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Thief Cutscenes And Trailers


Springheel

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Here are some video cutscenes from Thief 1 and 2 that I've found on YouTube. It's a great nostalgia trip, and useful for those interested in TDM that aren't familiar with the games that have inspired us.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uR8pcqV_HY

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Those cutscenes conjured up a much greater atmosphere than the dark engine could possibly manage.

It's a pity the TDS guys wasted the potential of the unreal engine to capture the flavour of these cutsences, and instead went for a cartoon look.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

character models site

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Awesome. Thx for posting. Oh wow... there's a song snippet from approx 1:01 thru 1:10 of that 2nd link that I think is music in TDS. The South Quarter track of TDS... ? Isn't that link a cutscene from T2?

 

I like the colorized cutscenes, but I also really liked the character and atmosphere the static sepia image cutscenes gave off.

 

Karras' voice has always bothered me. Sounds like a voice anyone could do. Or maybe it just has a generic Jar Jar feel to it. Either way, wish it had been a different voice.

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It seems typical that sequals always tend to be more campy than great originals, and lose a lot of the magic as the writers start fishing for some way to keep the story going.

Star Wars, Raiders, Thief, Deus Ex ... were all written as one-shot stories that suddenly found themselves as unplanned preludes to something bigger and a little dumber.

Edited by demagogue

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Matrix 2 had at least some great moments with the effects, even though the story was degenerating. Somehow I always doubted that this was a planned trilogy.

 

I actually got pretty bored of the effects by the second and third movies. Yeah, you can do that "freeze time and move the camera in a circle" thing, big deal. Let's see something new already.

 

The ending was just non-existent. "Thanks, you've defeated the evil agents. We will let everyone out of the matrix, obviously. This will cripple our energy source, and there will be nothing for you live in other than a horrible charred world with no society, habitation or infrastructure. Oh, and your bodies will be wasted and useless. Have a nice day."

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I actually got pretty bored of the effects by the second and third movies. Yeah, you can do that "freeze time and move the camera in a circle" thing, big deal. Let's see something new already.

 

Can't see enough of that. :) But the scene on the highway was really good, when she turned around and drove against the traffic flow. Works best on a big screen.

Gerhard

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Don't forget Matrix! 2 and 3 are some of the dumbest movies of all time

 

 

What about Aliens 4? Human/alien crossbreeds that just need some TLC from Mom, humans cloned from a scrap of DNA that retain full memories of their former lives, Ripley in a Astro-Dominatrix costume, standard issue for space stations in the 22nd century. Why did anyone even bother to make that thing?

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It seems typical that sequals always tend to be more campy than great originals, and lose a lot of the magic as the writers start fishing for some way to keep the story going.

Star Wars, Raiders, Thief, Deus Ex ... were all written as one-shot stories that suddenly found themselves as unplanned preludes to something bigger and a little dumber.

Not really. Considering Lucas started with Episode IV, I'd say he probably always had a backstory and it wasn't just a one-shot deal. And Episodes V and VI were just as good (or bad, depending on how you look at it) as IV.

 

Thief 2 was a sequel to Thief 1, but it wasn't campy. I like T2 better than T1, actually. So T3 wasn't very good... that doesn't mean a Thief 4 or a prequel couldn't be made so well that it rivals the greatness of T1 or T2.

 

There will likely be bumps along the road for any sequels to any movie or game... but spanned out over years, you remove the bad ones and just enjoy the good ones. Batman had lame sequels for a while; but I rather enjoyed Batman Begins (or whatever it was called).

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Not really. Considering Lucas started with Episode IV, I'd say he probably always had a backstory and it wasn't just a one-shot deal. And Episodes V and VI were just as good (or bad, depending on how you look at it) as IV.

 

This is exactly the trap I was thinking about in talking about how single-shot movies get revamped to support series.

 

Star Wars did not become Episode IV until years after its completion. From the beginning, it was meant to be a more-or-less close approximation remake of Kurosawa's Fortress, except set in outerspace rather than feudal Japan. The story was no bigger in scope than Kurosawa's.

 

After its commercial success, Lucas was persuaded to create a series, and it was only then, in 1979 (or whenever), that he created the 9-part story we know now (6 of which were filmed; the last three were published in book form), fitting Star Wars into Episode IV. This is clear from his interviews.

 

The "Episode IV: A New Hope" we now see at the top didn't get added until the rerelease of Star Wars shortly before The Empire Strikes Back release, in like 1981. In the 1978 original, it wasn't there.

 

Star Wars is like *the* paradigm case of a single-shot story that suddenly, unexpectedly gets revamped to support a whole series to keep the cash cows coming home. They pulled it off so well most people don't even recognize the fact.

 

As for the difference in quality, there I can take your "Not really" more seriously. What is remarkable about the Star Wars case is how seamless he made the original trilogy after the fact; I thought Empire was excellent, and Jedi got hokey at parts, but I still loved it. In that sense, it's sort of the exception that proves the rule.

 

The main problem I saw with the Ep. I-III was that the story was too diffuse; they had to retroactively set up the conditions for the original 3, so had to get into big dynamics like the civil war and political intrigue and factions, etc, all at the expense of more interpersonal dynamics and good characterization. This is much closer to the big problem with post hoc story writing, and I thought they fell victims to it.

 

As for Thief 2, come on, you have to admit that Karras and the whole art deco look is a little campy. I liked the game a lot, too, of course. Inferior quality wasn't exactly the point I was thinking about.

 

When I wrote that I was thinking about one of the developers that posted on TTLG, when asked where the T2 story came from or something. He said that when they made the Dark Project, they didn't have a sequal in mind, and were really being driven by pure inspiration. Then he said when they started 2, they had in their minds to make it more gameplay oriented, since on reflection TDP missed a lot of opportunities to really take advantage of what the game was about, so they wanted to add more "pure" thieving, and set up interesting gameplay situations, etc. Then he said, while he thinks they succeeded, it was at the expense of some of the "magic" of the original, which was more bred on inspiration and an encapsulated story, wheve everything sort of comes together. T2 was more wooden, more "gamey", where more rooms were set up more apparently with gameplay design in mind than the more aesthetic ideas driving the original. I thought both T1 and T2 were great; I just had his comments in mind when I was thinking about the subject of sequals.

 

What I said in my above post was much too simplifying, of course, but I still think it captures a general theme that comes up a lot of times. I don't think it always applies, and obviously there are plenty of sequals as good or better than their originals (System Shock, Star Trek 2). It's just a kind of theme about the economics and egos of movie/game making that makes it persist.

Edited by demagogue

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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I disagree. It's entirely logical. If someone blows up your superweapon, do you sit around and cry about it? No, you bloody well build another one, and make it BETTER. Very much in character for the Empire.

 

Episodes 5 and 6 may well have been made entirely for the profit, but they were both done very well, so they doesn't really count as "bad cash-cow sequels". Episodes 1-3 do, because they sucked. :)

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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I wasn't going to use the "cash cow" term, but then I thought ... well, if you come right down to it, the basic motivation for keeping the sequals going was the astonding box office returns from Star Wars; and I'm not sure Lucas had much of the same "pure" experimental motivation he had with Star Wars, which was thought of at the time as really a niche piece, almost an academic excercise to cross Kurosawa and cold war scifi.

 

It just goes to show that money doesn't always corrupt, and in fact can lead to real masterpieces (esp for Empire).

 

Another good example was Casablanca, even though it was written committee style, subject to the "worst" sort of bureacratic oversight, and a genre movie through and through that dogmatically followed about every rule in the book. And after all of that it was STILL a masterpiece!

 

All of this has me suspecting whether there are any hard rules.

 

Oh, why do I keep this OT topic going?

Edited by demagogue

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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  • 1 month later...
Those cutscenes conjured up a much greater atmosphere than the dark engine could possibly manage.

It's a pity the TDS guys wasted the potential of the unreal engine to capture the flavour of these cutsences, and instead went for a cartoon look.

 

i disagree. i think that game was the best of the three, the storyline and gameplay was phoenomonal. i throughly enjoyed every second of the game. i especially liked the backstab, the voice acting, and the mission objectives.

Edited by KhAoZ
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i disagree. i think that game was the best of the three, the storyline and gameplay was phoenomonal. i throughly enjoyed every second of the game. i especially liked the backstab, the voice acting, and the mission objectives.

 

You aren't likely to find many here who will agree with you that TDS was the best of the three. You're definitely in for a huge disappointment if you're looking for more TDS style gameplay in Dark Mod. Our project is inspired by the first two games...in atmosphere and execution. You're particular likes about the game are three of the major points fans of the original games felt were below the standard set by the original.

 

I've covered this before...and it's always debatable...but here goes.

 

1. The dagger is more clearly and offensive weapon. Yes, Garrett could clearly kill with the sword...but in many cases, you could block the attack of a guard and then run out of there. Garrett should have been depicted as a Thief, rather than a serial killer.

 

2. Voice acting in TDS is far weaker than the originals. It's hoakey and childish in execution. Obviously, they were appealing to a younger crowd.

 

3. Mission objectives were far more limiting than the originals...again, they over simplified them. It was always predictable...get this amount of that...and you always knew how much was left to find in a mission. When you found 100% loot, you knew the mission was empty. In the original games, once you found the correct amount of loot...not a percentage, you didn't find out until the end of the mission if there was actually 'extra' loot that you missed. Added a lot of replayability to the original missions.

 

At any rate...we won't be borrowing much inspiration from TDS.

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You forgot your usual, favorite disclaimer, NH: "You can always add things you want after the basic toolset comes out."

 

I always thought the sword in Thief was so apparently a remnant of its Dark Camelot origins. It seems odd for a thief to be dragging along something that large, unweildy, and clang-producing if at the same time he's wiggling through windows and trying to stay in the corners and shadows. But gameplay wise I thought the sword was much better -- it really sends the message that this guy wants to stay out of fights if he can help it, and even then is on the defensive; it really captures Thief as the anti-FPS -- so I like it coming back in TDM.

 

I personally wouldn't try to further rationalize it by thinking it's more natural or intuitive for a medieval thief, per se (not that that's what you were doing, I'm just saying...). I'm content just thinking it makes for better balanced or more appropriate gameplay for this kind of game. Although since I never noticed any immersion-break, it was never a real issue for me, anyway.

Edited by demagogue

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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i disagree. i think that game was the best of the three, the storyline and gameplay was phoenomonal. i

 

Anyone who thinks TDS is the best of the three must be under the age of 14 and think that Revenge of the Sith was the best StarWars movie yet.

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That's a little bit harsh. :)

 

I enjoyed TDS at the time. T1 and T2 are still better though.

 

Actually I fired up TDS a few days ago to check something out, and I couldn't believe how clunky the player movement was. Ugh. Somehow I'd managed not to notice it the first time around, despite finishing the game.

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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Anyone who thinks TDS is the best of the three must be under the age of 14 and think that Revenge of the Sith was the best StarWars movie yet.

I remember that as a little kid, I thought Return of the Jedi was the best of the three. As I grew older, I appreciated the darkness of the Empire Strikes Back more and more, and now it has become my favorite of the three. I suspect that most of the people who enjoy TDS the most may change their minds as they grow older.

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