Dussander on 8/5/2006 at 19:45
I'm quite impressed that this thread hasn't turned into a bitter T1/2 vs T3 debate like so many others before it. Then again, the others were in the thief general forum. :)
Kovitlac on 10/5/2006 at 04:58
Of course there is always something special to be said about the origional games. But I find myself playinh Thief 3 *far* more often than the others (I still can't force myself to finish Thief 1 and 2....I'm always playing 3 over and over!). The shadows and the graphics are just beautiful. I wish the cutscenes had been done better (the characters show about as much emotion as a broom stick). But Garret is still the same old Garret, which I am happy with.
I also love love LOVE the City. I love being able to sell my stuff as I want to and rob bars on the side and whatnot. I also love the whole being friends with the Pagans and/or the Hammerites. Makes the gameplay different everytime you play.
So yeah - Thief 3 is first for me.
Tintin on 10/5/2006 at 06:51
Even despite the really bad CGI cutscenes later on? What's with that? Surely not a design choice. I do think Thief 3 had the best story, but I'm rather fond of the others as well.
tiger@sound.net on 10/5/2006 at 07:20
(BTW, Kovitlac, the very first CGI cut-scenes, that I have ever really appreciated, were the ones done for the old Silent Hill 3 game. Because it was accomplished using the very same models and textures taken from the game. And then, they were made to facially animate and lip-sync via Pixel Shader graphics. So, simply imagine all of the T3 characters looking exactly as they should, after our gameplay experiences. And they would still be the same, even with modified costumes. If they are ever done?)
And this is way off topic, but it might be interesting to note the very simular "freedom of choice" between the "City Streets" of T3 and "the streets" of Paradise AZ, within Postal2. :cool: (But I really do find, on the whole, that T3 OMs have a much better variety of pathway choices.) And those choices, along with a player's ever changing ghosting or aggression decisions, are a major part of "T3's replay-ability" to me, folks! :thumb:
(Now, if we could just figure-out an easy way to improve T3's "Thief Highway" to give its City Streets, another "pathway choice" or three?) :angel:
Kovitlac on 10/5/2006 at 15:18
A more extensive Thief's Highway would be great:-)
And I don't have Silent Hill 3 but I do have 2, and I thought those cutscenes were awsome, too.
tiger@sound.net on 11/5/2006 at 14:46
Quote Posted by Kovitlac
A more extensive Thief's Highway would be great:-)
And I don't have Silent Hill 3 but I do have 2, and I thought those cutscenes were awsome, too.
Yep, but it might be too complicated, though. :erm:
(Adding some extra static-mesh pieces like some of those current awnings, along with some fake balconies for variety and then creating wider ledges, etc, to really expand the Highway, might require way too much effort with those .gmp file within your "C:\.......\.......\CONTENT\T3\Maps" folder? And then adding special ledge-pieces for proper reverse-mantling, like a normal ladder, would probably be too much, also?)
And heck, I'd be happy with a small, red pointing-upwards hand symbol being added to the maps at the current "good climbing-spots" within the City Street maps! :thumb:
(And to get rid of some more "documentation dependency" and boredom, simply add a very small green outlined-symbol for the corner-stones and a tiny outline of a golden bug for all of those beetles?, perhaps?) :angel:
***
Which I finally did here, in part, a bit later. :cool:
(
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=106335) T3 Climbing and that Thief's Highway idea
***
(Btw, SH2 cutscenes are still using .bik movie files, that are done from independent character objects, etc. . . So you can play them, directly from your "C:\Program Files\Konami\Silent Hill 2\data\movie" folder using Bink.)
But SH3 is using game-objects and their textures with special animated Pixel Shader graphics for facial expressions. That's why you can have Heather changing her in-game costumes, to anything that you want and she will still appear to be a-okay within her SH3 movies.
(Please, see my SHM and SHAM groups or simply play the game and change some of her costumes for a taste of that "magic". And to me, that is where Ion Storm should have been heading-towards with their T3 movies, folks.) :thumb:
Gingerbread Man on 17/5/2006 at 04:59
Quote Posted by tiger@sound.net
This looks like a good message to ask my little "bottom line" question. :cool:
In terms of "replay-ability" which do you prefer out of all of the Thief series?
(Please, use only the Thief OMs. . . And thanks!) :thumb:
I replayed Thief 3 exactly one-half of a time.
I replayed Thief 2 a couple of times, but not every mission.
I replayed Thief 1 more times than I can remember.
It was very difficult to fail in Thief 3, primarily because a) you never ran out of weapons or the loot to buy them and b) the levels seemed to be strings of little Encounter Scenes in which you'd leave one area, enter a new area, and immediately have to deal with the one or two patrolling AI you found there. Contrast that to the criss-crossing patrols in Bafford's Manor or Ramirez' place... It easier to screw up
without necessarily failing in Thief 1 -- it was easier to screw up with some kind of chance to make an utter mess of things and still escape -- only to sit wondering how the hell you were going to go on now.
Failing in Thief 3 generally resulted in death or frustration for me, never (and I stress
never) in renewed determination to succeed despite the setbacks / catastrophes / really stupid choices and self-inflicted situations I'd just extricated myself from.
Thief 3 seemed very linear -- whether it actually was or not -- compared to the first and second titles, and that kills replay for me. Alternate approaches, subtle tactics, and interesting use of tools just wasn't as apparent in Deadly Shadows' level design... it may have BEEN there, but if the player doesn't notice three tantalising possibilities through very cursory reconnaissance then it's wasted. There might have been other ways to get around the Clocktower, for instance -- but as far as I could tell it was mostly a case of "go around the corner, aha Encounter... figure out Encounter, proceed to next Encounter... do I run across while they're not looking or do I crawl behind the boxes?"
Metal Age was ever-so-slightly weaker than Dark Project in terms of replay, but not much. Escape wasn't as numbingly dull as Soulforge, but Life of the Party was crazy replay. Markham's Isle was almost too linear, but it still had those moments where you had to keep your eyes and ears trained on separate things because there was so much going on. The tension created by having to time things perfectly adds flavour to the success.
Um.
So, yeah. Deadly Shadows held almost no interest for me when it came to possibly playing it again. The only reason I replayed it halfway was because I upgraded my computer and wanted to see it with better graphics etc... But after all that tedious wandering through the City, formulaic and pattern-driven encounter situations, and just plain lack of anything that made me enthusiastic, I basically said "Okay, that was probably a one-shot game after all" just like I did with FEAR and Doom 3.
Metal Age had some shining moments of replay, and Dark Project I still play here and there because there's always something I was meaning to try.
One of the other things it boils down to for me (and I only just thought of this, which is why it's getting tacked on the end here) is that in Dark Project there was exploring and figuring out how to do the unexpected. In Metal Age there was exploring and figuring out how to do something tactically advantageous. In Deadly Shadows all of that feeling was gone, and I was left with the suspicion that I was just hunting for exploits.
Ziemanskye on 17/5/2006 at 09:33
Good points GBM.
Personally my irony of TDS replayability is simply this: I played the demo a great deal, playing with the world and taffing about.
But I haven't replayed the game at all (well, a few goes through the training mission, but given that really is linear I don't count it)
