I'm playing Deus Ex: HR on PS3 and also felt a strange urge to start up Thief: Deadly Shadows on original Xbox.  I'm enjoying both immensely.  It's like a double-shot of nostalgia and I'm really buzzing.  Thief is kind of buggy though.

DX:HR will be a great post-Demon's Souls game for you, Pokey, a lot less stress and a nice change of pace. 🙂

The first two Thiefs are available on GOG right now. Given that my old discs don't like installing on these newfangled Windowses, I might just invest. There are some games you should never leave just to memory.

Why Botch, you should read my 18,000-word treatise on the subject.

Though it looks like it needs a little TLC given our recent theme switch.

Steerpike, I may have read that piece a while back, when this site was still FFC (I've been a looong time lurker), but I read it again anyway.  Great stuff.  I remember back before the original came out and still had that nebulous title of "The Dark Project."  I would often and eagerly check their website for any hints of info (yes, I'm old).  I knew anything from Looking Glass was sure to be good.  Ultima Underworld and System Shock are two of my all-time favorites.

I didn't enjoy the more exploratory levels as much as you.  To me they just seemed too fantastical and therefore out of place, especially after the good old-fashioned burglary of Lord Bafford's Manor.  Constantine's house I didn't enjoy either, with all the weird architecture.  And those bug clouds were just too cheesy.  I really hated the Burricks and the other beasty adversaries.  I didn't mind the undead/supernatural ones as much but man were some of those levels creepy.  I remember the Bonehoard and the Cathedral especially.  Chilling.

I like how you give proper credit to Thief as pioneering the stealth genre.  I may play mostly consoles now, but my old PC snob self comes to the forefront in the Thief vs Metal Gear Solid argument.

I remember playing the Thief II demo and just didn't feel the magic.  That's why I never picked it up I suppose.  $10 bucks on GOG...

Deadly Shadows seems a worthy successor so far, although it's got a few warts.  The AI characters will turn their heads to look at you even when you're hidden in shadow.  And the parts in the city streets just seem kind of broken.  At one point everyone was running around killing one another, as if the AI wasn't quite up to the task given it  I do prefer the third-person perspective much more though.  I'm going after the Jacknal's Paw right now.  It's the fourth mission for me I think.

Gregg, I played Thief Gold while prepping for the big Thief article. Three new missions - two were just generally okay, and one, The Songs of the Caverns, was excellent.

The chief problem I've had with Thief's engine on modern PCs is slowing it down enough to be playable. Garrett's walk is so fast that he's across the room in a second and a half. Then, of course, there's the fact that Thief used the Indeo video codec, the codec that time forgot, which can also interfere. But like the rest of you guys, I'm impressed at how well its stylized, angular look aged. And Unreal 2-powered game (like Deadly Shadows) doesn't look half as good to me as the original Dark Engine.

For me, some of the more fantastical elements sort of enhanced the complexity of the game's flavor - just pure stealth burglary is fine, but mix in a little horror, a little magic, and it felt more multi-faceted. I do understand why some didn't like it, though: what seems like an added dimension to one gamer seems simply incongruous to another.

I certainly hope Thief 4 delivers the goods. It's coming from much of the same team that gave us DX:Human Revolution, so there's reason to be optimistic.

Also: glad you de-lurked, Botch!

Down in the Bonehoard and Return the the Cathedral stand out in my mind as the most terrifying and, as Gregg said, the most... place-seeming. Another favorite - Strange Bedfellows. There were very few levels in the Dark Project that I didn't like; the Lost City and whatever the last mission was called. Anyhoo, all this conversation means is that I'm going to have to add another -1 to my Log of Shame. Damn you GOG!