NOTE: This article contains MASSIVE spoilers, more or less. If you have yet to play this game, this may completely ruin certain levels, if not the game. I strongly suggest you play and complete Chapter 5, in the dark, with the volume turned way up, and explore every single room in the level, BEFORE reading this article.
Kind of like this, but with MUCH better hair.
Before I begin, I must say that I have played almost every psychological thriller out there. I have played Silent Hill, I have played Alan Wake, I have played Dead Space, and I have played The Last of Us. I have played through the Mass Effect series, and was a total dickhead to everyone the entire time. When I played Fable III, I became freakin’ MUSSOLINI by the end of it. And none of this has ever bothered me in the slightest.
I have also played most of the games that challenge your moral compass and your capacity to have empathy and guilt. I was not bothered by Bioshock. I was not moved by the secret backstory of Braid (without a doubt my favorite indie game ever.) And while I loved it, and it was one of my favorite games ever, and go play it right now, seriously right now, I did not cry at the end of Shadow of the Colossus.
And then came Thief.
Thief is a first-person adventure game where your primary objective is to clear the level while stealing as much as possible. Read that again, and note how “killing everyone and everything” is not a listed objective, ever.
I searched “Douchebag Vulture” to find an image to go with this paragraph, and this old picture of Romney came up.
So I find myself questioning my actions sometimes, as I walk amongst the corpses of INNOCENT BRAINWASHED CITIZENS strewn about me as I pick through their bodies like a vulture, knowing that each body will yield, at most, a few pieces of gold. I also know that these poor souls never had to die, and, according to the game’s coding and storyline, were not supposed to. (The developers coded multiple sets of dialogue between guards that can only happen if you haven’t shot him in the head before he says it, inferring that they didn’t intend for you to mercilessly kill him.)
I’ll back up.
Yeah. Garrett’s not a killer like Nixon’s not a crook.
Early on in the game, the protagonist, Garrett, makes it clear that he is not a killer. He does not say “I like to avoid killing whenever possible.” He does not say, “I only kill when it is the last resort.” He says, “I am not a killer.”
Well, don’t worry Garrett, because apparently I am the killer you have been (probably not) craving.
I will go through these levels, where the secondary objectives include “Remain undetected” and “Do not kill or knockout any guards” and I will take Garrett’s moral code, and, as Doug Benson so eloquently once said, “Knock it’s dick into the dirt. If it didn’t have a dick, it would grow one, just for it to be knocked into the dirt.
Moral code be damned, EVERYONE IS GONNA DIE.
That includes caged birds and dogs, just because they might end up squawking or barking (or vice versa maybe? I don’t know. Game is kind of glitchy) and reveal my presence. Even if all the guards who might hear them have been killed already.
“But where’s Mrs. Doubtfire,” you ask?
I also find myself using psychological torture tactics to mess with the guards to the extent that they mentally break down and start looking inside of vases for me. I will repeat that. Screw with the guards long enough and frequently enough without being seen, and they will start searching for you inside of vases, as if Robin Williams went crazy and thought he was still the genie from Aladdin, and he became violent and sadistic.
Or Flubber. Flubber would work too I guess.
Occasionally, I will spot a pool of oil or some other flammable liquid on the floor, and will spend unreasonable amounts of time waiting for a guard to cross the path, and then that dude is gonna get his ass set on fire thanks to my fire arrows and violent tendencies. By the way, why is that a thing? What guard sees a pool of oil on the ground and goes “Meh, it’s not like that could ever blow up in our faces.” (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?)
Essentially this, but the size of a walkman.
And by the way, all of these guards are not JUST going to die. They are going to be violently killed by either arrows, fire, poison, crushed to death, or Garrett’s handy dandy primary weapon, a small spiked mace. (Don’t even get me started. You are armed with what is essentially a pocket-sized morning star.)
I regularly utilize arrows that are made to pierce helmets to dispose of guards, when the suggested course of action involves throwing a bottle to harmlessly distract the guard. And, instead of using the “swoop” action, which silently lets me glide across surfaces undetected, I will use poison gas arrows to knock out birds and dogs, who couldn’t harm me if they tried.
I will also tactically throw the lifeless corpses of guards into open patches of light so other guards will come to investigate, where I will quickly add their corpses to the pile. Not before looting their corpses, though, because I am a very frugal psychopath.
By the way, I don’t know if I put enough emphasis into this: these “guards” are innocent men. They were, for the most part, either brainwashed, forced into service, or had no other options to put food on the table for their families. No, I am not constructing a narrative for them. Some of them literally say these things to other guards, and I kill them nonetheless. Someone help me. I am a monster.
And let me reiterate, the game developers at Eidos scripted this game around Garrett’s moral code. At one point, you have the choice to kill your nemesis, or escape. Not only do you have a better cutscene by escaping, but the game also refers to your nemesis as still alive further on, showing that they intend for you to do what Garrett would have done, and spare him. But, if you’re like me – sadistic, violent, psychopathic, all ten kinds of fucked up, funny, charming, likes long walks on the beach, and single (Ladies?) – you get to run a cutscene where you execute your panting, kneeling opponent by jamming your spiked mace thingy into his trachea, and then violently ripping it back towards you.
So, in short, Thief taught me two things. First, it taught me that I have deep issues that I should probably talk to a shrink about, and maybe I shouldn’t be allowed around sharp objects or noxious fumes any time soon.
You know what? Shut up, Beavis.
And also, it taught me that I am a little wuss. Seriously, play Chapter 5 in the dark with the lights off and the volume up, and explore everywhere. If you make it through the level in one sitting, while exploring EVERY ROOM, you are more of a man than I am.
Best of luck, and hopefully you don’t piss me off in a dark alley. Because apparently I will kill the shit out of you and your pals, and rob your corpses, with little to no remorse.
Note from the author: This is satire. Please do not call the cops on me. I need to get rid of the bodies in my trunk first.
Second note from the author: That was also satire.
