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Graphics tend to be low poly and run at a low bit rate, but the video part isn't entirely bad. Many of the castle graphics are as perfectly detailed in eight bit as one would expect them to be with higher colors, water effects are very nice, and the light sourcing (a critical part of Garrett's ability to hide in shadows) is incredible. In The Lost City you'll have to try luring a Fire Elemental into a dark corner just to see how careful the designers were with lighting and how brilliantly it fits into the game. Keep Garrett in the dark and take a few torches down with water arrows to see this effect without the same element of
danger
.
Level design is another strong point in Thief. Lord Bafford's Manor was a brilliant introduction, Assassins and Undercover were very clever, The Sword has my favorite architecture for any video game level, and The Return to [spoiler] mission has to be the greatest expression of the haunted house concept ever created - and I'm not even a horror fan.
Thief Gold improves upon Thief: The Dark Project in the following ways:
- The talisman missions were changed to have one talisman each instead of two.
- The craymen were removed from Lost City and replaced with [spoiler!] and a route was added allowing people who manage to make the Lost City arena bridge jump to get back.
- The prison guards in Cragscleft were sent on better patrols.
- A major new area was added to The Sword that makes the excellent level even better and is worth the Gold upgrade alone. Hint: The statue tongues are not what they seem…
- Zombie combat behavior was reprogrammed so they won't bounce back up right away if temporarily knocked down.
- Some architecture and textures were changed in Bonehoard to give more distinctive landmarking.
- Fire Shadows were added to Bonehoard and Cathedral to provide a source of fire crystals, so players can't get stuck by running out.
- Adding the following lines to the user.cfg file (open it from your Thief Gold root directory with a text editor like notepad) will give you a hilarious new take on Lord Bafford's Manor and the whole game.
play
starting_mission 16
Type that into the user.cfg and start a new game without training (assuming a line isn't already there to start at a different level). You're in for a humorous treat.
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