I didn’t have long on Monday and I decided to put what time I had on Tuesday into finishing the game rather than writing it up so I’m writing up two days here. I head back to the Keeper library and it’s a mess with bodies strewn around and a lot of sorry Keeper’s blaming themselves for this mess. Apparently the arrow was pointing at the Keepers in general since they have stopped looking after the city and instead become more interested in glyphs. I learn that Gamall (the hag) is looking for something called the final glyph which would make her all powerful and I should attempt to destroy it somehow.

So are they going to sort this mess out? No, that would be my job, again. I have to find Gamall’s Lair first by searching around Auldale.

I find written clues about her lair being in the canal but the Pagan’s have blocked the entrance so I have to run into their lair and steal their amulet to get in. I’m still not on good terms with them but running in and out of their area more or less unscathed is not a problem.

With the amulet I can get into the canal control room, lower the water level, then wander down the canal and find the entrance to Gamall’s Lair. This place isn’t officially a mission but it certainly plays like one even if it is only in one part.

More of the statues are wandering around in here but I manage to avoid them and make my way to an encounter with Artemis who is also trying to find out what is going on. Gamall has conveniently laid out her plan and it appears to involve placing 5 special objects at various points around the city. I’m going to have to steal these objects and carry out this plan myself before she can do it. The first two of these are the items I stole in the games first two missions and are to be found in this lair.

Nearby is a glyph on the wall which I use and this gives me the fantastically useful ability to blackjack the statues. This is going to make my journey back through the lair a lot easier.

I make my way back through the lair finding the two items I need without difficulty. The other 3 items I need are all in the city museum which is alleged to be Thief proof but I’m not about to let that stop me.

I find a few notes on my way there and it appears I’m not the first to try to rob the place. I can’t be bothered to head all the way back through the city to pick up these decoys mentioned here so I just go straight in.

I’m expecting the museum to be crawling with statues but there is no sign of Gamall throughout the entire mission and it’s just me verses the guards, and there are certainly plenty of them. Most of the guards around here carry keys which saves me a load of lock picking later on.

The museum turns out to be a classic Thief mission with small carpeted areas on noisy marble floors, patrolling guards, loads of little side rooms and niches to hide in, etc… I wander around randomly picking up mountains of treasure along the way. Just about every exhibit is stealable but the items I’m really here for have a bit more security and are surrounded by lightning. I’ve found a note describing power switches in certain places in the museum.

The switch I’m looking for is upstairs behind a door. Throwing the switch turns all the lights off temporally. I take the opportunity while the lights are off to take out a particularly bothersome guard who would have seen me coming otherwise. I then run and grab the crown just before the lights come back on.

One of the items I need to steal is the eye which I also had to steal in Thief 1. It starts talking to me in it’s creepy way when I get near.It is now being held by a statue which I have to raise out of the floor apparently by getting to the curators balcony.

The curators room is right on the top floor. I steal all the valuables in his room then throw the switch on his balcony and the giant statue comes up out of the floor and starts rotating.

I have to get to a lower balcony and grab the eye as it moves past me. I’ve already got the other two valuables so now I just need to head back to the entrance and leave.

I run into Orland right outside. He has decided I shouldn’t destroy the final glyph after all as that is what Gamall was trying to do. It is in fact the one thing that threatens her plans for world domination. Before we have been speaking long she turns up in person and I scarper for the rooftops. I’ve now got a final mission to place the 5 objects around the city.

The city streets are a wild place to be now. Aside from the usual guards, Hammers and Pagans, there are now statues running around + Gamall herself. I can tell I’m near one of the locations I need to use one of the 5 items by Gamall being around. I decide that blackjacking her is not going to work and don’t try it. Her eyesight isn’t great so I sneak by….

… and place the first item on the memorial in the Stonemarket Plaza.

I struggle to locate exactly were a couple of the locations are but before long I’ve got 4 of the items placed and just need to use the last one back at the South Plaza fountain. The city streets have more or less cleared themselves by this point. There is an epic battle between about 10 city inhabitants vs. Gamall at one point resulting in a huge pile of corpses but at least it distracted her long enough for me to get in and out.

I head off to the fountain, run past Gamall and use the Eye, and the final cutscene kicks in. Gamall’s power fades away, her statues die and she is now an ancient woman easily captured by the Keepers. It then cuts to a later date and in a mirror to the cutscene at the start of Thief 1, I’m crept up on by a child who manages to see me despite my efforts and I reveal myself to now be a Keeper and she is the potentential pupil.

After all the grief, Garett has given the Keepers in the last 3 games, I’m surprised he would join up with them. It’s not that bad an ending but a bit rushed considering this ends the trilogy and the series (assuming Thief 4 never happens). Looking Glass/Ion Storm games have a history of slightly unsatisfactory endings, I guess the journey is the reward.

I’ve enjoyed Thief 3 anyway and would recommend it to anyone. In some ways it’s weaker than the first two games in the series but the plot is a little stronger, the graphics are obviously a huge improvement and in the Cradle it does have what is probably the most memorable mission in all 3 games. I just wish I could have spent less time running around the city as it did get tiresome after a while.

I’m going to hold off saying what game I’m going to play next as I’ve noticed that I invariably end up playing something else. There aren’t too many left to choose from actually although I notice that the Ultima 6 project is now finished (and I still haven’t played Lazarus!). This blog is definitely going to be something where I add the occasional game from here on out. If I went all out to play all the games I can think of, I’d probably run out within a few months. Top of my list are still Longbow 2 and Super Wing Commander since they are the only two Origin games I haven’t played yet so maybe it will be one of them.

Whatever the game, there will be a bit of a break first as right now I’ve started Force Unleashed which I bought in the last Steam sale. I’m a couple of levels in and I can’t say I’m impressed as it’s exactly the sort of mindless eye candy that makes me want to play old games instead. If I stick it out, it doesn’t look like it will take long to finish despite the unfathomable 30Gb it’s taking up on my hard disk.