N'Al on 25/2/2014 at 13:53

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FYI, Germany is East of the Rhine too. Well, mostly. EXCLAMATION MARK.

As for dis 'ere game, I'm still quite interested, but I'll be waiting on some guinea pigging* too, my backlog's simply too great at this point in time.

Nevertheless, I can still see myself finishing this game before Thiefs 1 and 2; so far, Deadly Shadows is the only Thief I've completed. Heresy, I know. EXCLAMATION MARK.




* Yes, that's what I'm calling it.

Jason Moyer on 25/2/2014 at 14:09

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Well, here's some impressions on the training mission, which of course isn't going to get into the story/AI/whatever:

It's not Thief. But it feels like a really well done stealth game. The contextual movement is why I would say it's not Thief, it makes it feel like you're being restricted but - as long as you're able to deal with that, the contextual movement feels pretty much like Assassin's Creed, Remember Me, Sleeping Dogs, etc. It's responsive and works the way you'd expect if you've played those games.

I'm playing with every HUD option turned off except for object highlighting, the light gem, and the health/ammo/etc meters on a timed fade. Initially I had interaction prompts enabled and object highlighting off, but it's far far better the other way around. Interaction prompts basically pop up a fat PRESS E TO LOOTZOR!!! HOLD E TO OPEN WINDOW!!!! around any interactive object. Object highlighting on the other hand, basically seems to work like Frobbing in the original games. Unlike DXHR where it highlighted every interactive object, this only gives them a frob glow when interaction is possible like in the originals. I'm debating (when I restart) turning on the reticle - not the reticle feedback, but the reticle itself. Aiming is pretty awkward without it because, unlike the earlier games, there is no sight to aim down so it's basically blind firing. I set the slower movement speed in the difficulty options, and movement feels properly slow and methodical - I'll have to try the default speed, but even in the bit where I'm running after Erin and vaulting over stuff I'm not moving at Assassin's Creed or Sleeping Dogs type speed. The body awareness is much less awkward than TDS, and things like peeking around corners or through keyholes is surprisingly great. Again, you don't have the FREEDOM!!!! of the earlier games, but we all know this isn't a sim as such and what they've implemented instead seems to work well. I'm pleased.

Graphically, on my i5-3570/7870 combo I'm running with everything cranked and FSAA turned off and it's smooth as butter. Supposedly this is the first game shipping with Mantle support, but I'm not sure how to enable that (and come to think of it, I don't have the Mantle-enabled drivers installed AFAIK). I don't think it looks particularly great, probably about the same as DXHR really, but it's functional. The art style is nothing like Dishonored thusfar and I'm not sure where people are getting that from; imagine TDS in high-def and you'd be closer. When I think of Dishonored I think of caricature, and contrast, and color - even in the dark/depressing areas. This feels grittier and more realistic while still stylized. Again, apply DXHR to TDS and you'd probably be on the right track.

Audio wise I'm satisfied with what's in the training mission. The music is suitably aping Eric Brosius (who in turn was basically doing Reznor) and the voice work is surprisingly not bothering me.

Some screens from training:

http://cloud-3.steampowered.com/ugc/3335217813940025161/60B103940258EA37B9E90252AB5E3582D48A1D4A/

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/3335217813940028328/3A2EDB1BBFCAAEAB7B01AC6A8FEE1778EF8E2E9E/

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/3335217813940030630/F2EE3402EBC7E9C0786D17048740570891801B1E/

http://cloud-3.steampowered.com/ugc/3335217813940033591/76CE94E07E05EC378B486D0239A808862CE7F7DB/

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/3335217813940036102/0A57ACC6B5FE7EE293431F83469E637C9B3CE151/

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/3335217813940038185/048EDA4465E0A85D6F62FA28DA67CEB720DC821B/

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/3335217813940041142/8B1BEE3A4A924B167584AA5855D394586432C584/

Jason Moyer on 25/2/2014 at 14:32

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Agree wholeheartedly!!!1111 Also enjoy some of that internet sarcasm myself!!!1111

The main reason it's funny to me is because of the ridiculous way it's used over on the Thief forums. Everytime I type it I can feel the thiefloon inside of me yearning to break free.

Jason Moyer on 25/2/2014 at 14:43

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I'll let you know. Of course, if there are those sorts of annoying objective updates, you can at least disable them from appearing in the display (I guess they'd still show up when you hit "escape" or something).

We'll see. I probably won't have time to get too far into the game until Thursday.

Jason Moyer on 25/2/2014 at 15:06

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Same with the location things. Personally I kind of like the objective/location updates, the way they're presented is clean and doesn't break immersion much.

Random things. Apparently the default master difficulty setting means you can't kill or knockout civilians so I think I'm going to disable the no kills/knockouts setting and see how it plays. If the global master difficulty setting under "custom difficulty" still keeps the "can only kill animals, can't kill humans, can only knockout armed guards" aspect then I'm fine with that. I'm going to keep the reticle off and see if I can get used to aiming with the gangsta bow. I think I may enable upgrades, at least on a first playthrough, just to see what they're like. Mantle support is apparently going to be patched in next month, although it seems to run well on a modest (7870) AMD card using DirectX (presumably 11 as it has a tesselation option). If Garrett's in-mission voiceovers annoy you, they can be disabled in the audio options (I honestly don't mind his voice actor which, again, I find surprising). The game asks you to link your Squenix account to the game when you first launch it, but the "register" button doesn't seem to work, putting my email addy in gave no feedback, and ultimately going to the menu and trying to register made the game crash.

I need to emphasize again that the movement feels very restricted. If the levels open up, as others have said, that's great, but it's not what I mean by restricted. When walking on beams across a street, I pushed towards the side which caused my stance to change (which seems to indicate that you can do a contextual jump/climb). No go, though. I've heard you can fall to your death later, so maybe it's a training thing, but that sort of restriction on movement will make a lot of Thief fans' heads explode. In the early going I haven't been able to interact with "junk" objects in the environment, although considering those interactions in the early games largely consisted of "grab something that looks kind of like loot but isn't, then throw it across the room causing a sound like a large boulder falling from a great height" I'm not complaining. It is by no means a sim, though, in the same way DXHR was by no means a sim. I think some people will never get over that. I'm still of the impression that it's a good game, though.