Malf on 12/7/2024 at 10:38
I was a Mac gamer at the time Thief 2 came out, and one of my friends had just bought a gaming PC. Thief 2 was one of the first games he bought, and he let me play it, and I was enthralled.
Being a Mac gamer, I had actually played Deus Ex before Thief 2. But it still managed to wow me.
But almost none of that was thanks to the graphics, which even at the time looked pretty dated. After all, it launched a year after Quake 3.
PigLick on 12/7/2024 at 11:16
My youngest daughter (17) is currently playing Thief 1 for the first time and is loving it, just doing Return to the Cathedral atm. playing on expert.
So there is still a market (niche obvs) for these kind of games I guess.
Thirith on 12/7/2024 at 13:08
@Sulphur: The comparison follows from henke wondering if the original game might seem underwhelming now compared to modern FMs on the same underlying (albeit heavily upgraded) engine. Some games hold up perfectly after 10-20 years because the tech and the game design were perfectly in sync, and technical advances might make these look better, but it wouldn't improve them in fundamental ways. My impression from replaying Thief 2 is that some levels suffer from what is possible these days in ways that not all old games do. And that's a different issue from whether the design fundamentals hold up, which they definitely do. You can appreciate something in terms of its fundamental design and still feel that it is more hampered in terms of what was possible at the time than other, similarly old games (or even other levels in the same game).
Sulphur on 12/7/2024 at 13:21
I'm saying that while Thief 2 could be critiqued at the time as its ambition outstripping its technical limitations (to some extent), the comparison of that with TBP is fairly odd because they're not on even terms - one has the benefit of time, experience (~24 years of it), and modern technology hoisting it up. As such, it's a bit oranges to grapefruits.
Thirith on 12/7/2024 at 13:59
I agree with what you're saying, but it's somewhat beside the point if the question is whether some of the original Thief 2 missions might feel somewhat underwhelming in 2024. Perhaps this is because I'm not overly familiar with the FM scene, but I doubt that every modern FM, or even the majority of them, is as well designed as those of the original games, even with the technical advances and the experience of decades. And IMO missions such as "Framed" and "Blackmail" hold up better than "Life of the Party" does. The latter would benefit from advances over the last 20+ years much more than the former, and IMO it suffers more from the comparison.
Harvester on 12/7/2024 at 14:17
Quote Posted by Thirith
Some games hold up perfectly after 10-20 years because the tech and the game design were perfectly in sync, and technical advances might make these look better, but it wouldn't improve them in fundamental ways.
I'm now playing Red Dead Redemption 1 on PS4. PS4 Pro has 4K 60FPS visuals but they are no improved assets. But I don't mind, I'm kind of in a mental 'squint-my-eyes-a-little' mode and to me these obviously dated visuals have a beauty of their own. It's miles off from RDR2 or something like The Last Of Us 2 (the last PS4 game I played) but I'm enjoying the visuals on their own terms.
Sulphur on 12/7/2024 at 14:18
Quote Posted by Thirith
I agree with what you're saying, but it's somewhat beside the point if the question is whether some of the original
Thief 2 missions might feel somewhat underwhelming in 2024. Perhaps this is because I'm not overly familiar with the FM scene, but I doubt that every modern FM, or even the majority of them, is as well designed as those of the original games, even with the technical advances and the experience of decades. And IMO missions such as "Framed" and "Blackmail" hold up better than "Life of the Party" does. The latter would benefit from advances over the last 20+ years much more than the former, and IMO it suffers more from the comparison.
I guess my issue is that the frame of reference isn't something I agree with on principle. It's like saying King Kong's claymation wasn't great, and that modern computer-assisted effects hold up better. Well, yes, they do - but that's a technical detail. Obviously it's going to feel dated, but it should have very little bearing on one's overall impression of the film. I understand that part of this is because we've witnessed great advances in gaming in the 20 years since, which is fairly compressed compared to any other medium. But: I think estimating how good something is from any perspective needs to be done on fairer terms, usually by adjusting your expectations according to what was possible. If I were to compare Ultima V to Ultima IX, I'd confess that the graphics took some getting past for V, but that shouldn't be a primary point of comparison unless it stopped me cold from even trying it.
Thirith on 12/7/2024 at 15:12
Perhaps we're talking past one another, Sulphur. For one thing, I find Ultima V to have aged much better than Ultima IX; the former was designed in a way that IMO was more in line with the technical limitations. There's an abstraction to the former that benefits it more than U9's 3D graphics that, a few years later already, didn't look particularly good. And indeed, there are the Thief 2 missions I've mentioned that IMO have aged better than "Life of the Party", because their design ambitions were less dependent on what the tech was and wasn't able to achieve. To be honest, even a mission like "Trail of Blood" holds up better for me (though I'd say it's much less interesting as a level), even though the natural environments never did look particularly good, because the tech was still used to create a certain vibe that was achievable with the engine in 2000. "Life of the Party" suffers for me in ways that many of the other levels don't, perhaps because even at the time there was already a larger gap between what the ambition was and what was possible, and it is this gap that for me results in the game feeling more dated than I would've expected. - again, in ways that other games from the time don't necessarily.
Sulphur on 12/7/2024 at 15:51
Perhaps we are talking past each other. My point is a big picture issue, specifically that it strikes me as nonsensical to compare an old game to a new one and say the older one's dated because of superficial elements like environment density, which really just boils down to <graphical complexity>, because that's obviously going to be the case the majority of the time. Your point seems to narrow down to validating the feeling the lack brings about today, which I guess is something where we just draw the point to: I agree, but I think it was always evident, even back in the year 2000, and it's not as important to me in the big picture as it seems to be to you.
qolelis on 13/7/2024 at 09:52
I'm still playing TP2: Road to Elysium—often in shorter bursts, solving one or two puzzles each session.
I got the TLJ trilogy at a good discount in the latest Steam sale:
* The Longest Journey
* Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
* Dreamfall Chapters
so now I'm playing that and am currently 5 hours into the first: dialogue-heavy, some moon logic, outdated humour in places, slightly buggy interface, really slow build-up, but alright: perfectly acceptable voice-acting, competent writing, interesting story, lots of details (for better or for worse). My main reason for playing is that I've heard people—even more into adventure games than I am—talk about it and praise it, and then the whole bundle got a good discount, so why not play it... It's apparently also known for indeed being the longest journey, and I can already see why: some might call it stretched with lots of filler, but we'll see what I think when I've played the whole thing.
Also, naming... I constantly need to check the release year for each, so I won't put them in the wrong order.
