The Post-Game: Rise of the Argonauts

Rise of the Argonauts is a game that gets very little notice today. When I bought it, I didn't know anything about it beyond the store page description. Yet several of my friends, on seeing some of my screenshots show up their activity feeds, commented, "I LOVED that game!" With some not aware there was a PC port. It's understandable, I guess; Codemasters is more famous for their Formula 1 games than for dialog-driven RPGs based on Greek mythology. Still, there is a lot of fun to be had with Rise of the Argonauts if a dialogue-driven hack 'n slash piques your interest (as it did mine). The use of Greek legend provides a great ambiance, and unique ways to upgrade and play give it some replay value, too. An easy game to recommend if you are looking for a change of pace.

Gameplay

+ Combat flows well. Plenty of weapons and armors to acquire and choose from. They all differ visually and provide unique bonuses.

+ Plenty of slow-motion finishing moves.

+ Skill trees are organized around a different Greek god, and your combat develops in the manner your favored god prefers. Ares, Apollo, Hermes and Athena each have their own styles, buffs and debuffs.

+ "God powers." I took most of Hermes' upgrades; calling forth lightning and great winds was very cool.

+ Bosses can be quite hard (though since much of the game is easy, this might be seen as an unexpected difficulty spike).

+ Three of the key locations - Saria, Kythra, and Mycenae - can be visited in any order. 

+ Conversation choices sometimes result in different outcomes. 

+ Some conversation choices are timed, some are not. Watch carefully. 

+ Some unique uses of the dialog options - like the forum debate on Kythra.

+/- Non-boss enemies are easy, even the minotaurs (get the Hermes "strike from behind" damage bonus and they'll fall in three hits).

+/- Long levels, but they're generally narrow corridor affairs. If you arrive at some open ground, that telegraphs horde or boss level combat is about to happen.

+/- Manually saving the game does not save your immediate location; it saves your last checkpoint.

+/- Lots of dialogue. I like BioWare games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, so I wasn't bothered by it. But there were times that my sword-arm began to itch from inaction.

- Only four "god powers" accessible at a time. Clearly an effect of being ported from a console. Would have been better to bind them to the number keys, allowing the use of up to 10. Though that might have made the game TOO easy.

- Not much enemy variety. Your standard mobs and mini bosses in a variety of numbers and spawns.

- No co-op. With Jason being accompanied by two other Argonauts on most missions, seems like there was an opportunity to implement co-operative play, but it is an opportunity missed.

Characters

+ Rise of the Argonauts is clearly inspired by some sword-and-sandals epic movies from the early '00s. If Gladiator or Troy (or even some classics like Spartacus or The Robe) are something you like, you'll find yourself enjoying this one. I found myself rooting for Jason, sympathizing with Lycomedes, disgusted by Achilles (though still admiring his prowess), admiring Atalanta's power and resourcefulness, sorry for Medusa... The characters are generally well done and a great draw. Hercules is let down badly by his voice actor.

Narrative

+ You play as Jason of Iolcus, king of ancient myth, whose wife Alceme is murdered by nefarious assassins. Instead of accepting her death, he sets out upon a journey across Greece in search of the one artifact that is reputedly able to reverse death: the Golden Fleece. Visit the Oracle at Delphi, and find descendants of Hermes, Athena, and Ares in Saria, Kythra, and Mycenae. Then venture into Tartarus and, upon returning, defend Iolcus. That's the story in a nutshell. 

- The enemy force, the "blacktongues," are your standard dark-magic mobs.

Graphics etc.

+ Graphics are fairly decent (Unreal 3). Showing their age, but still colorful and vibrant (if low-res at times).

+ SUPERB soundtrack. Composer Tyler Bates channels the feel of Troy and Gladiator and perfectly sets the mood. In some cases, the music saves the game from other, less-excellent elements.

+ Light on system resources. Rise of the Argonauts uses Unreal 3, and it is well-optimized here.

+ Cheap. $9.99 in the store? and even cheaper during sales? That's a good value, considering the amount of content.

+/- Characters (women AND men) are all idealized representations of the human form. Translation: the women are sexy, and the men have bulging muscles and ripped abs. This didn't bother me, but if you're hoping for something more "politically and socially correct," well, you won't find that here.

- Mouth movement not always synced to the dialog.

- The voice-acting is bland, whether due to the level of writing or the actual effort of the actors is hard to tell. A few stand out - like Pan and Lycomedes - and Brian Bloom as protagonist Jason does his best, but overall the effect is forgettable. Disappointing because dialogue plays such a large part in the game.

The Post-Game: Red Faction II

Red Faction II is the sequel that fans of the Red Faction franchise would rather forget. Decent graphics for the time, trouble free gameplay (no crashes & full 1080p), multiple environments (some levels are completed on foot, others in planes, others in tanks, others in power armor), and great voice acting (Lance Henriksen and Jason Statham).

So what are the drawbacks?

Red Faction II contains little or nothing that made the first Red Faction game a classic. The game is linear as hell. So was the first game, you might say; but even within the levels, there often were multiple ways to progress. Not so in Red Faction II. What about Geomod and destructible terrain? Well, that's still here, kind of. There's plenty of stuff that is destructible. But instead of unlocking different routes, Geomod's role is reduced to the only path. One level begins with Alias in an alley with both ends blocked off. There's no way to progress forward. Oh, wait, shoot those barrels. Boom! The wall explodes and (realistically) crumbles, opening a hole to walk through. There's your Geomod.

Also missing is the Everyman character. Parker (Red Faction), Alec Mason (Red Faction Guerrilla), and Darius Mason (Red Faction Armageddon) were all ordinary joes called upon to be heroes. In Red Faction II, we play as a Nano-agumented super soldier who is already special. The plot might look fine on paper – super soldiers attempt to overthrow a despot – but the execution isn't even up B-movie standards (maybe C-movie standards). And while the voice acting is good, there's no emotional attachment with Alias (your character), even when he is betrayed and has to fight an entirely new enemy about half-way through the game.

Red Faction II is also short for a fps. A complete run-through clocked in around 5 hours. The enemies are generic and repetitive (even the “zombies” of later levels present little challenge). If you're good at getting head-shots, you'll be able to coast through this one. The boss battles do present a decent challenge; the final boss is insanely hard / old school at first. Then I realized his pattern (from which he never deviates), and beat him in 90 seconds. There was one boss that had a charged electrical field for protection; if he got too close, and you became electrocuted, all of your controls become inverted (left is right, down is up). That was fun and a great challenge.

But one unique and fun boss isn't enough to save a game, and unfortunately Red Faction II has little else of interest. Skip it unless you can get it REALLY cheap.

Of note: If battling bots is something you like, you might be interested in Red Faction II's highly customizeable Bot-Match mode. There are quite a few maps and a great variety of weapons. Though why wouldn't you just play Quake 3 or Classic Nexuiz if that's what you're after?

The Post-Game: Borderlands

Borderlands leaves me with mixed feelings. I had a great time playing it – when I wasn't bored by endless fetch-quests, easy combat and (in the DLC) re-used bosses.

I enjoyed the weapons the most. They feel and fire great, with a lot of variety. There's a finite amount of cash, so most of your weapons will be found via looting. And there is a TON of stuff to loot. Any fallen enemy drops loot, from bandits to wild animals. And if you find a stash, well, you just might land yourself a rare. Sniper rifles have a fixed zoom, though.

The game world is huge and drab; a real wasteland. The visual style is still unique (even with Telltale using a similar hand-drawn, cell-shaded look for most of their games). It was a little jarring at first, but after a few hours I found the graphics very appealing. And light on system resources. I am able to run Borderlands at max settings @1440p on an R7 260X! Borderlands is just not that demanding.

Getting around the huge world isn't a problem; Scooter's vehicle terminals are everywhere, making it very easy to “Git you one!” But why are we traversing the gameworld? Fetch-quests, mostly. “Bring me 20 fish!” “Destroy 3 fuel tanks!” “Find 20 parts!” They're not all fetch-quests, of course, but there's quite a bit of padding. The attraction was supposed to lie in the combat (and looting) while completing the quests. Which is fine, except the combat is easy. If you do a few side-quests and suddenly find yourself 2 or more levels higher than recommended, you'll breeze through the missions. Co-op play is supposed to mean harder enemies and better loot; I found co-op even easier.

I'd heard so much about how good the characters of Borderlands are, and they're there, but barely; the characters are the start- and end-points of the missions, but that's it. You'll barely even see a cut-scene with them (except in some of the DLC). Claptraps are everywhere, and they're obviously designed to be cute. What about the story? Well, you're looking for a vault; think of it as a box. You're on a planet named “Pandora”. Put the two together, and hopefully you won't be too disappointed when you finally get to the vault after an endless level of “guardians”.

So, I have mixed feelings about Borderlands. I found it tremendously fun in co-op, though, so if you have a few friends who want to run around together shooting and looting, grab it by all means. If you're planning to solo most of it, it will be a solitary, easy grind for loot. Not a bad thing if that's what you're looking for; if you were hoping for more, though, you'll be disappointed.

"Wait, you forgot about your reference to 'recycled bosses'!"

Read on.

On DLC:
There are four DLC, all of them substantial additions to the main game; campaigns are large (as are the rewards) and well worth the purchase – especially if you're buying the game for its co-op.

Some problems with the DLC, though:
- No fast travel. Wait, wtf? That's right. You fast travel to the start of the DLC campaign, but within the DLC, there is no fast-travel, meaning you'll spend a lot of time running (or driving). If you pass a save-point deep within a level, and quit your game, the next time you load your save, you'll be back at the beginning of the DLC, and have to run / drive all the way back to where you were when you saved.

- RECYCLED BOSSES. You'll re-fight the boss from the main campaign, and in the Claptrap Robot Revolution DLC, you'll also re-fight the bosses from The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned and The Secret Armory of General Knoxx – sometimes even multiple times! Borderlands tries to be self-deprecating as it does this, but it doesn't change the fact that they're re-using assets. It reeks of being cheap. Did the devs seriously think we would swallow the EXACT same boss three times without complaining? Come on.

Mass Effect - Timeline of Materials (minor spoilers)

As I prepare for my Mass Effect 3 playthrough, I'm painfully aware that of the myriad extracurricular materials that fill in gaps in the franchise's lore. It's unfortunate when game companies handle their intellectual properties this way; people play the games but don't comprehend some things because they didn't read Part II of some obscure tie-in comic book. Unfortunately, Mass Effect 3 suffers from this problem more than most.

There is more than what I list here - like the mobile game that was entirely focused on Jacob Taylor, and that other Mass Effect novel that wasn't written by Karpyshyn - but most of the important stuff is here. I tried to keep the list as spoiler-free as possible.

Mass Effect Evolution (comic) (four parts) (Mac Walters)

Featuring the Illusive Man, General Williams (I believe Ashley's father, though no mention is made of her), Saren Arterius, Desolas Arterius, First Contact War. 

A prequel to the prequel. Not sure why BioWare felt the need to write this series, though it does kind of explain how the Illusive Man got his bluish eyes.

Mass Effect Revelation (novel) (Drew Karpyshyn)

Featuring Saren Arterius, David Anderson, and Kahlee Sanders

Tells the story (only briefly described in the first Mass Effect game) of David Anderson's previous encounter with Saren Arterius. Also the first time we meet Kahlee Sanders. Sanders only appears in one mission in Mass Effect 3, but she is a primary protagonist in all three Karpyshyn Mass Effect novels.

Alternate place for Mass Effect Homeworlds Vol. 2 (comic) (Mac Walters)

Told as a flashback, it hints at /spoils the endings of Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, and certain events in Mass Effect 3 in the final panels, but the majority of content occurs here. If you don't want spoilers, read it at the other spot I placed it in this timeline.

Featuring Tali Zorah vas Neema, Dr. Michel, Barla Von.

The events immediately preceding Shepard meeting Tali on the Citadel in Mass Effect 1.

Mass Effect (first video game)

Mass Effect Ascension (novel) (Drew Karpyshyn) 

Featuring Kahlee Sanders, The Illusive Man, and the Quarian flotilla, Paul Grayson

This and the next novel are very important in the Mass Effect story; pity that so few people have read them. Sanders now works at the Grissom Academy, working with specially talented children and teenagers. The Illusive Man sees the Academy as a potential source of research subjects (for the advancement of humanity as a whole, of course). One of the "subjects" he is desirous of obtaining flees to the Quarian flotilla - leading to the events and distrust of Cerberus that Tali describes near the start of Mass Effect 2 (she is not present in the novel, though).

Mass Effect Redemption (comic) (four parts) (Mac Walters) (Prequel to Mass Effect 2) 

Featuring Liara T'soni, The Illusive Man, Miranda Lawson, Feron, Collectors, Shepard's body

Details exactly what Liara's debt to Feron was. Fills some major gaps in Liara's story between the first game and ME2 Shadowbroker DLC.

Mass Effect 2 prequel: Mass Effect Incursion (comic) (Mac Walters) 

Featuring Aria t'Loak, Collectors (Incursion)

When Shepard shows up on Omega saying he's hunting Collectors, Aria doesn't seem surprised. This is the story of how she already knew about the Collectors' plans.

Mass Effect 2 (second video game)

Concurrent with Mass Effect 2:
Mass Effect: Paragon Lost (animated film) 

Featuring James Vega, Collectors (and others incl. Liara T'Soni and David Anderson, but only Vega is voiced by the same voice actor from the video games).

Vega is easy-going but conflicted when we meet him in Mass Effect 3. This is the story of the mission that cracked his confidence. 

Concurrent with Mass Effect 2:
Mass Effect Homeworlds (comic) (Mac Walters) Vol. 3. Read after the ME2 Archangel mission to avoid spoilers. Preferably, read after receiving Garrus' loyalty mission, but before completing it.

Featuring Garrus Vakarian, Sidonis, Archangel, Garrus' father, Garrus' mother. 

Some background into Garrus' family, and the story of his betrayal immediately prior to meeting Shepard in Mass Effect 2.

After the events of Mass Effect 2, but before Mass Effect 2 Arrival: 

Mass Effect Retribution (novel) (Drew Karpyshyn) 

Featuring the Illusive Man, Kahlee Sanders, David Anderson, Kai Leng, Aria T'Loak, Omega, Paul Grayson

The Illusive Man exacts revenge for the events depicted in Mass Effect Ascension. Probably the most important external material of the Mass Effect franchise. Contains a detailed, first-person account of Reaper indoctrination. Also contains Anderson's confrontation with Kai Leng that Anderson only hints at in Mass Effect 3.

After the events of Mass Effect 2, but before Mass Effect 2 Arrival: 

Mass Effect Inquisition (comic) (Mac Walters) 

Featuring Captain Bailey, Councilor Udina, Executor Pallin (Inquisition)

How Captain Bailey became head of C-sec.

Mass Effect Conviction (comic) (Mac Walters) 

(Days after the events of Mass Effect 2: Arrival DLC) 

Featuring James Vega, David Anderson, Omega

After the events of Paragon Lost, Vega starts drinking heavily. Anderson recruits him to guard Shepard after Shepard turns himself in after the events of the ME2 Arrival DLC.

Mass Effect Invasion (comic) (four parts) (Mac Walters) (prequel to Mass Effect 3: Omega DLC) 

Featuring Aria T'Loak, The Illusive Man, Omega, General Petrovsky, Adjutants

The story of how Aria T'Loak lost control of Omega to General Petrovsky

Mass Effect Homeworlds (comic) (Mac Walters) Vol. 4 

Occurs immediately prior to the opening events of Mass Effect 3.

Featuring Liara T'soni, Admiral Hackett, The Illusive Man. 

How did Liara wind up on Mars looking for Prothean blueprints in the opening of Mass Effect 3? Here's the story.

Mass Effect 3 (third video game)

Concurrent with Mass Effect 3: Mass Effect Homeworlds (comic) Vol. 1 (Mac Walters) 

Told as flashbacks, which are framed by the Reaper invasion of Mass Effect 3.

Featuring James Vega – Not sure when to place this, no real time-frame of the flash-back, other than it happens from the time before Vega was a soldier. The beginning and ending are in the early stages of Mass Effect 3, so I put it here.

Concurrent with Mass Effect 3: Mass Effect Homeworlds (comic) Vol. 2 (Mac Walters)

Told as flashbacks, which are framed by the Reaper invasion of Mass Effect 3 and the events on Rannoch. Recommend reading immediately after completing the Rannoch mission.

Featuring Tali Zorah, Chellick, Dr. Michel, Barla Von

Most of the events in this comic occur prior to or concurrent with the first Mass Effect game, but the final panels of the comic contain spoilers for Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, so I put it here.  

The Post-Game - Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell

If Saints Row 4 was a love letter to the franchise, Gat Out of Hell is a postcard. If SR4 was a game you enjoyed, go ahead an get this one, it's just as wild and crazy. The Boss has been kidnapped by Satan and taken to hell to marry his daughter, so Johnny Gat and Kinzie Kensington go after him/her. To get Satan to confront the duo, you have to destroy hell to get his attention. A pretty thin story, but it works well as an excuse for raising hell all over hell.

A number of old characters return, like the DeWynter sisters (SR3) and Dane Vogel (SR2). There are some new characters too, like Vlad the Impaler, Blackbeard, and Shakespeare. Oddly, though, they're not recruited as homies, only as “allies.” Single-player Gat Out of Hell is a solitary effort. And short. Others have claimed 6 hours for completing the story; I took 8, but that's still a quarter of the size of the other Saints Row games (maximum level is 20). If you want to bring the game to 100%, getting all the collectibles and completing all the activities, there's a lot to do, but the game devolves into a collect-a-thon at that point.

Super powers return; Stomp, Minion-summon, Aura, and Blast each have three elements to choose from. The geography of hell is new. Most of the activities are back, though in some new forms. Insurance Fraud is now about removing years off of souls' sentences in hell; when Adrenaline Mode is active, there is an explosive fire effect that can really heat things up. One of the best parts of Gat Out of Hell is the flying, which is good because you'll be doing a lot of it. The weapons are also a highlight; shooting frosting at enemies to make them attack each other? Yes, please. Shooting love dust at enemies to make them break into a sexy dance (even the titans)? Oh, yeah. If there is a downside, it's that the game is easy, even on the hardest difficulty.

I had fun with Gat Out of Hell; Johnny was missing for most of Saints Row 3 and half of Saints Row IV, so this game was like catching up with an old friend. No, you're not playing as the Boss, but “Who wouldn't want to be Johnny Gat?” - Johnny Gat.




Note about Kinzie for single-players: you can play as Kinzie throughout the campaign and switch between her and Johnny whenever you want; you just have to return to the Ultor lobby to do so. For the final boss battle, though, you will play as Johnny; Kinzie enters the room, Johnny shows up, they high-five, and you play as Johnny for the boss battle. It is called Gat Out of Hell, after all.

The Post-Game: Bulletstorm

First, let's get the Games for Windows Live (GFWL) thing out of the way. When I started the game, I was asked to login to GFWL (I already have a profile I have used for other games). I logged in, and GFWL downloaded an update that required me to restart the game. Restarted, and was able to login and play without issue.

On to the review:
Bulletstorm is a superb shooter, with some unique mechanics, SUPER colorful environments and great weapons. I would even say that it is worth the asking price, except the multiplayer is barely populated, making the single-player campaign the primary draw.

+ The kick and slide mechanics are first rate, and easy to execute. You'll be sliding around in no time.
+ The "leash" mechanic is also fun, though Red Faction Armageddon does the same thing better and with more variety
+ The assortment of weapons is great, each requiring different methods to execute kills. My favorite was the homing sniper rifle; fire a shot, and you control the bullet with the mouse, guiding it around cover to kill enemies!
+ The level design is good if linear. Don't be expecting alternate routes to go anywhere - there aren't any - but the path twists and turns enough so that directionality becomes confused.
+ Though there are plenty of check-points, the game can be very hard if you want it to be.
+ Plenty of variety in the enemies you fight, with lots of mini-bosses even on Normal difficulty.
+ The graphics are COLORFUL. The opening levels happen aboard a ship, and feel confined, but once you get out into the countryside and city, the vibrant color will hit you in the face. Detail and design of the graphics is great too. Some of the enviroments reminded me of a sun-lit Bioshock.
+ Bulletstorm is easy on system resources, making this game playable on a lot of machines. I never saw more than 500MB of video memory used; most of the time it hovered around 250-375MB
+ People probably don't buy shooters for the voice-acting, but it is very good, especially the always-excellent Jennifer Hale.
+ The single-player story embraces an entire genre of B-movie action stereotypes. Everyone fully commits, and the game succeeds well at it.

- Few people in multiplayer. Get some friends together, and I'm told it will still work. But don't purchase Bulletstorm thinking you'll be able to join random online matches. I wasn't able to find any.
- With the multiplayer a dead end, the single-player campaign needs to carry the game's appeal. And it is very appealing, but it is too short. My first play-through clocked in at 8.9 hours. Replayability appeal relies on upping the difficulty and "restricting" yourself to specific weapons.
- No manual save system. The entire game is saved via checkpoints.
- The final boss is a series of QuickTime events. Always knock a point off for that. There are several non-QTE bosses in the game; I guess this is just how the developers wanted the game to end.

Not everyone has the GFWL issue; I suppose I was one of the lucky ones. As a shooter, Bulletstorm carries my highest recommendation. But get it on sale just in case GFWL screws you over; then you won't have wasted much money.*

*Early reports indicate that users on Windows 10 no longer have the GFWL issue. I'm on Windows 7 x64.

MHM (Must Have Mod): No Film Grain for Remember Me

I hate Film Grain. Any feature that makes a graphical image less clear is just... (shudder). I know sometimes there is a reason for it, like in Alien Isolation when the devs were trying to evoke that '80s sci-fi feel. But for a game like Remember Me? WHY?

Mods to the rescue!

I found a mod on Nexus whose only purpose is to completely remove the film grain from Remember Me. Here is the link:

http://www.nexusmods.com/rememberme/mods/2/?

Say hello to crisp visuals. Be sure to crank the anti-aliasing, though, because now jaggies are a lot more noticeable. A slight downside is that some textures are now very obviously low-res (like the merchandise in the market stalls in Slum 404), but that's a trade-off I'm willing to accept.

Mass Effect 3: Disabling V-sync

So when my graphics card was having some hiccups, I had to make do with a Radeon 6670. It worked well enough, but it couldn't handle Mass Effect 3 at a solid 60 fps @1080p, which means the game stuttered when playing it. There is no option to disable Vertical Sync in the graphics options, but it is still possible to do it. Here is how.

Special thanks to user evilsofa in this thread for the tip.

Always back up your files before altering them!

1. Find the file GamerSettings.ini. It should be located in C > Users > [username] > My Documents > BioWare > Mass Effect 3 > BIOGame > Config. Open it in Notepad.

2. At the bottom of the System Settings section, add the following lines:
UseVSync=True
SmoothFrameRate=True
MaxSmoothedFrameRate=62

3. Set UseVSync to False. This disables Vertical Sync (hello screen-tearing!). If you're still experiencing stutter, try setting SmoothFrameRate to False as well. MaxSmoothedFrameRate is an fps cap and shouldn't affect game smoothness at lower framerates.

Bonus: MaxSmoothedFrameRate is an fps cap. So if you're not after V-Sync removal, but instead want to play Mass Effect 3 at 120fps, this would be where you would change the framerate cap.

The Post-Game: Thief (2014)

I really wanted to recommend this game and if you're looking for a dark stealth adventure, it'll do the job. But there are plenty of other games out do the same thing, and do it better. While I'm not on the "the original Thief games r the BEST!" bandwagon, those games were simply much more fun to play. I still had fun with the new Thief - the game tries hard to be engaging. Stealth is required the minute Garrett steps out of his hideout, interacting with the environment is key to success, and there are multiple ways to accomplish a given task. Sounds good, right?

Except the actual game-play of Thief - thieving and strategizing - happens the same way too many times for the game to carry my interest through to the end (I did get there eventually on my third attempt). The story could have been engaging, but characters are under-developed (some only appear in cut-scenes), show up for no reason, and are blessed with campy B-movie dialogue. The cutscene at the end of the game, while complete, made me think there might have been more to the story, but it was trimmed or cut. Who knows.

The mechanics of the game work well, but as before, there's little variation: put out fires to create shadows, throw a bottle to distract guards, and swoop to the objective. What should have been a thrilling exploration of an open world Steampunk city is instead reduced to a grind-fest for loot in a lot of close alleys. Some of the level designs are great - the house with the moving walls was one of my favorites - but the novelty passed quickly once I realized that most loot would be acquired (yet again) by rifling through the desks and closets for pens, ashtrays, golden saucers, scroll holders...

In a sense, Thief really is Kleptomania Simulator. You scamper around the City, stealing random sh*t. But to me, Thief should be about “the job,” not about stealing random sh*t. There are three kinds of jobs in Thief: Main (story) jobs, client jobs that an NPC will provide, and Basso's side jobs. Story jobs advance the story; yes, there's theft along the way, but even with the massive amount of loot in the Baron's mansion, thieving still feels like an afterthought because there's literally no reason to do it. Client jobs have a minor story of their own, but there are only two clients (each provides three missions). Jobs from Basso are side-quests that give some gold and a notice on screen that it's completed. Even though they're acquired from different sources, they all have a similar feel and execution.

The graphics are great, but intense. If you're looking to showcase a killer gaming rig, Thief has settings aplenty that can be cranked to impressive levels. But great graphics and some fun mechanics are betrayed by a very average use just about all other game elements. The setting needed to be opened up. The music creates tension without being memorable. Enemies only come in three varieties. The enemies' AI all behaves the same (extremely predictable). And boss battles - what a joke they are! If first-person stealth is your thing, get it by all means. Just don't expect a genre defining experience, and you'll probably enjoy it.

On challenge mode:
There are three maps (one of which is DLC): the Asylum, the Baron's mansion, and the House of Blossoms (all excerpted from the main game). Collect loot before the time runs out. Every time you gather loot, the count-down resets. It's an arcade-y addition that might help refine your thieving technique (there are enemies present), but with only three maps it's little more than a distraction. And if you don't purchase The Forgotten DLC (the Asylum map), there are actually only two maps...

On the Master Thief edition:
The Master Thief edition is b*llsh*t. You get: the Opportunist Booster Pack, a digital comic book, and the digital soundtrack. The Opportunist booster Pack contains items that can be acquired in-game, you just get them at the start. To get the comic book, you have to take the code provided and enter it into an external website. To get the soundtrack, you have to enter the code you receive into a different external website. BUT THE SOUNDTRACK IS NOT COMPLETE. I only received 10 tracks of the soundtrack this way. The full album on Amazon is 20 tracks. A straight-up cheat, plain and simple. Don't get the Master Thief edition.

On DLC:
Of the DLC, the Booster packs are not pay-to-win, but they are pay-for-an-advantage. The Bank Heist is fun if short. If feels like a left-over level for content that was cut from the game. It's fun, but the value of the loot is disappointing, and it can be beaten in 30-60 minutes. If Challenge mode is something you enjoyed, the The Forsaken challenge map is worth the price - on sale at 80% off, of course.