'Options' doesn't change the fact that the underlying game is not good, uninspired, buggy, and the guard AI is still god awful on 'expert' mode.
Just because you don't like the default settings doesn't mean it's a bad game. Some people might like those settings. Those who don't, what, they CBA to just change them? Seriously? And it's the 4th game in the series, how much inspiration are you expecting?
I think the AI is actually pretty good. They notice if you douse torches or braziers near them with water arrows, they notice if a door suddenly opens near them. Granted maybe you're talking about different aspects of the AI, but since I don't let them detect me, that's all I've experienced. I remember dousing
wielded torches in earlier Thief games without alerting the guards.
I kinda like it when a game lets me push a button to do a specific action. If I push the wrong one, I do the wrong thing. If my timing is off and I fail, that's another way failure is my fault. It's fine to have a short range snapping action - for example, if I'm leaping and holding the "grab" button and I come close to the wall, make it so I grab the wall - because that's what I'm doing. I should never be pushing a button that should make me crouch and instead it makes me vault over the low wall I'm hiding behind. That's the kind of shenanigan you see when there's one context-sensitive button. There are enough buttons - just give me control over this game I'm playing.
Again, if you jump and miss, maybe you'll learn how to jump better in the game. It's ok to fail. Losing is productive - we know this around these parts.
There aren't any Mass Effect shenanigans of accidentally jumping over your cover. While jumping and climbing are merged into one context sensitive button, crouching has its own button, cover or "peeking," as the game calls it, uses the "use" button, and sprinting has its own button. Yeah, it's a little annoying to not have a real jump button, but you get used to it since you can jump over almost everything you'd expect to be able to. Well, everything you'd need to, anyway. You can actually "fail" your jumps too. Since the jump/climb/swoop button is also used to drop down ledges, if you're not decisive enough you might just drop off that ledge instead of jumping to the next.
It's not as worthy a successor to the Thief trilogy as Human Revolution was for Deus Ex (boss fights notwithstanding; but even Gunther was almost a mandatory boss fight in Deus Ex 1 unless you told Jaime to spy on UNATCO to get his killphrase), but it's still a good game in its own right. I think a lot of people are just mad it's not as good as the previous games. People hated Deadly Shadows when it came out too (I'm surprised it has a metacritic score of 85), from what I remember. That game had context sensitive jump too, though it didn't take away normal jumping.
Also I keep seeing reviews/comments about how easy it is to just kill everything. Disable focus in the options, disable all non-mandatory upgrades, and then see how long you survive in combat. Even one alerted foe is a challenge (or maybe I just suck) before you get those upgrades. Yeah, you can easy mode it once you get the slow mo focus combat and just bonk them on the head to 1-shot them unconscious, or arrow-time 5 enemies to death at once, but that's your choice, and you can even remove that choice if you don't have the willpower to abstain from it.
I'm watching a short playthrough RIGHT NOW and everything interactable is lit up like a christmas tree. Garett specifically says, "This switch is practically invisible" for a stone sticking very clearly out of a stone wall about three inches. It's also lit up and you can press a button to have the screen automatically snap to it.
Arrows are floating in the air, not even in a lying down position as if they missed the surface they might have been on, but at a diagonal pointing at the sky. Guards get hung up on terrain. Guards stand, red eye above the head, directly in front of you with nothing in between you and them, not moving. You can just stare them down, like a moron. "Wirecutters" in big red letters hover over things you need wirecutters for when you don't have them. It's not even a wire but a blank metal slab.
Pretty sure you can turn off most of those cues for the hidden switch. Obviously it's still gonna be sticking out, but if it were REALLY a hidden switch, you'd never find it unless you walked around spamming the use button on every wall. You'll just have to suspend your disbelief and assume that's how
Garrett sees the world. I'd hope he'd have great perception being a master thief and all.
I've never experienced any floating arrows. I do know that if you shoot someone through the head with an arrow, it'll stay there, stuck in his head, which would be quite gruesome if there were any blood; strange that there isn't since there's actually a fairly explicit (I'd call it hardcore if it actually showed penetration) sex show in the game. European sensibilities? You'll get to see your handiwork up close as you drag his corpse to throw into the river or other hiding spot. I've also never experienced guards standing there with red icon doing nothing. From the few times I've gotten caught, they seem to run straight at me and engage in combat. Maybe that was a beta build or something?
The wire cutters thing, I don't remember if I saw that text, but it doesn't really matter since EVERY use of wire cutters is the same. Every time you see that metal panel, you'll know it's a job for wire cutters, and that's the only job for them. Actually, the tools seem kind of stupid in that regard. The razor has only one use afaik, to steal paintings; the wire cutters have only one use, to disable to trap controls behind those metal panels, and even the wrench only has 2 uses, opening vent covers and stealing plaques.
Anyway, if you skip this one because of all these people and their 2edgy4me comments, I think you're missing out. It might not be worth a triple-A price (but seriously, what game is nowadays?), but it's not bargain-bin fodder either. This game is by no means shit, or even close to shit. The only way this can possibly be considered shit is to compare it to the original Thief, which has the massive innovation merit of inventing the entire sneaking genre. That would be extremely short-sighted and unfair.
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Topic: Thief 4 - Too polarizing to state quality in the sub-title (Read 13086 times)