Thief: Deadly Shadows
PC
Ion Storm / Eidos

The third in the line of the truest stealth game series, Thief: Deadly Shadows follows the master thief Garrett through yet another prophecy. The game stays very similar to its forebearers in gameplay. It's the basically the same, but it feels a little different since the controls are clunky. You can now also view the game from a third person view, to let console players play the game like Splinter Cell, but I kept it in first person because I'm a traditionalist. The light gem that tells you how visible you are returns, but Garrett trades in his sword for a dagger. Although it makes since that a thief would wield a dagger, I missed the ability to block attacks with the sword. Most of the other weapons return, including the blackjack which is used to knock enemies unconscious, and a wide assortment of arrows including the ever important water arrows which are used to douse torches to create darkness. Later in the game, you can buy gloves that allow you to climb walls. Although a novel idea, you rarely can scale walls, and almost never have to. The missions are much the same, sneak around a building and steal anything valuable that's not nailed down. The guards act much the same as in the other two games, but in addition to noticing dead bodies and knifes in their back they now notice missing guards, torches that are out, open doors, and missing items. They still give up after a few minutes even if they saw you in broad daylight. The biggest change is that between missions you get to walk around the city, where more opportunities to "acquire" wealth exist. While in the city you can sell your stolen items and buy items to help with your thieving. You can also do favors or subquest that affect how two factions, the Hammerites and the Pagans treat you. If allied, you can walk around their territory without the need for sneaking. A nice addition to the game, but it is not important to the story. The biggest problem I had was that, the game would randomly lock up or dump me out to Windows. It apparently works fine on a nVidia card, but not on my ATI card. Even with these irritations, I really enjoyed the game.

Score: 9.0

Wise Duck