Thief 3: Deadly Shadows

by Eidos

Product Features

• You are Garrett, a master thief trying to save his city from evil
• Advanced NPC AI
• Use cutting edge stealth to hide and lurk in the shadows
• Huge arsenal of thieves' tools
• For 1 player

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0001AN1GY
• Item Weight: 11 ounces
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: May 25, 2004
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (96 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,210 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

In Thief: Deadly Shadows, gamers once again take on the role of Garrett, a master thief. Garrett is rarely seen, never caught and capable of breaking into the most ingeniously secured places. Garrett steals from the wealthy and gives to himself, making his living in the dark and foreboding City. Preferring to be left alone to ply his trade, prophecies of an impending Dark Age dictate a different plan for the thief. In Garrett’s efforts to prevent this approaching Dark Age, he has inadvertently roused an ancient hidden evil. Without allies, Garrett finds himself standing alone between the City and the forces that would crush it.

Features:

• Cutting Edge Stealth: Hide in the shadows, sneak past the guards or ambush them in the darkness
• Brand New Game Perspective: Cinematic Third Person and Classic Immersive First Person modes are both fully supported and can be changed on the fly during gameplay
• Action Gameplay: Breaking and entering, stealing, sabotage, evasion, espionage, combat, assassination and setting up ambushes
• Huge Arsenal of Thieves’ Tools: Including lock picks, a blackjack, arrows with numerous purposes, wall-climbing gloves, oil flasks, flash bombs and a dagger
• Advanced Artificial Intelligences: AI guards that see and hear, track evidence and suspiciousness, search for intruders, fight, give chase, and perform lip synching, facial expressions and hundreds of lines of real time dialogue
• Dynamic Lighting and Shadow System: Every character and object casts a real shadow that dynamically affects stealth gameplay. Dynamically manipulate lighting to create your own shadows, but make sure your own shadow doesn’t betray you to those who hurt you
• From Warren Spector: Creator of the award winning series Deus Ex

Product Description

Welcome to the Ultimate Stealth Experience!Product InformationYou are Garrett a Master Thief rarely seen but never caught.  Movingsilently through the shadows you are able to sneak past any guard pick anylock break into the most ingeniously secured residences.  Stealing fromthe wealthy is all in a night's work.In this intense thriller of murderous conspiracy you must use your stealthtactics to uncover a sinister secret that lies within the city walls.  Willyour skills be enough to save the dying city can you survive betrayalassassins and war in the labyrinth of city streets?Product Features Tension-fuelled stealth as enemies see and hear track evidence search for intruders give chase and fight to the end. A variety of gameplay - Break and Enter Steal Combat Ambush and Assassinate. A huge arsenal of Thieves' Tools at your disposal: Mechanical Eye Flash Bombs Fire Arrows Wall Climbing Gloves to name but a few. Fully supported 1st and 3rd person perspective - it's your choice! Darkness is your weapon; conceal your presence sneak silently past guards and strike from the shadows.Windows Requirements Windows 2000 XP Vista 1.5GHz processor 256 MB of RAM 3 GB Hard Disk space Supported graphics chipsets: ATi – Radeon 8500 Radeon 9 Series (9000 9200 9600 9800); nVidia – GeForce 3Ti Series GeForce 4Ti Series GeForce FX Series GeForce 6 Series. Graphics card must support Pixel Shader 1.1. Unsupported graphics chipsets: nVidia – GeForce 4MX (460 440 420) GeForce 4 GO Quadro FX GO nForce 2 nForce 3 DirectX 9.0b compatible Sound Card (minimum); EAX Advanced HD supported – requires Sound Blaster Audigy range of Sound Cards DVD-ROM drive

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Initial thoughts on Thief III, May 27, 2004

By 

Jennifer Wilson (Mukilteo, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Thief 3: Deadly Shadows (CD-ROM)

First thoughts on Thief III, which I played for about 3 hours last night.

Fun, but not quite as fun (so far) as the first two. On my system, it's a little laggy, but that's probably because my video card is about middle/low end, as far as their specs go (NVidia 5500 FX) and I don't have the money to upgrade to the top of the line vid cards they want. Graphics are not as fabulous as I've heard, but again, I've got a middle of the road vid card, and I can live with it.

I dove right in without reading the manual, so of course, the re-mapped weapons keys came as an unpleasant surprise. I had gotten so used to hitting '4' to get my water arrows in the first two games, but that's '8' now. They also swapped the blackjack and sword (dagger) keys, so I kept pulling out the dagger instead of the blackjack. And honestly, I don't miss the sword, but then I never used it in the first two except to cut down wall-hangings. I never kill guards, and only the occasional spiders. But, these key mappings can be easily changed, so I'm not complaining too much.

Pros/Interesting positive changes:
The training mission rocks for getting you up to speed quickly. It explains all the buttons, and many of the changes between this and the first two games in terms of actions and dynamics.

The dynamic lighting is nice. You can now extinguish candles and other lights (but, strangely, not torches) by walking up to them and 'using' them.

I haven't tried out the third-person mode yet. "First-person" is not what people traditionally think of as first-person in games - it's just like the camera is mounted on Garrett's forehead. I like it, as it lends a little bit more realism to things - you can look down and see his feet, turn and see his arms. It takes a little getting used to, but I like it.

Garrett seems to comment a lot more in this game too. If you pick up an item and try to put it down in a spot where it won't fit, he'll say "uh-uh". He'll make little quips about locations like he did in the first two, but it seems like there's more of those.

Lock-picking is a lot more involved and a lot of fun so far.

There are pieces of loot that are special - they're worth more than regular loot, and are often figured into the objectives. Loot glint is actually helpful, although I can understand the complaints that it makes things too easy. But at the same time, they made loot and non-loot look a lot more alike in this game, and they still managed to hide some loot in out of the way places where you can't see the glint from normal eye-level.

The City mode is a lot of fun. I already ransacked Garrett's landlord's apartment. Just a word of advice - don't blackjack someone in the middle of the street in front of three witnesses. (*whistle* I hit the wrong button, so sue me. I was trying to pick his pocket)

With a few notable exceptions (see below), the physics are a lot more realistic. Almost everything Garrett touches can be moved - he can knock over chairs, knock swords out of sword racks, push large tables and crates, knock cups and plates onto the floor. On normal difficulty, the guards will come if they hear the noise, but they don't seem to notice things being out of place. I imagine on the higher difficulties, they'll start investigating.

Everyone complains about there not being any swimming and the substitutions of climbing gloves for rope arrows. I haven't missed either so far. The loading zones are mildly annoying, but not too bad - they kind of sub-divide missions into smaller chunks. I really didn't mind them too much.

Nitpicks/Little funny issues:
The bright blue "use" highlight is annoying. I can deal, but it's still annoying.

I miss the briefing movies. There are cutscenes, but when you enter a mission, Garrett just reads the text while it's on the screen. No pretty movies.

The physics of the unconscious/dead bodies is really funny. I blackjacked a guy and he bent over backwards in a position that probably should have left him paralyzed. It's now possible for Garrett to trip over the bodies and make noise. No longer possible to "stack" bodies in quite the same amusing way as the original, although that's probably for the best. (No more setting it up like the servants were messing around....)

I managed to make a guard kill himself - I blackjacked him while he was carrying a torch, and he fell on the torch and died.

There's not really an option to quietly set things down either, which is somewhat annoying. (Maybe there is, but I just couldn't find it?) I picked up a cup up from a table without realizing it wasn't loot (still getting used to the loot glint vs. the bright blue "use" highlight.), and when I hit the button for drop - he literally dropped it, it rolled off the table, clanged onto the floor, and attracted a nearby guard.

Overall: Fun, so far. I still prefer the first two, but then I'm only one mission into this one. It felt like Thief, though, which was the most important thing to me. More later!

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars On Par with the series, June 21, 2004

By 

Nicolas Green "Starving Poet" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thief 3: Deadly Shadows (CD-ROM)

Thief 3 continues Garrett's never-ending need to pay the bills. Taking place a couple years after Thief 2 concluded, we find Garrett unwittingly involving himself in a plot that might mean the end of time. The Age of Darkness, when light shall become shadow and life shall become pain.
IonStorm took over the Thief 3 project from Looking Glass for this installment, and with them, comes a new yet familiar view to the series.

Gameplay: TTDS starts you off on a training mission that walks you through the aspects of the game. Like the previous titles, Garretts friend is darkness, and the use of a highly modified UT2004 engine allows for some impressive shadows. Now, unlike the previous titles, shadows not only look more realistic, but they move as well. Garrett has lost some familiar equipment from the previous series. Constantine's sword is gone, replaced with a dagger. Might be a bit of a turn down from the purist perspective but apart from the inability to block, melee is melee. Rope arrows are also missing due to an inability to code them to work with the engine, which is a shame, but they have been replaced with climbing gloves that allow you to scale certain walls. All in all fairly clean importation of thief 1+2 standards.
What's poorly done, however, is the new enemy AI. It seems the coders spent more time on the graphics, which though nice, are not what makes a Thief title worthwile. The enemy is more responsive to its environment, knowning that there are crates, stairs, etc in the room, but they do nothing about it. You might hear, "I better check behind those crates" if you alert one, but they will never check them. The AI gives up far too soon, even on expert difficulty, and makes for a VERY easy game. Also, the AI seems to be far less responsive to sounds cues from the previous games. I've been able to run up to a guard on a tile floor and blackjack him before he ever got into high alert (weapon raised) posture. Enemies might also respond to other missing AI but again, do nothing about it. Quite sad, as I was looking forward to the enhanced AI which was touted pre-release able to relight torches and make a run for the money. Add all this to the fact that any sort of alarm system, the greatest challenges in the first two games, and TTDS ends up being quite a cakewalk.

Graphics
Not bad not bad. The engine is gorgeous, I'll give it that. Not all the textures are hi-res, but it is made up for with the beatiful lighting effects. Torch flickers and moving shadows just made me stare at the screen when I first loaded it up. These effects do come at a great cost. Very few graphics cards are supported and we're talking top end-boards here. ATI owners need to be aware that they need to run 4.4 Catalyst drivers or else they will have some horrible light glitches. Nvidia owners who own the FX 5200 chipset line - all 5200s and 5600s that those cards have poor pixel shading renderers and you will get horrible framerates. (I own one myself but was able to get by on the lowest settings). Again, very beatiful, but beauty was never Thief's selling points.

Sound
The sound is superb. Very thief-esc with voice actors that you have grown to love over the years. The ambient sounds and music set the mood as always but as I stated in the gameplay section, there is something lacking in the AI's sound detection. I think it's been dumbed down a tad and they have gotten rid of the large disparities between the louds and softs found in the previous titles. Some may actually enjoy this more, but I used to love seeing a tile floor and actually fearing it in the first two.

Overall
Well, it's not better than the first two, but it's definately not worse. The freestyle mode between missions is fun, but not needed as items are obscenely easy to come by as I beat the game on expert setting with full inventory and nearly 50,000 gold to my name. This game could have used some more optimization on the graphics end, and larger porting options besides the WinXP only setting as many gamers still use 98 on their rigs, but still fun.
The "immersiveness" (I'm tired of that word) of Thief 3 was almost non-existant until a certain point of the game, and had I written this review before then, it would have done much worse. However, I must say - there is a level in this game that scared me, scared me good. :) It's worth the buy, especially if you're a fan, and it will not let you down on the story. Though produced by a different company, they are true to the story started in the Dark Project and the conclusion will definately brink a smirk to a taffer like you.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ion Storm successfully continues a beloved franchise, November 1, 2004

By 

Griff (Washington, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thief 3: Deadly Shadows (CD-ROM)

Thief 1 and 2 are some of my favorite PC games. There's just something about the sneaking that seems like a welcome change of pace from other action-based games on the PC. When I first heard that Looking Glass Studios, creators of the first two games, was closing down, the only thing I could think of was "Oh man, I guess that means no more Thief games." Fortunately, Ion Storm has made Deadly Shadows.

I was pleased that for the most part the gameplay stayed the same as the first two. There may even be more emphasis on stealth this time around because in Deadly Shadows you have a dagger instead of a sword, which only does minimal damage. All the arrows are back, from the godly gas arrows to the seldom-used but sometimes useful moss arrows. Thankfully if you are stealthy you can kill people with just one arrow in Deadly Shadows, rather than turning them into a porcupine like in Dark Project or Metal Age. Your have your trusty blackjack again, this time with a neat system that lets you know when you're close enough to successfully use it on someone (Garrett raises the blackjack over his head). Also, you can "back stab" your opponents with your dagger, though it seems useless because it makes noise and is essentially the same as blackjacking your opponents. One quibble I have with the gameplay is that there are no longer any rope/vine arrows, which were replaced with climbing gloves in Deadly Shadows. Unfortunately, you don't really need to use them that often and the animation and control for them seem a bit clumsy. The AI has improved, but the guards are still pretty oblivious to your existence unless you take some sort of action. Also, there isn't too much variety to the guards. It almost seems like they used the same AI for every enemy and just changed the skin. But, enemies do notice when doors are opened, loot is taken, or their buddy isn't patrolling anymore and will come looking for you. The true experience comes when you play Deadly Shadows on hard, as there are more guards and they are MUCH more perceptive of their surroundings.

Another change is that you navigate your way through "The City" from mission to mission. While it's kind of fun at times, it seems that it should be bigger with more areas to explore. (Like "Life of the Party" in Thief 2) It also gets annoying to traverse the city and avoid the city watch when you are a ways away from where you need to get. Then again, I guess it makes it more realistic. You also will have to sell everything you steal to a fence located in each district of the city and buy your equipment from them too. Unlike the previous Thief games, your items and weapons carry over from one mission to another. This is a double-edged sword at times, because while you know that you can pretty much have everything you want for each and every mission, you might find yourself hoarding good items like gas bombs/arrows. Your map has changed slightly in that you no longer know what room you are in when you check it. Personally I like this modification because you find yourself doing more exploring rather than looking at your map to see how to get somewhere the fastest way. After you have explored a sufficient amount of the mission you're in, you can tell where you are on the map and how to get back to places you were with ease.

The graphics for Deadly Shadows are excellent. The character models are much more detailed than they were in Metal Age and the animation is much more fluent. The only real problem I have is that the plants and bushes didn't get much attention, but these are minor things when compared to the overall graphical presentation. Of course, the lighting effects are the most important graphical aspect of the game, and Deadly Shadows delivers brilliantly. Literally everything in the game is affected by light. Some of the enemies carry a torch while patrolling, which is really fun just to watch the way it affects the surroundings.

The Thief series is all about atmosphere, and Deadly Shadows is the best yet in that department. Each level is a little eerie, but the sound amplifies it and makes the experience much more engrossing. I have never played a game where the sound plays such an integral part in the overall experience. I played a few missions with the sound off after I'd played through them normally and it's like playing a completely different game. This game was made to be played in the dark with the sound up and the experience is unbelievable when played like that. "The Shalebridge Cradle" is one of the creepiest and most exhilarating experiences I have ever had in a video game.

Overall Deadly Shadows is a great game that most fans of the series will love. A technical problem with Deadly Shadows is that it's pretty choosy about your hardware. You need 512 RAM to play it smoothly and your graphics card has to be pretty recent as well. But, if you have a gaming PC and are looking for a good game to add to your collection, Thief: Deadly Shadows is definitely one you should consider picking up.