1UP: Thief: Deadly Shadows

It's hard to fault Warren Spector for wanting his games to be more popular. After all, he's the game designer behind Deus Ex, System Shock, Ultima Underworld, and other lovely RPGs. It's been bothering him, and he confessed as much when he showed Thief: Deadly Shadows to the press earlier this year -- he wants his games to be sales successes, not just critical ones.

The results of this effort on Ion Storm's part are so far inconclusive. Deus Ex: Invisible War, sequel to the PC RPG hit and a game designed with the Xbox in mind, straddled the line a little two closely -- its console sensibilities alienated PC fans, and its pokey performance on the Xbox turned off console owners. Thief: Deadly Shadows could have fallen into this same trap -- and, indeed, it's not without its problems -- but Spector's team made a very smart decision with this game that they missed with Invisible War: they didn't mess around with a proven winning formula.

It's been four years since the last Thief, but the basic idea remains unchanged. You're Garrett, a man who isn't much for law and order, and you have to run a series of missions for a wide variety of clients, all of whom want you to steal stuff for them. The game's story is dark, medieval, and weird, and things like zombies and (this is true) robots get involved near the end, but the crux is that you're a thief, and you do what thieves do.

Garrett isn't much in a fight (he has even less offense than in the last two Thief games), so his main weapon is stealth, and his real enemy is a well-lit bedroom with a guard standing in the corner. How would you deal with this situation? Well, if the guard's walking around, you could try sneaking up to his six o'clock, clubbing him over the head with your blackjack, and carrying his body somewhere less conspicuous. If he's standing with his back turned, you could try just firing an arrow into his head -- a bit blunt, but it gets the job done. If he's noticed you and starts shouting stuff like "Hah! Got you, taffer!", then there's always the dagger -- but expect to lose a fair bit of health during the battle.

Fortunately, there are far more creative solutions made available by the vast array of tools at Garrett's disposal. "Water arrows" can be used to extinguish light sources and wash blood off the floor. Moss arrows act as a sound damper, so you don't make as much noise walking on metallic floors. Flash bombs blind anyone nearby, letting you make a quick escape if you're discovered. Later on, you'll even use the proceeds from looted valuables to get even cooler bits of kit, such as gloves that let you climb sheer walls.

It's these tools, and the way Deadly Shadows is built around them, that make this game a surprisingly different experience from Splinter Cell and other "modern" stealth games. The levels in Thief, unlike those in way too many other titles, aren't linear -- they're very large, they're crawling with security, and there are a thousand different ways to get through each one. It's a remarkably fresh experience to have this much freedom in a stealth-based game, and it means that Thief isn't as stressful and frustrating as Splinter Cell -- you'll rarely find yourself repeating a single section over and over again, because there's always at least one alternate way of tackling any obstacle. That, plus the new third-person mode that makes navigation through each level much simpler, makes Thief accessible even to gamers completely new to the idea of stealth.

It's safe to say, then, that this Thief will not betray fans of the original PC series the way Invisible War did last fall. This doesn't mean, though, that it's a perfect experience. Like the previous two games, the graphics are a mixed bag -- large, atmospheric levels are populated by simple-looking characters that animate jerkily. The controls have been streamlined for the PC version, which is a great help for veterans, but Garrett turns around a bit slowly by default. Like Invisible War, though, the Xbox version has performance problems -- although Ion Storm's brilliant shadowing and physics systems are intact, you can expect framerate drop in complicated areas, as well as very long loading times between sections. (This loading issue is a particular hassle in the city streets, because the item shop and the fence where you sell stolen items are located on opposite sides of the metropolis. Argh.)

Despite these qualms, Deadly Shadows' singular approach to the stealth genre, still fresh after four years of dormancy, make it worth buying on either system. If Warren Spector and his team at Ion Storm learned anything from Invisible War, it's that you don't necessarily need to water down a great game design to make it a popular success. This obviously shows here, and the result is the perfect antidote for people who think they've seen it all when it comes to the stealth genre.