Premature Thief Impressions

I was wrong. Thief unlocked some time this morning. Yesterday, the countdown on Steam indicated a 1PM central unlock time.

I've been able to squeeze in almost a couple hours today, and here's what we got so far. Bear in mind, these impressions are drawn from the best version available, the PC version.

First things first, this is a fairly good-looking game. I've maxed all the settings, but turned the anti-aliasing off, and performance is good. Thief is one of the few games out there that actually relies on crisp visuals, since much of the game is contingent on concealment, and things like line of sight, as well as light, dark, and shadows inform that. This game does a very good job of making you aware of the environment, even with the first-person perspective, which, absent peripheral vision, makes it much harder.

The movement through the game is a lot of fun, but I'm trying to decide if I'm still getting used to it, or if it could use just a tiny bit of improvement. It's almost silky smooth, but not quite there, especially where the context-sensitive jump/climb is used. Like I said, I could accept either one as the case.

Part of the problem there is that I've also just recently completed the Titanfall beta, which had AMAZING control. I almost want to merge the two.

Aaahhh. Parkour wall-running in Thief. Sooo wonderful to think about.

Anywho, I'm still early in the game, so it's impossible to say what skills I haven't discovered yet, and how much I settle into the rhythm of the movement.

As for the story, I like it thus far. We start out with Garrett and a protégé of his, and then shit goes sideways. I'm a little confused about the transition from the prologue to the first chapter, but I believe that's intentional. Overall, Garrett, thus far, is a solid sympathetic protagonist, and while I think I may have most of the rest of the plot figured out, if it's told well, then this could be a fun tale.

The best thing about the game so far is the problem-solving. Nearly every situation is Portal-like, in terms of applying your knowledge of the game's mechanics. I love that kinda shit. Even better, everywhere I've gone so far has had tantalizing optional areas that have beckoned to me, and I've been unable to resist the siren call of impossible-to-pull-off thefts. Thanks to the generous auto-save in the game, I've been able to combine reason with trial-and-error (heavy on the 'error,' thus far.) That aspect of the game, which is the bulk of the game so far, is a blast.

Tonight, I'm looking forward to some more Thief, as well as 3D Thor: The Dark World on Blu-Ray. Good times.

How are you enjoying Thief thus far? If you're not playing it, why not?

-Blaine

Morrowind Your Skyrim into Oblivion

I think anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 of my 'gaming' time is actually spent NOT gaming, but experimenting with gaming technologies. Yes, it's a mad party up in my rig. Or some such thing.

Lately, it's been perfecting my stream-to-TV setup using the Steam Streaming beta, and modding some older Bethesda titles.

On the streaming front, things are going very well. I was pleased to discover that it streams non-Steam games, as well, which is a HUGE win for my newer BioWare titles. Also, I've been having a lot of fun impressing my son with how good I can get some of these games to look on PC. Skyrim, for example, despite being almost three years old, can still achieve an insane level of graphical fidelity, once the right mods are introduced.

Right now, I'm just sliding the Alienware laptop under the TV, jacking into the secondary HDMI, then connecting an old wireless mouse and keyboard I had the foresight to hold onto.

Problems: power and wireless keyboard and mouse. My power situation behind my TV is a bit ... unstable, and I have no desire to introduce anything else into it. This means I'm running my power cable across the room, into a 3-2 converter, then into an extension cord. Also, the range on the wireless keyboard and mouse kinda sucks, so I have to run the access point halfway to the recliner, which means that people and dogs are free to accidentally knock it down right and left.

Both of these are easily resolved via minor expenditures. What's great is that the proof-of-concept is increasingly successful. I'm now curious to see how low I can go in terms of specs for the streaming machine. I'd guess proc is the key component there, as well as having an HDMI out. I plan to rummage around the house soon, and see what I can throw together.

As stated before, I'd like to just set up a dock at each TV for a super-powerful gaming laptop, and have that act as my streaming machine, that I can also take on the road, much like my existing Alienware.

Modding Mods
On the modding side, I've been looking a lot at Morrowind and Fallout 3.

The number of mods for Morrowind is staggering. On one hand, you have the official add-ons, about which I knew nothing, and then you have super-mega-huge overhaul mods, like MGSO, which transform the game entirely, into something almost modern.

 

I'd installed MGSO a while ago, started tweaking some shit under the hood, broke it, and then also got frustrated, because I tend to game on three different PCs, depending on what's going on, and keeping the install and tweaks across three different devices was a huge headache.

This time around, I knocked it down to two devices, and did the install one after another, keeping the settings very simple. The game still came out absolutely beautiful, especially once you hit the wilderness. It's not just visuals, mind you, it's also the ambience of the environment. Everything from insects to little splashes of water to rustles of leaves makes the world, finally, feel totally alive.

I wish I'd reinstalled this mod from the beginning of this journey, but now I'm glad I did it at all.

Speaking of Elder Scrolls, it was fascinating turning my older boy loose on Skyrim, and observing a) how he reacted to various scripted events (for example, he just wanted to watch the sky for the dragon, rather than act on its impending arrival), and b) how he approached the actual 'game.' He decided he was fine with letting his NPC handle most of the combat, since he was busy picking locks and looting corpses. Then, he wanted to move in straight lines across terrain to an end point, rather than sticking to the roads. Watching it, I was marveling at how many of those tendencies are tendencies that we share. We also share a tendency to be a backseat player, and drive each other crazy in the process.

The next Elder Scrolls Online beta can't get here soon enough.

I've almost been making some minor tweaks to Fallout 3. Mainly, the game struggles a bit with multi-core procs and can even crash sometimes because of that. A few minor edits to the game's config file nipped that right in the bud, and it runs rather nicely now. I'm also looking at a handful of graphical mods. The game looks a bit long-in-the-tooth now, and it'd be nice to up the textures on some of the faces and environments.

Oh, and randomly, I grabbed a total conversion mod for Oblivion called Nehrim. I'm curious to try this one out at some point. It's a whole new world, totally separate from the Elder Scrolls, and I love shit like that. I'd love to something like that someday.

Yes, but you will be talking about actual games at some point in this gaming blog, yes?
Morrowind. Yup. Been playing more Morrowind.

As I've talked about before in here, I find that with Morrowind, more so than any other game I've ever played, I have to be very conscientious about keeping myself in the right frame of mind when I play it, otherwise I'll never come back. I fight, sometimes, to keep myself from being obsessive about making progress. Morrowind is antithetical to this concept, in both its structure and its themes. Morrowind asks, or rather insists, that you chill the fuck out and just immerse yourself in the world. I'm now trying to bust a green librarian out of a floating sky prison above Vivec. This shit is just awesome.

Meanwhile, I'm also all set for Thief tomorrow. I've got my preloads done, one on the main desktop, the other on the laptop.

Interesting. I just noted that Thief is unlocking tomorrow at 1PM central. Looks like it'll be a late lunch tomorrow, and I'll be lugging the Alienware to work. Which is fine.

I anticipate that I'll play quite a bit on Tuesday, barring any technical launch issues, and have some impressions on Wednesday. I may even get all crazy and put up a Tuesday night post, as well.

Here's some Thief reviews, by the way.
EGM
Game Informer
GameSpot
PC Gamer
Polygon
Rock Paper Shotgun

Take from those reviews what you will. In there is some sort of aggregate, but I always wonder how much things like predisposition based on rumors, wanting to fit in with other reviewers, and consideration of being able to make a living because ad revenues are still flowing in inform some of these guys. Historically, I find that there are some reviewers that I tend to match up with, while others seem to be existing in a world that is in total dissonance from my own. And that's okay. I tend to find more use for reviews after I've played the game to completion, as I often enjoy engaging some of these guys afterward to compare notes.

Anyway, if you had a mad Thief boner, don't get upset by other people not loving something you've already decided was the game to ever come out tomorrow. Unless you love it and want them to make another one ever again, it doesn't matter what other people think.

I still plan on seeing what's what, and I'm looking forward to it.

Thanks for reading, and lemme know what you think of Thief!

-Blaine

And Thus Begins a Whole Buncha Side Quests

Sorry for the no-post yesterday. Between meetings, a busy development schedule, a lunch date, and then some bizarre health issues, it just didn't happen. But, I'm back today!

Words can't describe how much I despise winter. I don't like cold, I hate driving in snow, I hate driving on ice even more, and the shortened sunlight hours slowly make me crazy. I'm no fun to be around, and my mind slowly caves in on itself as the outlook becomes bleaker and bleaker.

I think it's fair to say that this winter has been the worst I've experienced in my adult life. The lower-than-average temperatures, the incessant snow fall, and the never-ending clouds have made the usually mild and not-that-bad St. Louis winter an absolute daily horror.

Even now, we're experiencing a brief respite, with temperatures in the 60s, only to plunge back into the near-arctic 20s next week.

I hate this shit.

There are, however, two things that help staunch the emotional bleeding. 1) the big one, the beginning of Cardinals Spring Training, and 2) the resumption of decent releases in the gaming scene.

My Cardinals are looking good, as they usually do, and I'm beyond thrilled to see the pictures from Jupiter, Florida of my boys in action.

And, next week signals the kick-off of the spring releases, which usually runs March to May.

Of immediate notice is that next week, we get Thief, the following week, South Park: The Stick of Truth, and the week after that, Titanfall (it's not an RPG, but I'm still very excited for it after playing quite a bit of the beta.)

Thief has gone through an interesting obstacle course since its announcement. It's from Eidos Montreal, they of the fantastic Deus Ex revival that yielded Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Those that have played through it, including myself, generally thought that, overall, it was lovely and worth missing a few meals and sexual opportunities.

So, when Thief was announced, most of us said, 'yay.' Eidos Montreal was the right studio to handle this.

Then, things started to get a little murky.

The game faced multiple delays after being announced in 2009.

Last July, studio GM Stephane D'Astous resigned, citing differences with the parent company, the increasingly notorious Squenix.

After that, over the winter, various press outlets started expressing concern over preview builds of the game.

Lately, though, more positive impressions have been trickling in, and we've gotten to see the entire first mission, in handy web video form.

 

I had a lot of internal back and forth on Thief, but ultimately, I decided to pull the trigger on the Steam preorder. The game certainly looks like a Thief game, and I love that there seems to be a lot of choice in terms of how to approach missions.

Thief hits Steam on Tuesday, 2/25.

Now, when games hit in this window, I'm typically of two minds about them. One thing about which I'm certain is that market analysis told the publisher this is when the game needs to release.

Bear in mind, release dates dictate development schedules, not vice versa. Yes, development problems can cause release dates to shift, but there is still going to be a ton of analysis done to determine what date maximizes the number of units shipped, and then sold.

So, knowing that, publishers position certain games in this early spring window for a reason. In the summer, games tend to sell poorly. In the fall, everyone pushes out their mega-huge releases. Late November is the grand-high HUGE release (Call of Duty), and then December and right after is typically the 'we fucked up, but if you still wanna buy it, here it is' window.

That early-spring window is what yields two possibilities, at least to me. 1) this is a solid title in which the publisher believes, but it just couldn't get out the door in time for Black Friday, for whatever reason, and this positions it far enough from Christmas for marketing to have breathing room to do its thing, plus it gives our Q1 financials a nice little boost. 2) this game kind of sucks, but it has a popular branding attached to it, and not much competition on that date, so we're just gonna hunker down, squeeze it out, and it is what it is. YAY PREORDERS!

Sometimes, you can use the review embargo as a metric. If it's heavily embargoed, that's usually not a good sign. That generally means the publisher has asked, 'how's the review? Oh, that bad? Okay, it stays embargoed until release day.' Typically, they'll lift the embargo for good reviews, so if you don't see any early reviews, that typically shows a lack of faith on the part of the publisher of the title in question.

As far as Thief goes, I'm feeling a lot better about it now than I was. I imagine I'll play quite a bit next Tuesday, then have some impressions to share on Wednesday.

Side Quests
 - looks like you get a free copy of Wolfenstein with the preorder of a Doom beta key. I'm actually very excited for that.
 - looks like we're on the homestretch for Wasteland 2's development.
 - here's the Thief launch trailer:

 

So, are you picking up Thief next week? Why or why not?

Thanks for reading, as always!

-Blaine