Jarkko Ranta on 17/3/2014 at 18:59
Probably in '99 (I was about 13 years old) I heard my classmates to talk about a game with horrible zombies that just won't stay dead. (Hadn't played Quake.) Later I read about Thief: The Dark Project in a library's magazine section, and almost laughed my head off because the writing in the review was so funny ("Surprise the guard with an arrow to the back, or it will take arrow after arrow and he will dance porcupine tango before dying."). The game looked great, but I had so old computer that running the game was impossible (it had trouble running Doom!). Later I read the review of Thief 2 (co-reviewed by the person who reviewed The Dark Project, as the main reviewer hadn't played the first one) and found the game as a Sold Out game. With a newer computer I played the game and loved it, despite not knowing what happened in the first one. Maaany years later I visited Estonia and found a Sold Out version of The Dark Project (that I couldn't find anywhere in Finland!), and with characters like Constantine I probably love it more than Thief 2. (Of course T2 has better mission design, but the story in The Dark project is just superb.)
Cori on 18/3/2014 at 07:28
I'm a bit of a latecomer to Thief...I only found out about the series back in late 2010 (I was a little too young to play the games back in the 90s anyway). I was trawling through TV Tropes one night and wound up finding a page for the Thief games. I read through it, and the concept of the games interested me, but I had a 'history' with stealthy bits in video games that made me nervous about trying this game for myself.
I wound up watching a playthrough of the first game on Youtube and fell in love with the series. It helped me to get over my hang-up with stealth games, too. I actually wound up naming one of my characters after Garrett, and associated him with shadows (though my Garrett quickly deviated from Thief Garrett in personality, mannerisms, and backstory).
Garrett is one of my favorite video game characters, now. I've always been fond of thief/rogue type characters.
sjb5001 on 30/3/2014 at 23:17
I remember having a demo disc with Tomb Raider and Thief on it. I'm not sure how the disc came into my possession because the only computer we had was my dad's work laptop, so it wasn't from a graphics card or anything.
Divine intervention most likely.
Man, I replayed Bafford's Manor and the training mission countless times. I was hooked! And those 5 minute loading times and 640x480 resolution in software mode didn't stop me! :laff:
ClashWho on 31/3/2014 at 17:23
Quote Posted by Fearless Benny
How did you find out about Thief (the original games)?
I'm very fortunate I discovered The Dark Project, because I just saw it on the shelf in a retail store when it was new and thought it looked cool, so I bought it. I hardly ever do that. And it ended up being the best game I have ever played.
Quote Posted by downwinder
happen to see a strange shaped box on the shelve it was the first thief
Quote Posted by Dahenjo
I also bought TDP at CompUSA in the trapezoidal box when it came out in '98
Yep, I have a feeling whoever designed that distinctive packaging garnered them quite a few sales.
Quote Posted by arandomgamer02
I remember the trapezoidal box but in my infinite wisdom I threw it away, because why would you ever want to keep a box? Wish I had it back.
I might still have that box in a closet in my dad's house. I definitely still have the keyboard map insert, because I took it with me when I moved. :cheeky:
AngelWolf on 5/4/2014 at 20:52
I remember playing a demo I got with one of the Tomb Raider games. Playing as a thief in numerous D&D campaigns, I was blown away by Thief's lighting, the ability to manipulate the environment to your advantage, and the use of sound as part of the gameplay. Time passed, and one day I was in a video game store at my local mall when I spotted the box for Thief Gold on sale. I bought it, played through Bafford's and Cragscleft, then got scared pretty badly by Bonehoard. It felt out of place compared to what had come before, with it's large and confusing architecture and the constant threat of the lumbering zombies. It almost made me lose interest in the game. But every once in a while I would go back and play the first two missions again, eventually getting skilled enough to play them on expert. I started reading about the game online, learning the best ways to deal with the zombies and burricks. Finally I beat it and kept playing, only to get horribly lost again in the Lost City. I started drawing my own maps. Then System Shock 2 came out and scared me even worse. The horrors of Thief were tame by comparison and I eventually completed the game on expert. After getting used to the scary missions, I actually kinda missed them when I got around to getting Thief 2. Thankfully, there were already lots of fan missions by then.
Years later, I joined a D&D group with my girlfriend, and during one of the sessions we started talking about Thief and System Shock 2. One of the other players smiled with pride and said "I actually designed the hydroponics area for that game". The player's name was Mike Ryan.
Mortal Monkey on 5/4/2014 at 23:02
I found Thief 2 in a bargain bin while on vacation in Germany. My parents made me choose between that and some 2D puzzler that was probably pretty lame. The pictures on the (
http://img.gamefaqs.net/box/2/0/6/1206_back.jpg) back of the box had me sold.
Nightcrowe on 6/4/2014 at 11:18
Until 1999 I didn't see the appeal of computer games right up to the point where my son dragged me into a games shop and showed me a pre-owned game box of Thief: The Dark Project.
He knew I've always had an interest in Medieval history (along with the Ancient Greeks, Romans & Egyptians) so thought that the game and setting would appeal to me. The whole thing intrigued me enough to buy it and begin to learn to play a First-Person game. I was hooked immediately. The zombies scared me too much for a long while until I realised I could outrun them, so after my steep learning curve, I completed the game on expert several times. :cheeky:
Menageryl on 7/4/2014 at 04:17
I have a generally terrible memory, but I'll do my best...
I _believe_ it was the year 2000 sometime... Deus Ex had been released but a short time, and I grabbed it real-quick being a major sci-fi / dystopian-future / conspiracies / cyberpunk fan...
Not long after (or during) the Deus Ex experience, I did some reading about the game and at some point came across an article or forum post or something that mentioned the Thief games favourably - essentially recommending them to people who liked Deus Ex.
South Africa was really not a great place to find games at the time... Fortunately I soon was able to find a copy of The Metal Age and started in on it. Loved it. But couldn't find a copy of The Dark Project anywhere... Not _too_ long thereafter managed to find me a copy finally.
Since then there has consistently been running copies of all three games on whichever PC of mine was my primary, main-use computer at the time - right through until today.
Over the years I also made sure I had backup copies of each game too - having experienced the sad loss of access to a favourite game because the disks were lost or damaged... I think I have about 3 physical copies of each game right now today (same goes for Deus Ex) AND then another, single disk that contains all three in a trilogy-pack.
And then there are my virtual ISO backups. :-D
Blastfrog on 7/4/2014 at 07:04
My story's pretty mundane. I occasionally saw people reference the Thief games in places I frequent, and since they all said the games were good, I decided to pick Gold and Metal Age up on a whim in mid 2013. I was expecting a competent stealth game, instead I was absolutely blown away. I hadn't been so immersed in any game for many years. What surprised me most, beyond the very compelling world of the City, was how amazing the audio was for such an old game. It still surpasses most modern games, especially a certain terrible reboot.
Cigam on 7/4/2014 at 14:46
I just saw Thief DP on sale in a gamestore one day. Had no prior plans to buy it, and no great expectations of it, and I wasn't even entirely sure what kind of game it was. But it was a cheap Sold Out release and so I got it on a whim.
I first had the feeling that this was something really special in Cragscleft, IIRC. By the end of the Maw it was one of the greatest games I had ever played.
