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In the last few weeks, I have played a ton of simulator games. Picking out just a couple, and already this month I’ve been running a coffee empire in Espresso Tycoon, and have been employed as ground staff at some airports around the world in AirportSim.
But now I get to be a thief!
I’ll admit, I never played the original Thief Simulator, but that doesn’t mean I’m not intrigued as to how this one will play out, if only for journalistic research. So I got my mask on and stuck a crowbar in hand before walking into the dead of night to begin my career with Thief Simulator 2.
Thief Simulator 2 starts with you in a room, in the dead of night. The phone in your hands rings and tells you that you have two minutes to get out of the building. You see that people are coming and it’s here where you learn to sneak around, grabbing your burglary equipment and getting out of dodge.
Then time rolls back and the game places you at the beginning. You are an amateur thief, in debt to a crime gang. From there you are left to start small, stealing things and selling them to get cash. It’s all played out very tongue-in-cheek at times and feels like an old-school game in terms of humour, but as Thief Simulator 2 played out, I found myself enjoying the story missions and its tone.
The gameplay starts off nice and slowly, building up your skills and what you need to do. You get to catch, and run, and interact with objects like switches or doors. The first mission sees you heading to an empty house, using a crowbar to jimmy the main gate. Then you go into the place, ransacking it for anything valuable; anything from mobile phones to bottles of red wine. When you have got all your stash you leave, drive along to the pawn shop across town and sell all your goods. From there you buy new equipment as the difficulty and risk ramp up – the circle, complete.
As you progress in Thief Simulator 2 you get access to more things, like drones for recon and lockpicking skills to help you with your heist. You can even gas people, putting them to sleep to make sure your thieving skills go unnoticed. Whatever, this is a game that is all about watching people’s comings and goings, working their timings before attempting your robbery. Their patterns need to be learned and from there on out it is all about stealth. There’s no doubt that Thief Simulator 2 does a very good job of balancing things, not too rewarding, but neither too frustrating.
However, the AI isn’t the sharpest tool in the box and so when you get to know this, it’s easy to begin to exploit things. They are quite rigid in their patterns, and even when alerted they soon forget what they are doing, and go back to their patterns. I have to admit to enjoying the variety of jobs on offer in Thief Simulator 2, as you get to plan your way through this mini-open world and the uniqueness the game offers.
In terms of graphics, Thief Simulator 2 does a good job. I’ve been mostly impressed by the lighting, something that is vital as the vast majority of the time you’ll find yourself skirting the shadows. The character models are okay too, whilst there are some fun touches in what you see around the locations you are robbing. The sound effects are good too, which is good because it’s vital to hear how noisy you are being, affecting your stealth in the process. The radio station is good fun too, but some of the voice work is a bit strange; I don’t know if that is a creative choice or not.
Thief Simulator 2 may take you by surprise. The gameplay premise and thieving mechanic are good and a lot of fun. Should you like stealthy experiences then you should have a blast with this, enjoying the wacky world it employs. Yes, there is no doubt that at times it feels a bit rough, and the voice work is mad, but that’s part of the charm. Thief Simulator 2 might just be what you are looking for.