Developer: Looking Glass Studios
Publisher: Square ENIX (originally Eidos Interactive)
Rrp: £4.99
Released: 21st (or 23rd) March 2000
Available on Steam, gog.com and Square Enix’s Store
Before I start the review proper I wanted to get out a piece of random trivia I find fairly amusing. The second installment of the Thief franchise uses the third iteration of the Dark engine. Why the third and not the second? Because the second version was used in another amazing game, that game being System Shock two. So Thief two gets the benefit of quite a few lessons being learned.
Why do I start by saying this? Well part of the reason is because if you look, the graphical quality is greatly increased from its predecessor. But the other part is because sadly this was one of the last games to be made by Looking Glass Studios.
Anyway, in Thief two you return as Garret. Set one year after the events of the original game the world has changed greatly. The Hammerites of old are all but gone replaced by the Mechanists and their, frankly rather creepy, inventions. And once again Garret gets tangled up in the fate of the know world.
Strictly speaking Thief two is essentially a upgrade to the original, the core gameplay and mechanics remain the same as that had previously. In this venture though you have access to some new toys, such as the scout orb which allows you to view wherever it’s thrown.
They’ve also increased the intelligence of the enemies, not so much that the game becomes unplayable but enough to make it challenging. You enemies are much more on the ball taking notice of noises and little things like doors being open when they shouldn’t.
Graphically it’s a large jump from the previous game, enemies look less blocky and the environments are more detailed. It still shows its age but less so than its predecessor. The levels are more well designed too, gone are the scrambling maze like levels that are seemingly impossible to understand. They’ve been replaced by more thief like levels the likes of roof top traverses and Manor Houses.
The amount zombies of the previous game have been dramatically lessened, perhaps a total of ten for the entire game. This also goes for most of the other fantastical creatures you had to deal with in the previous title.
In my opinion this version is superior to the original Thief. Looking Glass Studios listened to their fans and made the whole thing just work more smoothly. Get this game, it’s well worth your time.
