1 MURDER MOST FOUL
Atmospheric and detailed, ridiculous loot count

The first mission of Death's Cold Embrace - which I've been meaning to play for a while now - goes style over substance. I love Thief's dark ambient, but using classical music felt like a really fresh take that adds a different kind of character to the environment. Interiors are lovingly crafted, and the readables provide great depth and add intrigue. The story is creepy and even a little thought-provoking. There's a few hidden easter eggs that strengthen the narrative even more. Unfortunately, the level itself feels fairly dull.

It's another city mission. In my eyes, there's two types of city missions. One is the type represented by "Assassins" from the first Thief, or the undercooked "Ambush!" from Thief II. It's also used a lot in T2X. It's a lot of streets to sloowly walk through, with barely any verticality to speak of. The second type of city mission is the one introduced by Thief II's "Life of the Party", and has been successfully used for wonderful missions like "Legacy of Knoss" and "Compulsory Egress". Verticality and complexity is at the core of this type, and you barely feel bored figuring out what a certain direction will lead to.

"Murder Most Foul" is the one with a flat floor and some buildings popped onto it, like in "Assassins". It's not very engaging, though it's not necessarily badly executed. The ridiculously high loot count doesn't help matters, however. After finishing the main objective, I still had to collect 4000(!!!) loot, out of 7000 (!!!). I've never seen such a high loot goal outside of Sensut missions, in which one piece of loot is worth about ten times as much. Getting to this loot requires (or is made easier by) finding some insanely well-hidden keys and switches and whatnot. Blegh.

There's a basement section that's wonderfully done. It hides a real terror of creation. Funnily, you can just lift them up to the ground floor using the elevator in the house (some people prefer to deal with threats in a place where they stand a chance without being spooked out of their mind). Once they've escaped the house, they become the lovely ally of many guards, who don't seem to mind the... nature of the monster (anymore, considering what's in some readables). No one attacks the thing, which was hilarious.

I appreciate the effort that's gone into this first mission, but it's not super enjoyable to play. I really hope the next mission is more fun.

Atmosphere: 9
Gameplay: 5
Story: 8
OVERALL RATING: 6
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