to meddle or dare seriously to "improve" on the Thief Universe. It's another world I love to escape to, and I love that it isn't our world (not that I wouldn't mind bringing a bit of the Thief Universe into ours).:D
