Right after I break into that clocktower.

The Thief Series- PC

Summer is here! It’s another gloriously sunny day here on the South coast, and what am I doing? Sitting in my cave like a hermit, playing through the Thief games, with the curtains drawn to reduce screen glare. I finished The Metal Age yesterday and ploughed straight into Deadly Shadows.

I love that it’s a pure stealth game; there’s no need to fight even one person throughout the three games. Not once does it falter and throw you into some kind of direct confrontation, even when dealing with what could be called the final bosses- they are defeated through evasion and completing tasks that will lead to their undoing (from the placing of sacred items around the city at the end of Deadly Shadows, or sabotaging the signal towers at the Mechanist cathedral).

All that sneaking around sentries is also a good mental challenge and, much like the Hitman series, it usually has my mind in three places at once. There’s my current situation: Am I hidden? Can I see any loot? Is that a guard stabbing me in the gizzard? Where I need to be: the maps for each level tend to be rough enough that I’m using it in combination with what I’ve already explored and the compass to form a mental map of the area, in order to divine where that objective, or special loot, is. Finally, and just as important, how I’m going to escape: like any good thief, I’m simultaneously planning my escape route on the way in.

Anyway, I’d love to keep banging on about how great the Thief series is, but I really need to take a break from blackjacking people and catch some sun.

Right after I break into that clock tower.