The more I stole, the happier I became.As I swiped every golden chalice, cut out every rare painting, and ratcheted every City Heritage plaque out of the City’s walls, my gameplay satisfaction rose in direct proportion to my coin count. Thief

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“ Thief is quiet, unrepentant stealth that, unlike many genre contemporaries, can’t also be played “panther-style” in order to satisfy the action-craving masses.

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“ I love how staunchly first-person it is; Garrett’s hands, feet, and head-bobs never let you forget that you’re playing a cloak-wearing ace larcenist.

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The first thing I did was turn off the rather large mini-map which not only offended my old-school Thief sensibilities, but also happened to take up far too much real estate on the screen. I also wanted to disable the Riddick-esque “eye shine” that fogs the outer edges of the screen when you’re completely in the shadows, but sadly was unable to do so.Rather than focus on the four open-world, standard-fare, tackle-them-in-any-order missions I took on during my two hours with Thief – which included lifting paintings, pens, hand-mirrors, and watches from apartments around the sometimes-confusingly-laid-out City – I’d like to spotlight my favorite part of my play session: a side mission dubbed “Hand Tailored.” Triggered when I searched the body of a man whose corpse fell from the ceiling when I accessed a secret room during one of the four primary tasks, I was given the optional, loot-building goal of lifting a mechanical hand that was as rare as it was valuable.Granted, this is always the goal in some form or another in Thief, but having it presented as a direct challenge with appropriate rewards provided an incentive I couldn’t pass up. Especially because the challenge area – the home/shop of a tailor named Alfonso – was just that: a challenge. Multiple entry points from the outside paired with tense, tight quarters inside made the mission irresistible for me. Rather than take the front or back doors, I clambered up the side of the building and entered through the upstairs window. It didn’t take long for me to fail the secondary “ghost” objective, as one of the two guards on patrol upstairs stole a glimpse of me, alerting the other and triggering a fight I barely survived by repeatedly whacking my attackers in the head with my Blackjack club.I thought I might at least be able to nab every last bit of Alfonso’s loot – until I got down to the first floor where most of the loot was and saw no fewer than three guards milling about. It would be impossible to get my hands on all the valuables with them around, so I’d have to distract them somehow. In the spirit of the mission, I couldn’t use Thief’s new temporarily disabling choke arrows, so with my health already low after the fight upstairs, I instead made my way down to the basement, where I grabbed the hand from a safe behind a painting, and then hightailed it out of there.In a pleasant, unexpected surprise, when I reached the area exit, I was greeted with a results screen outlining my performance. For swiping some but not all of the loot and being forced to knock out a couple of guards, I received an overall score of 68% for my efforts. Not bad, but I immediately wanted to revisit the challenge to take a shot at a perfect 100%. I hope Thief has a lot more of these types of graded tasks.It’s the dialogue and voice acting that I’m primarily taking issue with. NPCs are walking anachronisms, dropping the ‘S’ and ‘F’ words like contemporary bros from California with nary a tongue-in-cheek “taffer” in earshot. It contrasts sharply with the game’s pseudo-19th-century steampunk setting. Meanwhile, Garrett’s original voice actor Stephen Russell and his charmingly dry, sarcastic portrayal of the master thief has been inexplicably dropped (sound familiar, Splinter Cell fans?). Worse still, the actor they replaced him with offers nothing distinctive; his Garrett sounds like an Everybro who could be in any game in any era (sound familiar again, Splinter Cell fans?). Even the sound of Garrett’s quest-giving pal Basso just didn’t sit right with me. Take a look at the gameplay trailer at the top of the page and listen for yourself.Highly subjective personal gripes aside, I genuinely like Thief so far...I just don’t love it. And that disappoints me, because I really, really want this reboot to resurrect Thief as admirably as Eidos Montreal already did with Deus Ex. Admittedly, though, what I played was only a small slice, with a bunch of the free-roaming City sections closed off. Thus, I didn’t get a good feel for the new Thief’s level design, which has always played a particularly key role in this franchise’s success – see Thief II’s “Life of the Party” mission and Thief: Deadly Shadows’ “Shalebridge Cradle” as primary examples. Hopefully Garrett’s return will be just as memorable for similarly right reasons.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s Executive Editor of Previews and Xbox Guru-in-Chief. Follow him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan , on IGN , catch him on Podcast Unlocked , and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible.