Thief (2014 Reboot)

I usually don't play games where you are the "bad" guy, but I am a big fan of the master thief and kleptomaniac Garrett through all his iterations in the Thief series mainly because this franchise offered up some of my favorite stealth mechanics ever - and it was necessary as Garrett is quite frail when it comes to face to face fighting (more so against the monstrous and supernatural enemies).

In this reboot the nameless City returns in pretty and dark splendour for you to explore, complete with the expected patrolling guards and citizens. There are a number of easy jobs you can do while prowling about the streets and rooftops which teach you mechanics for extra cash outside the main, eight chapter story, and there are also six optional "instanced" side missions to complete too. Overall it does a decent job, with an interesting new story (which ends kinda strangely though) and giving nods to the mechanists, Garrett's odd eye, Shalebridge Cradle, the Hag and the Trickster from previous games but sadly most of those are missing in this new imagining as well as the decline of the word "taffer" and random woodsie scrawl that I really grew to love.

My main problem with it was that it is too easy, even on Master difficulty where you cannot kill anyone and must not harm any civilians. The maps certainly feel smaller than the previous ones which in turn make the AI enemies have very simple and often predictable patrol patterns. On top of that, if you build this Garrett the way I did and have the arcade skill to back it up, he can be a beast in melee. When you can knock out five opponents in open combat you begin to question if you really need to do all that sneaking around (unless you play as a "ghost", which I wouldn't have the patience for). If you play on a lesser difficulty I'm pretty sure you can just stroll around openly as you can suddenly just slaughter all the guards with your bow.

The old one-two. First to the balls, then to the face.

There was also a distinct lack of supernatural critters. There is one, pretty scary monster type in the game whom you cannot knock out in melee (stun only) but nowhere near the number and variety when the Trickster was around, not as terrifying as the Cradle inmates, and definitely easier to kill than those damn zombies in the first game where you needed to bless your water arrows to permanently put them down, otherwise they'd just get back up.

Still it was great to be in Garrett's shoes again. Perhaps if I didn't have his previous adventures to compare this to it would score higher but as it stands I give it 3 deadly shadows out of 5.

Haunting Chikor Castle

Part of the journals from Wizardry Online! You can view the rest here!

With Selenka taking magic classes as the Ministry of Arcanum (she certainly seems to spend lots of time there lately), Caanon got us a job from a scholarly appraiser at the bustling market to track down his friend, a mage who was last seen headed towards Chikor Castle, so named because of a heroic dog that once lived there apparently. Now the castle is home only to the undead, and has three main areas of interest. For a change the traps in this place are easily detected.

Western Dungeon:
Turning left from the entry leads to stairs down into a large zombie infested hall. Fortunately Caanon met up with Quark and Vladut again along with Lydovey, a fair elven mage, to tackle the massive horde while I shadowed from a distance. A safer path to traverse the hall is to take the ladders up to the higher walkways which lead to relative safety. Alas I was too far to warn them about the pit trap at the first dark angel statue (activated by donating items to the ghost of Lord Midnight at the entry).

Caanon reported that they had fallen into a small dungeon surrounded by fast zombies. Having been injured I stayed with him while the rest of the party moved on. Past the gate, and a knight statue was another ghost who Caanon aided and she provided the key to the higher level of the castle.

Forge Level:
Accessible by turning right from the entry hall, this area contained more zombies and a large pack of kobolds. Since it was easier to sneak past, I was the one traversing this area most - mainly to contact the dwarf spirit here who held the key to the final statue which held a chamber with more zombies and a doom sentinel.

Looked a lot like those creeps in the Shalebridge Cradle.

Top Floors:
Past the forge level are stairs up to the quarters themselves which Caanon reported was guarded by an ambush of kobolds in a tight hallway. Many more zombies, butchers and statues lurked in the maze up there and it was here that we found the mage we were looking for. He had been turned into a scavenger zombie... Once we retrieved his remains Caanon focused on going up past the many poison traps until the very top of the castle which is ultimately where we found what the dwarf spirit back at the forge wanted.

After collecting the reward we met up with our absentee mage and went shopping with our now substatial funds (much to Caanon's displeasure)! It was time to get new equipment though, and he wasn't complaining so much once he had his full bronze plate armor on.

-Thanam