The first time I took a shot at ItO, I quickly ejected with a bitter taste. The beginning is *very* frustrating: you are escaping from a latrine...you are weapon and tool-less...cover is slight and sporadic...the enemies are paranoid and have complicated, overlapping patrol routes. But I couldn't forget how uniquely strange, yet genuinely inspired, the world was: Into the Odd is not Odd merely for Odd's sake. So I took another crack at it, and I was glad I did. The mission never becomes what you'd call "easy", but eventually loosens up to the point where you can parse your environment at your leisure, build a map in your head, win some tools, and again become the predator. The story, what there is of it, or what I picked up, is all of which was ever really needed: you're Garrett, you are fleeing captors in order to re-equip, get back in the groove and rake the town for profit before taking your well-earned relax time at some distant locale. Solving deep plots can be fun, but it isn't necessary: Life is fundamentally simple, and Thief is Life.

So anyway, if you're new to Into the Odd and finding yourself torqued up by the beginning...stick with it, and you'll be rewarded by some of some of the strangest, creepiest, yet Thief-est thieving we have been given yet....