Long.
This doubles as a review for the original release and the gold release, except for when I mention exclusive missions. This review is story-spoiler free.
If you're interested in playing the game, it often goes on sale for less than a dollar on steam. I heavily recommend using TFix, installing OpenAL to restore surround sound, and changing the controls to your liking, I prefer loading the Unreal preset and tweaking. Play on Hard or Expert for the best balance in difficulty. Last thing to note is that, while excess wealth carries over to the next mission, it cannot be hoarded throughout the game. After buying for the mission, any gold you don't spend is gone.
Thief Gold is a brilliant stealth game, one that is decades ahead of its time, and a product of its time in the best ways possible. The game features sprawling levels with high levels of interactivity, and a gameplay loop in which many of your actions can have consequences that will affect how the entire mission plays out.
In Thief, you assume the role of Garrett, a petty thief who, while meticulous, is ordinary as a white sheep in terms of capability and in status. The start of the game illustrates that you are someone who simply steals from largely dimwitted lords and royalty to pay for his rent, as opposed to some grand scheme. This is further emphasized in the game, as your combat skills compared to most, if not all enemies you face, are subpar; you have to use the shadows and the environment to your advantage. This factor is probably one of my favorite aspects of Thief, a game that forces you to play on its own terms, but also gives you a variety of options to tackle your objective. You cannot, or at least should not, simply kill the guards with your sword and bow, because you are at a disadvantage at any time when doing so. You have a whole arsenal of tools to use that, while requiring a condition to be effective, is the greatest way to develop an advantage when addressing any situation you find yourself in.
As the story ramps up, one other major element that Garrett has is, as stated prior, his meticulous nature when approaching his missions. Despite this, he is not perfect or clairvoyant. Early missions will grant you a detailed map, hand drawn by the player character, or other diagrams scavenged prior to departure, but later missions can have drawings that are misleading, objectives that are inaccurate, so on and so forth, and it is up to the player to extrapolate information along the way, or to get a mental image of what you're dealing with. There are no map markers, or location markers, or anything of the sort. I love how the team developing Thief forces engagement from the player, requiring attention and planning, as opposed to handing you the directions as if you stopped by a tour guide. The game does help alleviate any frustration by allowing you to buy tips prior to a mission, and you can also find notes that can tell you where to find something important in the mission, but otherwise it's up to you to get the job done optimally.
Interactivity is arguably the strongest suit of the game, and that is best shown by the amount of tools you have by default. Your best friend is the Blackjack, which can instantly incapacitate any guard, as long as they are unaware of you, or flashbanged by consumable flash bombs. A bow and arrow can take down a target from a distance, but you can have a wide variety of arrows that can do multiple things, such as a water arrow to douse a torch, giving you more darkness, moss arrows to soften your footsteps, and noisemakers that can alert a group of guards. You don't technically have to use all of these things, but the options being all there creates a highly interactive sandbox in every mission for your exploitation, both in game mechanics and the spoils stolen from greedy lords.
Thief Gold adds 3 missions, placed in between missions from the original release of the game. The latter two are good missions, but the first Gold mission (6th in game) is pretty bad. Speaking of bad missions, the later missions in the game can be of middling quality for many players, there is no shame in skipping them using a cheat code if you ever feel that a mission is a slog. My only other complaint about the game is that the Normal difficulty often cuts out major parts of missions that I feel make them more enjoyable as a whole, which is why I recommend the Hard difficulty even for the first time.
I give Thief Gold (and Thief II) a hard recommendation for just about anyone who enjoys stealth games, or immersive sims. I feel that the game is simply monumental within that niche, and I don't think I could run out of words of praise within my lifetime.
This doubles as a review for the original release and the gold release, except for when I mention exclusive missions. This review is story-spoiler free.
If you're interested in playing the game, it often goes on sale for less than a dollar on steam. I heavily recommend using TFix, installing OpenAL to restore surround sound, and changing the controls to your liking, I prefer loading the Unreal preset and tweaking. Play on Hard or Expert for the best balance in difficulty. Last thing to note is that, while excess wealth carries over to the next mission, it cannot be hoarded throughout the game. After buying for the mission, any gold you don't spend is gone.
Thief Gold is a brilliant stealth game, one that is decades ahead of its time, and a product of its time in the best ways possible. The game features sprawling levels with high levels of interactivity, and a gameplay loop in which many of your actions can have consequences that will affect how the entire mission plays out.
In Thief, you assume the role of Garrett, a petty thief who, while meticulous, is ordinary as a white sheep in terms of capability and in status. The start of the game illustrates that you are someone who simply steals from largely dimwitted lords and royalty to pay for his rent, as opposed to some grand scheme. This is further emphasized in the game, as your combat skills compared to most, if not all enemies you face, are subpar; you have to use the shadows and the environment to your advantage. This factor is probably one of my favorite aspects of Thief, a game that forces you to play on its own terms, but also gives you a variety of options to tackle your objective. You cannot, or at least should not, simply kill the guards with your sword and bow, because you are at a disadvantage at any time when doing so. You have a whole arsenal of tools to use that, while requiring a condition to be effective, is the greatest way to develop an advantage when addressing any situation you find yourself in.
As the story ramps up, one other major element that Garrett has is, as stated prior, his meticulous nature when approaching his missions. Despite this, he is not perfect or clairvoyant. Early missions will grant you a detailed map, hand drawn by the player character, or other diagrams scavenged prior to departure, but later missions can have drawings that are misleading, objectives that are inaccurate, so on and so forth, and it is up to the player to extrapolate information along the way, or to get a mental image of what you're dealing with. There are no map markers, or location markers, or anything of the sort. I love how the team developing Thief forces engagement from the player, requiring attention and planning, as opposed to handing you the directions as if you stopped by a tour guide. The game does help alleviate any frustration by allowing you to buy tips prior to a mission, and you can also find notes that can tell you where to find something important in the mission, but otherwise it's up to you to get the job done optimally.
Interactivity is arguably the strongest suit of the game, and that is best shown by the amount of tools you have by default. Your best friend is the Blackjack, which can instantly incapacitate any guard, as long as they are unaware of you, or flashbanged by consumable flash bombs. A bow and arrow can take down a target from a distance, but you can have a wide variety of arrows that can do multiple things, such as a water arrow to douse a torch, giving you more darkness, moss arrows to soften your footsteps, and noisemakers that can alert a group of guards. You don't technically have to use all of these things, but the options being all there creates a highly interactive sandbox in every mission for your exploitation, both in game mechanics and the spoils stolen from greedy lords.
Thief Gold adds 3 missions, placed in between missions from the original release of the game. The latter two are good missions, but the first Gold mission (6th in game) is pretty bad. Speaking of bad missions, the later missions in the game can be of middling quality for many players, there is no shame in skipping them using a cheat code if you ever feel that a mission is a slog. My only other complaint about the game is that the Normal difficulty often cuts out major parts of missions that I feel make them more enjoyable as a whole, which is why I recommend the Hard difficulty even for the first time.
I give Thief Gold (and Thief II) a hard recommendation for just about anyone who enjoys stealth games, or immersive sims. I feel that the game is simply monumental within that niche, and I don't think I could run out of words of praise within my lifetime.