I recently played and beat Thief: Deadly Shadows and wanted to share my thoughts and see if anyone else has played this or has any comments on this.

I played using Gametap's free download service, so I guess I was playing the PC version, however, I had a Playstation 2 to USB adaptor so I was able to use that instead of a keyboard mouse combo, which I found far more comfortable, since I played using the over the shoulder view, rather than the first person perspective.

My biggest trick was mapping out the controls and understanding the game mechanics, once I picked that up, I started breezing through the game. Though I was playing each mission on the hard setting (not extreme) I was making sure to meet the criteria to beat it on extreme. The only level I didn't succeed in this was the mission with the Widow, and on at least half a dozen levels I managed the full 100%. On top of this, I also made sure that I caused no deaths, except for the zombies, shadows, and stone monsters, so I made extensive use of my blackjack.

The game itself felt very well put together. The city was set up in a manner that allowed you good vantage points to hide in and bypass your opponents, but didn't come across as being designed specifically for that purpose. Sound played as much of a role as sight does, and being able to listen in on the conversations that came up from the citizenry and even the guards all made for excellent foreshadowing, and those that didn't provided either humor, or sometimes even was the method that you figured out your objectives or entire subquests from.

The story and plot played out very nicely, and while i was able to make guesses at where the story was headed, I still wound up getting a few points wrong. Even though I didn't play the first two games, through reading various books scattered throughout the game, and listening to the commentary, I didn't feel like I was missing anything.

The game mechanics were my favorite part. I think the lockpicking could have been made more complicated, but it would have clashed with the fact that your character is supposed to be a master thief. The sneaking and gathering information was quite fun. The mission modes were also nice, but I liked that you essentially had an overworld that you could explore freely. This basically made it feel very much like a Ninja Zelda game.

I enjoyed that fact that you could kill anyone, simply because you were also able to choose to kill no one at all. If this had been an assasination game, where i had to kill people, or a stealth game in which I was specifically denied the ability to kill, I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much, but because I had the choice to do so, it made playing with the intention to not kill that much more fun.

I only encountered a few minor glitches in the game. At one point, I ended up attempting to read a note that would let me work out an alliance with the pagans, but because I tried to read it too soon, it ended up refusing to activate that point. I was still able to make teh alliance, but it never showed up as beign a completed objective. Another glitch had me climbing a wall, but I went through the wall and fell out of the entire area, essentially into void space and death. Then the funniest glitch somehow had a woman running past me, except she was floating in the air upside down as she ran.

The only problems I had with the game were that a few mission specific areas were inaccessable without any ingame reason for them being inaccessable. The one time I had been trying to get into the musem through a hidden tunnel, but though the tunnel was completely accessable, it simply wouldn't let me through. There were a few other time where if i tried to fire a rapid succession of arrows at an enemy, every other arrow would simply pass right through the target even though it should have hit. The only other minor issue I had was that you couldn't leave a mission area in order to restock on items or health until after you had completed all your objectives, at which point you couldn't return to a mission area, but I suppose that was part of the challenge.

So anyway, what are other people's perspectives? I've never played any of the other games in the series, and I didn't even bother trying to use the keyboard or mouse controls at all, nor did I try playing in first person perspective for longer than the training mission at the very beginning. This is also the first "stealth" game that I've ever played. So how does it compare to previous Thief games, or perhaps even stuff like Assassin's Creed or Hitman? Are there other good games that play similarly?

I loved the first two thief games on PC. Although I was pretty disappointed in Deadly Shadows, I thought it was OK. I believe it was developed by Ion Storm instead of the original studio, and I didnt like alot of the changes in the overall feel of the game.

I think this old review summarizes alot of the differences which I completely agree with.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/thief3/review.html 

Thief was and still is an awesome gaming experience. Too bad it probably looks really dated now, but if you can look past it its worth a spin if you can find it in a bargain bin somewhere. It would be nice to see the franchise revived someday but more in the spirit of the first two games.

well, is free enough of a bargain for you?

Thief 1 and 2 are nothing short of epic in their own right, providing challenges and gameplay that holds true even today.
Playing them to learn more of Garret's past would probably be a lot of fun for you, and most of the missions are really great fun and exciting!
You'll learn how Garret lost his eye, his previous run-in's and cooperations with the Keepers, how he fought the crazed Father Karras and his metal and steam revolution and just get to experience the city itself.
There are a couple of missions that let you traverse the city both length and breadth if you like, and level design is grade A!

I really recommend both the prequels, odds are you'll like them every bit as much as Deadly Shadows, which is also a great game in and on itself.
The last Thief game was indeed developed by Ion Storm rather than Looking Glass Studios.
Ion Storm are the makers of the Deus Ex series as well, and Deadly Shadows shares it's ingame engine and some mechanics with Deus Ex 2: Invisible War.
Deus Ex 3 is officially confirmed some time ago, and a Thief 4 is alledgedly in the early works, so Garret will live on as suggested by the very open ending in Deadly Shadows.

As for games that play similarly; Deus Ex series to some extent, and Vampire: Bloodlines perhaps.
Other than that, this genre is very lacking for some reason, but it's getting better year by year!

Everyone should play Thief 1