What really pisses me is this press/hold X to do something... do we really need a qte/mini cutscene for every single action in the game? Like jumping over stuff, climbing stuff... In previous games you can muscle up when you wanted - pull yourself on the edge and wait, use boxes to reach vantage point... jeez. Knockouts were pretty straightforward, you sneak behind the guy and wack him, why hold button and shit... Very limited freedom of movement from what i see...

Is this for real?! Just read there is no jump button at all? WTF?!?!

This review quote maybe captures it perfectly "The problem with Thief is that the studio spent so much time trying to make a game for all kinds of people that it forgot to execute any single part of the experience perfectly."

Agree with you on the modding thing, this game can be "fixed" by the fans no doubt. Probably it's only salvation.

I do remember a lot of the same kind of issues being raised by Thief fans when Thief 3 came out. And yes, the engine had some major problems, but the fans played around with lots of ini files and made it into a fairly good game. Personally I feel that Thief 3 had a fantastic story, probably the best of all the series, but was let down by the engine and rushed development times.

I wonder if Thief 4 will be the same? I think it looks fantastic and has some great atmosphere. Personally I'm not fussed about losing Stephen Russell or it being a Reboot of the series, I'm more interested in the story and stealthy gameplay :) I might get it after a few months, probably when all the DLC are bundled together and I can buy a "Gold" edition for about $30. Unless it receives universally panned reviews :)

Well it is bad news then, from the reviews I have read so far the story is getting universally panned for being an incoherent mess without any payoff, even in the positive reviews. One review actually suggested the game would have been slightly better if it didn't have any linear narrative and just focused on making it a Stealth sandbox kind of game.

Ohoho, looks like this is gonna be one hot mess of a game. Heh, I can get a kick out of a spectacular train wreck. :D

Maybe - but that's why I'm waiting until it comes out and seeing what metacritics think, rather than pre-ordering. But I don't get the level of hate that this game seems to generating when it's not even out yet. Maybe it justifies the criticism, maybe it doesn't - I'll wait for several hundred websites to review the formal release and see what they think.

I still can't fathom how can they remove "free will" jumping from the game and replace everything with "press this to do that"... Can someone hit me and help me see what i can't? What were they thinking?!

damn the reviews dont look too well and the issues they are referring are pretty much game breaking when it comes to thief

They removed "free-will black-jacking" in Thief 3, which was one of my main gripes with the engine. The fans managed to tweak it somewhat, but it still felt clunky to me.

It felt clunky in thief 3, true. Guess it probably was a engine limitation back then, i can't say and dunno. But it's nowhere near as bad as what we see now...

Judging from the TB's video, the difficulty settings ARE pretty damn impressive tho. I want more games to do that. I might just buy the new Thief just for that.

Self-rules? It be great if the custom rules stretch beyond the power of the player and be more or less unique, there probably are some like that - but things like no quick-save, use only x item, etc. are easy to form yourself. Hardly a new thing but a good thing they thought out for it nevertheless.

The fact that the game actually tracks the rules and scores you based on them is extremely cool tho

True

I've only watched brief videos because I'm not in a gaming mood right now anyway, but having an animation and a hovering "E" over every single thing you pick up is INSANELY annoying to me. Like... NO.

My thoughts exactly...