Thief: The Dark Project

• If you're having trouble with the undead and can't figure out a reliable way to fight them, consider that they can be harmed by throwing holy symbols at them in addition to the standard fire arrows, flash bombs, and holy water. Now ask yourself, what common belonging to the Hammerites happens to be just sitting around on the ground all over the place, just waiting to be lobbed into your foes.

• You play Thief by sticking to the shadows (there's a light meter that indicates the ambient lighting of your current location), moving quietly (different surfaces create different sounds, speed is a factor), finding safe havens to evade enemy patrol routes, etc. If you want to take enemies out, sneak up on them, render them unconscious and hide their body. Enemies are intelligent enough to react if something looks out of place -- i.e., they come across a body, discover a locked door open, find an object missing, etc.

• While it's not explicitly documented, you can play System Shock 2 (which uses the same tweaked Dark Engine as Thief II) the same way.

• The skill levels don't add more enemies or give them more stamina and heightened awareness. They give you additional side missions, require you to collect more loot and ensure that you don't kill any humans. In other words, the "hard" and "expert" skill levels basically double the length of the game, open up more of the levels for you to explore and require that you generally act more thief-like. I recommend starting on "hard". The "normal" (easiest) skill level is just there as a concession to people who find stealth-like gameplay confusing.

• Yeah, there's zombies to deal with. But their AI is pretty much identical to the human enemies, meaning you can hide from them in the shadows too. Not only that, but you can kill them without penalty and there's many interesting ways you can do that. Arrows dipped in holy water. Hammerite holy symbols dipped in holy water. Overheard sword strikes while they're unaware. If you want to evade them, they're pretty slow too. Trust me, you'll miss their presence in Thief II (a small cameo appearance aside).

• Read all the scrolls and books you come across. There's lots of great world building there, as well as clues to secret caches of loot and hidden areas of the game. You sort of miss System Shock's method of voice recorded logs, but they function in much the same way. Thief II does give you voice recordings in later levels, but it's all done in a plausible way.

• If you're buying this game on eBay (or anywhere else really), make sure it's the Thief Gold edition, not the vanilla Thief: The Dark Project. The former's the most common, but be careful. You can't patch vanilla Thief into Thief Gold. Thief Gold basically adds three new missions (which are interwoven into the existing story and not tacked on as optional extras), overhauls a couple of others and generally tweaks, optimizes and removes bugs in all of them.

• Install Thief (from GOG, Steam, or disc), then download and run TFix. It will handle all the technical stuff, including installing NewDark and configuring it to play nice with modern video cards.

• There's a very active fan community that still continues to churn out exceptionally well-designed levels. You'll need a front-end GUI called Dark Loader that makes the process painless. Keep an eye out for T2X: Shadows of the Metal Age. It's a full-length sequel to Thief II that borders on Looking Glass quality in places. Also look out for The Seventh Crystal, which features the best-designed/most atmospheric mansion mission that anyone's ever created for Thief. (Plus there's a great scare moment that will require you to be peeled off the ceiling.)

• Play at the highest levels. It adds more content and the game is more fun that way. At the highest difficulty you won't be allowed to kill any humans. That's okay though because if you have to kill anyone you are playing the game wrong. When you are playing the Haunted Cathedral and Down in the Bone-hoard always keep a couple of fire arrows spare until you see a specific use for them: Lighting a couple of torches in order to open a door. Your equipment and cash doesn't carry over between missions so don't be afraid to use the tools you are given.

• I think you should play on Hard, not Expert the first time. Expert can be very frustrating for a first timer, sometimes you just really need to kill that one guard. Hard unlocks most extra objectives, and has a quite high loot objective too, so you'll have to explore most of the map anyway.

• If you don't like zombie levels, you won't like Thief 1. I felt the same at first, but now I find the undead levels much creepier and more interesting than the usual "break into mansion" of Thief 2.

• Difficulty alters these things: Your health, Extra objectives / loot objective, Expert means you can't kill any humans, Hard means you can't kill any innocents, Enemy sight, you'll be seen and heard easier.

• That's about it I think. Contrary to what people say, I'd say combat is still a viable option in fuckup situations, as long as you let the guard escape. The best Thief stories and the biggest thrill comes when you fuck up and run around with enemies behind you, trying to lose them.

• In addition to leaning sideways to peek around corners, you can also lean forward. It's a very handy maneuver for taking out unaware enemies who are walking towards or past you. The default key is the slightly awkward Alt+Shift+W, but you can rebind it to whatever you want.

• Most valuables that can be looted show up as golden to differentiate them from worthless items, e.g. a golden wine bottle can be looted whereas a regular-looking wine bottle can only be picked up and thrown around.

• Unlike most modern games, crouching and sneaking are separate from each other, so don't think you're completely silent just because you're crouching.

• Flash Bombs are incredibly effective, especially on Expert as even enemies that have already spotted you can be knocked out with the blackjack while they're blinded. Make sure to throw them in front of enemies, and remember that looking directly at the flash will blind you as well.

• You can't save up money, the amount of funds you have available for buying things between missions is always equal to the amount you looted in the previous mission. Always buy as much as you can and need.

• Keep a sharp eye on your surroundings, many goodies are hidden in places that aren't immediately obvious and people tend to keep their valuables out of sight.

• Some wall hangings can be cut down with your sword, usually to no effect but you might find the occasional surprise. If it's something you can't cut down you'll probably just hit the wall with a loud clang instead though, so quicksave first if you're not sure.

• Some human NPCs carry money pouches or keys on their belts, you can either pickpocket them or grab them after taking the person out.

• The levels tend to be quite large and your maps are usually vague at best, make good use of your compass and any landmarks that help you keep your bearings. It's very easy to get hopelessly lost if you just wander around blindly.