v3ctor

I wish I could have enjoyed this game more - however so many frustrating things keep adding up until I just uninstalled it. The game is incredibly buggy with massive problems with pathfinding, AI cheats blatantly and makes it virtually impossible to win, the user interface is clunky and difficult to follow. The custom battles as well are confusing as custom army setups seem to be ignored and generated automatically. It's a real shame because there were moments in the battles that I really enjoyed, but no where near as much as the earlier Total War games. Sad to see the franchise going this way.

Okay I'll rank this game by five main elements - story, game play, graphics, sound and re-playability. Story - 4/10 - A really awful story in my opinion. Characters are poorly explained and I felt there was simply no narrative to explain what was happening properly. This game has one of the worst story endings I've ever encountered. The game had its moments where it looked like the writers figured it out but quickly descended back into banality. Game play - 7/10 - Actually not surprisingly too bad in my opinion. Yes, there are a few frustrating design flaws in the game such as the lack of proper jumping (very dumb decision imo) and the annoying repetitiveness of opening windows all the time. But otherwise, when you're sneaking, this game really is a lot like the other thief games. I found the game play at its worst during some of the "action" scenes - which do not fit the overall game play and feel rather jarring. Graphics - 8/10 - I didn't find the graphics to be the latest or greatest, but none the less they were very pretty. The artwork in the game was very gothic and I felt it was very professional. It's a shame some of the cutscenes felt very poorly rendered, they never were really impressive like the other thief games (I still get Goosebumps watching the original games cutscenes to this day). Sound - 3/10 - Awful. Looping dialogue, broken cutscene audio, terrible voice acting, bad sound propagation. Half the time I had no idea where noises were coming from - a real shambles. Sound is what makes the Thief games so damn impressive after many years - sure the graphics of Thief 1 & 2 have aged but their sound engines are still extraordinary compared to most modern games. You could literally close your eyes and hear when a guard was approaching, you could hear every tile under your feet as you tiptoed around banks and cathedrals. But this new game fails utterly to recapture that feeling. A terrible shame in my opinion. Re-playability - 6/10 - I felt the main story of the game was so bad I'd never re-play it again. However the saving grace for this game is the "side missions" that can be played via Basso. Thankfully they don't seem too bad, in fact I felt they were closer to the spirit of the original games than the main story. It was just a shame there aren't enough side missions to save this game from the terrible main storyline. Overall - based on the five main elements I give this game 28/50 so around 6/10. For me the highlights of this game are the visuals and some of the sneaking game play is fun. But sadly I felt the game was badly let down by a terrible story, unforgivable sound bugs and some very odd design choices.

Pros: its free, dark Gothic style, reminds me a bit of Diablo 2, fun to start with. Negatives: frustrating waypoint system especially near bosses. Not suited for solo play (especially with Act 2 boss onwards) as bosses/mobs become incredibly hard. In game trade system confusing and clunky. In game chat annoying. Character stats system confusing and complex easy to get wrong first time. Grinding through mobs later in the game gets incredibly hard. Equipment socketing is confusing at first. Player deaths are not handled very well especially near boss fights where you need to fight your way through massive map of monsters to reach the boss if you die without having a portal open. Inventory system feels like a chore and constant juggling for space. Desync is frustrating beyond belief when fighting large mobs or an end boss. Maps expire too quickly often within minutes the map you just portaled from resets and you lose the portal (especially annoying if you just portaled from a boss fight!!) Final Opinion: yes its free (which is a big plus), but for me the negatives way outnumber the positives. I ended up uninstalling after finding myself not enjoying this game at all. It's a shame, because if just a few of the negatives were fixed (especially with boss waypoints) I might consider coming back to it.

Easily one of the worst games I've ever played for PC the controls are shonky and terrible often leaving you screaming at the screen because the "minions" are almost totally uncontrollable, the gameplay is incredibly unbalanced and coupled with the hideous control system often leaves me just quitting in rage. The truly disgusting thing about this game, the reason I call it "one of the worst", is because it has such huge potential. The start is actually quiet good and almost makes you think they're about to do something never before tried in Strategy/role playing games. Alas, stupid design decisions and poor programming make this a sorry mess. Not what I expected from the studio behind "Age of Wonders". Sad.

I would rate this game higher except for the horrible bugs I encountered, especially during installation (forced download of 12Gb despite having disks). In my opinion graphics are the same as Empire: Total War but a lot slower especially with the "depth of field" effect which just makes everything blurred rather than giving an actual feeling of depth. Game play is okay, but I feel the franchise hasn't really improved much since Medieval II in fact I feel it's gone backwards. Battles should be easier to manage, you should not have to constantly be correcting dumb AI path finding. Most of these complaints are minor compared to my issue with the game installation (forced download despite disks and then install is corrupted if you choose to cancel it!).