Thief Deadly Shadows

[macosx]

Framerates just about fine, seems better than Invisible War. But audios always cutting out for some reason. Sometimes it sound exactly like the alien 'speech' from signs which is a bit unnerving.

[charlesr]

Is this a problem with trying to run the pal version at 60hz or something? Doesnt halo run better at 50hz than 60hz?

[fishbowlhead]

do you actually play the games, or do you all just sit around load the game up see what frame rate it runs at then scurry off to you fourums to moan that its not 60fps?

who gives a F**king monkeys what frame rate it runs at. Its a bloody good game, better than anything splintercell has up his gadget sleeve and thats all that matters. It plays well, stealth works brilliantly and has the best atmosphere i can remember in a game for a long time.

[Ravon]

I think its just some people like to play good games that have been coded well. And not some lame excuss for a game with a couple of flashy effects...

I myself am the former....

[Corrupt Rose]

Actually, the frame rate did actually make me feel a little ill (carsick?) at first, but I can remedy it by playing the game in the 3rd person. I've got no idea why that helps, though...

[Tom Salter]

Oh god, not another frame rate argument...

/me puts his oar in.

I couldn't get into DE:IW, purely because the technology (or apparent lack of it) got in the way. The frame rate was too slow, making the combat pretty useless, and the loading times were waaay too long.

Although in a game where speed isn't the key (Thief 3) the former shouldn't be too much of a problem.

[E. Randy Dupre]

Been playing this since the end of last week. Just got to the Docks and I'm loving it so far.

Except... the City. The City feels broken, unfinished. While the AI is perfectly fine in the missions - recognising sounds, hunting you out, noticing when gear's been nicked, etc. - it just doesn't work in the City. At one point I snuck into the Stonecutter's house and went upstairs to have a scout about for loot. When I came back downstairs, the owner had entered the house with a couple of other people. They had an argument, the Stonecutter ran into the street, the other two chased him and killed him. And then it all went horribly wrong.

A guard was walking past when the killing happened. Instead of chasing and attacking the killers, he completely ignored them and started looking for me. Not just the guard - when I walked past a normal citizen, she freaked out at the sight of me despite being perfectly fine in my presence previously and called the other guards. All the while, the two responsible for the guy's death just stood around without a care in the world.

Similarly, while the animation is passable most of the time (it's very stiff and unrealistic, but you get used to it) the City seems to make it break down completely.Watching people spin around 180 degrees without moving a single limb completely breaks your link with the game's reality. The way they walk over rats by suddenly floating into the air, then dropping back down, is just pathetic. It's even more of a pain in the arse when you think about the animation on Garrett himself. I'm not sure what kind of logic lead to most of the animation effort being spent on him, especially when a huge number of players will never see it.

Also: the climbing gloves can ruin the illusion of solidity. I got them today and, within three minutes, managed to jump through a wall while climbing and into the skybox.

Final problem with the City. I dread to mention it, because it's the framerate. Before anyone starts, I'd just like to point out that it's absolutely not a problem for the majority of the game - the moaning about it upthread is stupid and pointless (much as it was in the Invisible War thread).

Here's why it's an issue for me: when you first start the game it's great. If you've come to Deadly Shadows straight from IW (as I did) then you'll notice the improvement in the engine straight away. There's an immense amount of screen tearing if you try and turn at full speed, but after the Metal Arms thread I'm starting to think that it might be a problem with my Xbox. That doesn't really matter anyway - it's not like you're going to be moving at speed through most of the game. Enter the first mission proper and the framerate is still fine.

It drops like a stone when you get to the City. Certain areas suffer from slowdown far more than others - Stonemarket is by far and away the worst offender. You get used to it after a while, but as soon as you enter a mission area you notice the difference. It's a real shame that they couldn't get this sorted - again, it pulls you out of the game world by making you notice technical issues surrounding the City - and I don't udnerstand why it affects some areas but not others.

That's all the bad. Everything else is more or less just what I wanted from a new Thief game. Hiding in the shadows as a couple of guards walk past still brings on that special mix of The Fear and a feeling of supreme cool. The illicit thrill from nabbing the purse from around sombody's belt is the same as is normally reserved for sniping unaware enemies in more traditional stealth 'em ups. It's a slight shame that they've felt the need to abandon the steam-powered security robots from Thief 2 in favour of the return of zombies (I never thought I'd say this, but I'm getting pretty sick of zombies now) and some of that game's purity of focus seems to have been lost (I would have liked to have seen some old-style thieving-for-the-sake-of-it missions, because the best thing about 2 was the way that the plot was totally incidental to stealing stuff), but otherwise it plays perfectly.