I was a bit worried since it's a stealth game and I'm not muchinto stealth. It exceeded my expectations, especially for a game that was released in '98/'99.

The game itself worked okay in Steam but it wouldn't play cutscenes. I was extremely confused after the first mission I stole a vase and then the second mission I was in a quarry all of a sudden. Thankfully the older Thief games have a lovely fan base that made a free "patch." It updated the graphics a bit, improved compatibility with new pcs, and (most importantly to me) it fixed my cutscenes. So that was necessary for me to play the game.

It aged fairly well for a game that was originally released in 1998. Heavy focused on stealth, tons of gadgets, original story, and some world building. I thought this was set in sorta medieval ages but there's magic and otherworldly enemies. It was creative and neat to see this new environment in an older game. Honestly even refreshing.

The Bad: well the voice acting isn't great. I mean it was made in '98 so I'm giving it slack. Sometimes the characters speaking would make me laugh. The cutscenes were fine. The protag and the soldiers are good for their time. The house servants in the game though? Oh man...it was like the voice actor wasn't taking their job seriously but it came off as humorous. It didn't bother my gameplay though, made me laugh.

I did not enjoy some of the maps. I felt the last three missions in the game were big MEH. A lot of underground dirt tunnels and the enemies did NOT compare to earlier enemies. I wanted to shake in my boots when I first saw the Haunts in earlier missions.

The Good: I enjoyed most of my time playing this gem. I like in older games, game devs weren't scared of using bright colors in their maps. Some "current" games on the top of my head that are dark and stealthy are covered in black and gray tones. Boring. This game had mansions with bright reds or greens on floor tiles, walls, furniture, etc. I wasn't expecting the big arsenal of tools either. Rope arrows to climb on high ledges, water arrows to drench torches so you can hide in the dark, etc.

All in all, I'm glad I played this game. I only played the missions on normal difficulty; there's harder content to play in the game to keep you entertained.

Slightly expanded version of Thief: The Dark Project with three whole new story missions and one blooper reel mission. Still contains the entire game, and Song of the Caverns along with the Blooper Reel are fun additions. Song of the Caverns is probably one of my favourite Thief levels, to be honest, so inventive and atmospheric and definitely an inspired choice to set a Thief level in [REDACTED]. Mages' Tower is pretty good although it does become inevitably linear towards the end, and Thieves' Guild is uh... sort of map where it seemed way better in concept but in execution just becomes needlessly convoluted. CTRL+Alt+SHIFT+END is your friend if you don't want to play certain missions.

Also uh, the Blooper Reel. This can be accessed by opening up the USER.CFG file as a text document and adding "starting_mission 16" onto it, then start a new game. Is pretty interesting, sort of is a showcase of various bugs that happened during development and people messing around with the game engine etc. Has the feel of a shitpost Doom WAD.

Thief Gold/The Dark Project is the beginning of my favorite game trilogy ever. It's rough around the edges but overall offers some very unique gameplay elements. This is one of the many times Looking Glass Studios changed the game for the immersive sim genre.

Thief 1, while having some rough levels and janky movement, is among my favorite games of all time. Every time I replay it, I find myself enjoying some of the more iffy levels and feeling more into its gameplay and the way it operates.

I definitely think out of the original trilogy, though, it's easily last place for me personally. But it's still very good and I suggest trying it if you're interested in more slowburn imsims. Easily one of the best stealth games of all time on top of that.

i am playing this game as "homework" for the oncoming wave of Thief-likes coming from the indie scene (particularly Blood West and Gloomwood, but i do intend to also attempt the recently released Filcher as well).

it's incredible what this game achieved in 1998, and a lot of the concepts feel modern even today.

that said, 15-20% of this game is just flat out bad, and it's hard to overlook that stuff when considering the game as a whole. the quality of the missions is pretty inconsistent, all of the combat is weak, but for me it was how esoteric some of the missions were that broke my spirit the most.

still, i don't regret my 30hrs with the game. it provides me with some cool perspective with which to revisit the Dishonored for like the 10th time. but Thief was fun not just as a piece of history, but in its own right too - despite my frustrations, this game had really high peaks that are worth experiencing.

It does a couple of things better than just about any game. The first of which is that it's one of the most embodied first person games I've ever played. This is to say that as a player, one feels keenly aware of one's own physical presence. How visible and audible the player is is almost the entire game, and the level design and balance of mechanics make it so that tiptoeing in and out of shadows is naturally dramatic and of consequence. Moreover, the game has a pretty decent movement system; leaping and climbing are actually really enjoyable, and it makes the more exploration-based levels work.

The other thing I like is a little in spite of itself. We can't pretend that Thief isn't set in a generic world, and that its larger story isn't similarly generic and that its major beats don't really land. But its concept and perspective---its choice of lead character and the spaces it puts them in, maintain interest and provide each level with its own arc. Something as simple as having the objectives change mid-mission based on environmental discovery goes a long way in legitimizing and immersing the player within its scenario.

It's a game where individual chunks of it are exquisite, but the quality of the levels, which I'll add feel very separate from one another, is inconsistent. There is glue holding it all together and that glue is very visible. Sometimes it's visible in its narrative presentation and other times it emerges as mission design that feels contrived (the switches in Undercover, the ghost fetch quest in the otherwise terrific Return to the Cathedral). Thief is an imperfect game with a wonderously imaginative central premise and mechanical execution. I'm looking forward to playing the sequel.

Also a theoretical extra half star for The Dark Project over Gold. Two of the additional levels are the worst in the game and just add bloat.

I played Thief Gold up to its 8th mission, The Haunted Cathedral. I did not rate it because it was a bad playthrough, but here are my thoughts:

1. Thieves' Guild sucks ASS, it was my worst experience in Thief Gold. When I get back to it, I will probably do The Dark Project instead, and maybe come back for the Gold missions later.
2. Missions like The Haunted Cathedral and Down in the Bonehoard were odd, certainly not what you expect from a legendary stealth game, but I've grown very fond of them. This game's atmosphere is overwhelmingly dark; these missions best capture that.
3. I am really bad at this game. When I played Hitman 2 (2018), I found myself getting frustrated when I fucked up the stealth too much and had to reload, and it was even worse here, because this game is way harder. Screwing up the stealth forced me to do combat, which is not Thief's strength, and also messed with my immersion. Maybe that's on me, but hey, that's why I'm not giving a rating.

I feel like I can love this game, because I so clearly found things to love, but I owe it another, more earnest try. I got more into Hitman 2 recently, so hey, maybe I'm not as bad at video games now, lol.
(feel free to comment)