Review by: Chris Harding
Published: December 14, 1999

I don’t know about the rest of the gaming public, but I find my tastes in computer entertainment gravitate to certain companies as much as they do genres. I guess it makes sense, when you consider the industry has become so very specialized in that developers have begun to focus on their core competencies and end up only producing what they do best. The role-playing division of Interplay, Black Isle Studios, has established themselves as their genre’s most prolific developer, while companies like id and Epic continue to flex their first-person shooter muscles, expanding into the areas of team play and even minor squad level combat. Usually it’s one component or element that a group does really well that enables them to succeed. In id’s case, they are renowned for making the most technologically advanced products of their time. One developer whose sole product line is based around a single element of gameplay is Looking Glass Studios–and their element is stealth. Yeah sure, they also develop the Flight Unlimited series, but in reality it’s not their focus and it’s taken a big back seat to premier titles such as System Shock 2 and Thief.

Like their star, the Master Thief Garrett, Looking Glass has quietly developed a huge following based upon their ability to provide a type of gameplay unique to their products. Last year’s smash hit, Thief: The Dark Project was met with few criticisms, and rightfully so. It offered players a chance to have their action slow roasted, placing them in situations that required stealth over brute force, a slight of hand rather than a heavy one, and an original recipe that didn’t call for killing. It was by far the most original title I’d played since their 1996 offering, System Shock. Soon after the release, in early December of 1998, Eidos, the game’s publisher announced that additional thieving would be made available very soon, and that there would be a Thief Gold. I should tell you right now that I’m not a fan of Gold style products, as I often find them to be shameless attempts by publishers to squeeze blood from stones–or money from gamers, you take your pick.

And when they announced the features list behind Thief Gold, I was none too happy. Only three new missions and no option for original Thief: The Dark Project owners to buy the extra missions separately — we had to buy the full game all over again. The news surprised me very little unfortunately. It seemed almost as obtuse as original Need for Speed 2 owners having to buy the special edition version separately just to have 3D acceleration. Thankfully, just before Thief Gold hit the market, Eidos redeemed themselves somewhat and decided to offer the Gold version for a minimal price and give original Thief owners a $10 mail-in-rebate. And for those who never purchased Garrett’s first adventure, Thief Gold turns out to be one of the best values offered this holiday season.

Thief Gold is a mission-based offering centered around the adventures of Master Thief Garrett. A one time star pupil of the Keepers, Garrett is a rogue in the truest sense of the word. The 12 original missions in Thief were woven together amongst an old religous sect called the Hammerites and their prophecy of an evil one called the Trickster. Laced here and there throughout the game were one-off missions that, while still within the framework of the story, were not a direct part of it. In what I suspect was surprising to Looking Glass, the public adored these non-plot critical missions, such as Lord Bafford’s Manor and Assassins. Since most of these took place in the cities, where Garrett was primarily focussed on evading human detection rather than the monsters that dominated the other missions, Looking Glass decided to give the public more of what they wanted. All three of the new missions, Thieves Guild, Mage’s Tower and Song’s of the Caverns all have a diminished monster presence and take place in structures built and inhabited primarily by humans.