Thief II: The Metal Age

The Good
- Incredible Atmosphere - Great Sound/Soundtrack - Brilliant, Intelligent Gamedesign - Nearly Perfect designed Missions: Challenging, but not unfair - Less Undead than in the first Thief - Nice Storyline - Garrett is an incredible Character

The Bad
- Graphics are still not as good as they could be - Not a lot of new Ideas compared to Thief1

The Bottom Line
Actually not a lot of new ideas compared to Thief1, but all Ideas are even better executed in this Title! This game surely entered my all time top10 - everyone who is interested in intelligent and incredibly atmospheric Games should take a close look at this one!

The Good
Thief 2 was one of the most riveting gameplaying experiences I have ever had. The interface is setup like a first person shooter, but if you think you can hack and slash your way to victory, fuhgeddabouit.

Thief 2 works because you must take on the persona of the main character, Garrett. As a thief you must pay attention to your elements. Are you being quiet enough, moving slowly enough, staying concealed enough? There is a light monitor (a gem) that shows how visible you are. Moss arrows pad your footsteps and noisemaker ones distract guards.

Sound is incredible. Guards whistle and gripe, wood floors sound different than carpet ones, your arrow whooshes through the night. Great narration too.

Missions are varying and there are different ways to accomplish them. Settings are incredible from breaking into a prison to jumping along rooftops. I was disappointed to see this game end.

The Bad
Enemy AI is a little weak. You should be able to carry supplies over from mission to mission. I would also like to see longer missions and branching gameplay in the next one.

What's with Garrett's shoes? Would you really wear clodhoppers if you were a thief?

The last level was disappointing and the "bad guy" has a weak voice.

The Bottom Line
Thrilling fps features stealth and secrecy over face-to-face combat. A must for fans of the first person sneaker genre.

The Good
Everything. First off, the in-game color is now in full 16-bit splendor, with colored lighting improving graphical quality substantially. The 3D models for the various people you'll encounter have improved a great deal as well, due to an increase in polygons used with their models. Also, instead of the slow, gradual plot of the first game (which was excellent, mind you), the new plot, while still being gradual, moves along at faster clip, and it still is just as good, perhaps better in some ways, in comparison to the plot of Thief I.

The audio for Thief II is also much improved, as sounds (well, some of them at least) play at CD quality (44.1khz) now and better sound propagation in general is evident (you can even listen through doors if you lean up against them). As far as voice acting, it's as top-notch as in the first game of the series, with both the in-game voices and cutscene acting being excellent. Also, on a final note, the major cutscenes are extremely well produced, and still have an quality unique the Thief series.

The Bad
Now that I've beat it, I have to wait at least a year for Thief III (it's 11-July-2001 on the clock right now as I write this) to be on shelves for more thieving fun in The City. Oh, wait, I forgot about the fan missions...

Well, scratch that...not significant complaints with Thief II then.

The Bottom Line
Get Thief II as soon as possible. It's probably no more than $30US in a store right now, and it's more than worth the money you'll spend for it.