zacharias on 6/12/2012 at 02:24
Updated thoughts/contribution to this thread after a few more years:
- Thief 1 manages to evoke a lot more emotions for me. Dread, revenge, etc. is better realised here than in Thief 2. A lot of this is because of lots more undead etc., but also as people have noted the music is better in Thief 1. It seems like the audio guys put all their best stuff that they'd been working on for years into the first game (a bit like where many bands first album is their best work - they cram all their good stuff into it and later struggle to match it). Thief 2 was still great in the ambient/sounds department, but not as great.
- The structure of Thief 1 is more like a typical dramatic arc, where you go through the lowest low two thirds of the way through, and then redemption later. In contrast the emotional highpoint/lowpoint of Thief 2 is maybe Trail of Blood (the pagan village), that was a great moment and one of the few bits to match Thief 1 in emotional power. Thief 2 is really the downfall of Karrass and his descent into madness, more than the story of Garrett. The most fascinating bit of the game in story terms is concerning an npc.
- Thief 2 has great missions, but as noted they fail to engage the player in a developing story quite as well as Thief 1. Trail of Blood is an exception i think but there's not quite enough of this. Thief 1 starts out with some great missions (Cragscleft is a personal favourite of mine) but it even builds momentum and the run of missions from 'The Sword', collecting the talismans and through to RTC and the subsequent cutscene is dare i say, one of the best realised sequences in all of gaming. After this it all goes a bit south with the last three missions but by then we've got what we came for anyway.
- Thief 2 has great environments like 'Shipping and Receiving' and 'Escape' but they're not tied into the story as well as the first game managed. This has been extensively discussed so i'll just leave it at that.
- Thief 2 was more consistent in some ways but the highs are not as high for me. I struggle to name a great mission in the second half of the game, with the exception of Life of the Party (everyone loves that) and TOB. The Casing/Masks repeat feels like padding. With Thief 1 the great levels come easily to your mind: Assassins, Cragscleft, The Sword, RTC, Bonehoard, Lost City.
- I really believe Mike Ryan made an exceptional contribution to Thief 1: Cragscleft, Assassins, The Lost City and The Maw (admittedly not as great). Wow. Quite a list. Thief 2 really missed having a few of his levels! (I'm pretty sure i'm right in saying he didn't do any, although he may have worked on some bits here and there but i believe he was working on Shock2 for the most part.)
- Thief 2 doesn't join the dots very well sometimes eg. Sherrif Truart's murder, the player is expecting some sort of payback or comeuppance but it feels like it's taken out of your hands entirely too much (i guess this was a decision taken based on what was easily do-able in DromEd though ). Then Moseley becomes a big player but after TOB she disappears entirely, the Moseley story thread is cut. What happened? Also, the 'romance' or closeness with Viktoria is not believable (this never bothered me at the time because i played Thief 2 first but looking back after knowing what happened in Thief 1 it's not believable).
Baldur on 6/12/2012 at 09:59
Personally, Thief 2 requires a bit of patience but a solid game play. A little boring in parts and a very great atmosphere plus improved graphics thanks to latest upgrade release.
Thief 1 is all round fun with bits of humour,, impressive story, much better atmosphere and not that boring for long hour sessions.
In short both are cool and not one moment where the lack of interest was felt over any mission.
VanBurenPhilips on 6/12/2012 at 21:41
In response to ZB & shacky, I think T2 has a strong sci-fi horror element (kinda like SS2) rather than supernatural horror, different from Thief on the face of it, but for me the experience is not that far removed. Would be interested to hear why you think it's not horror.
Quote Posted by skacky
The Haunted Cathedral rubbish? Really? We won't get along well. :cheeky:
Yeah, sorry man, I hate it. On my first replay, I changed my mind about some of the levels I initially didn't like, but this wasn't one of them. For one thing, I find the street layouts really awkward and unintuitive - similar feelings about T2's Ambush, I don't enjoy that one much either. I guess nearly every level has navigation puzzles, and I usually find them rewarding but those particular ones just don't work for me. They feel like chores.
jtr7 on 7/12/2012 at 01:00
I found many levels' layouts awkward and unintuitive, but they made sense for that world and where they derived inspiration from, with caves, volcanism, earthquakes, lots of hills and runoff, hard and soft rock beds, etc., but yeah, I kept getting turned around and losing my sense of direction until I got to study the levels in DromEd.
Unkillable Cat on 10/12/2012 at 16:25
For the first time in years I've been replaying Thief Gold and Thief 2, and I'm clearly in the camp that prefers Thief Gold to Thief 2.
Atmosphere: TG wins. For a game calling itself "The Dark Project" it actually LIVES up to its name. It's dark as crap at times, and as expected there are things in the dark that go *bump* in the night. Also the little environmental sounds that are played like when you enter a room, or open a chest, they REALLY add to the suspense. Thief 2 has almost none of them by comparison, and the darkness in T2 seems and feels more trivialized.
Variety: TG wins this one easily. Each level is sufficiently different from the last one that you're never bored. There's a large variety of enemies and they're rotated well enough not to become tiresome. By the time you reach Escape! the levels become simpler, more streamlined, and have a stronger focus on action rather than stealth, but it's understandable, because at that point you want resolution for all your hard work, and revenge for getting shafted.
By comparison, Thief 2 struggles. A nice mix of variety is introduced in the first half of the game, but yet there's a noticable lack of it compared to Thief Gold. I'm at Precious Cargo now and I've counted 3 Haunts and 6 Zombies in Thief 2, for example, compared to the dozens of them in Thief Gold. No Burricks, no Craymen and no Bugbeasts either. It's all humans and Iron Beasts. It becomes dull and tiresome, and I understand everyone who reaches Sabotage At Soulforge and just gives up. The missions themselves are problematic. Ambush! and Tracing the Courier use the exact same map with next to no change in scenery, while in Thief Gold any reused maps were only reused partially and/or heavily modified. Do I have to mention Casing the Joint and Masks, almost the exact same mission twice in a row?
Style: Here I think they're equal, but for different reasons. Thief 1 portrays not only a industrial-age City, but also the dark and rotting underbelly of it. Thief 2 portrays the same city in a sort of industrial Renaissance, with Art Deco-style buildings towering over the cityscape and modern-day technology creeping in, but almost skips portraying the dark parts of the city. (On that note, how did a building like Angelwatch get built in roughly one year? Seriously?)
Technical: Thief 2 wins. The Dark engine behaves better and has more options in Thief 2. The only thing that I felt was "missing" from Thief Gold was the kangaroo jump (come on, it's fun!).
Overall: Thief 2 is the better product, but Thief Gold is the better game.
zajazd on 10/12/2012 at 19:47
I hate Thief 2, I still don't understand how they could turn the amazing masterpiece that is The Dark Project into the atmosphere-less trash (with ROBOTS!) that is Thief 2. But unfortunately there have been other cases like that in the games industry: Mafia and Mafia 2, Deus Ex and the sequels, the new 'hitman' etc.
voodoo47 on 10/12/2012 at 20:55
well, the general solution for the "I hate that game" issue is "don't play it then". can't recommend it enough.
jtr7 on 10/12/2012 at 21:06
Except, of course, you have to experience enough of it the first time before you can rightly declare you hate it, and if you continue the experience willingly, in hopes of acquiring the taste, that also nullifies the whole avoidance argument. Same with people saying if you don't want to see something then don't look, hear something then don't listen, as if the first time is avoidable, and as if there aren't numerous circumstances where the choice is removed.
voodoo47 on 10/12/2012 at 21:33
hmmm, you got a point there.
ZylonBane on 11/12/2012 at 21:44
Quote Posted by voodoo47
well, the general solution for the "I hate that game" issue is "don't play it then". can't recommend it enough.
Don't feed the troll.
