‘Thief’ a blast for the stealth of heart

“Thief: Deadly Shadows”

••• (out of four)

Eidos Interactive for Xbox (also available for Windows), $49.95. Rating: M (Mature).

“Thief” is like its title character: imperfect, a little willing to bend the rules, and an interesting sight to behold. Some technical glitches and a bit too much repetition keep this from being a four-star title, but stealth fans will enjoy the time they get with their sneaky burglar.

You play Garrett, a medieval master thief who gets dragged into local politics (nature-lovers vs. technocrats) by an all-seeing agency that wants to keep the peace and, for some reason, requires the use of a thief’s skills to get the job done.

Your job is to tiptoe around areas, taking out guards and bad guys from behind with a dagger or blackjack whenever possible, or running, hiding or shooting from afar with an arrow when not. You collect the loot, get the documents and clues that advance the storyline, and generally have fun wreaking havoc with people and monsters that can’t see you.

“Deadly Shadows” is the third game in the “Thief” series, which is credited for kick-starting the stealth-action genre. This installment has some jaw-dropping light and shadow effects, and the changing environments are well-planned.

You’ll use noisemaker and fire arrows to distract, water arrows to put out torches and other flames, blackjacks and daggers and other handheld weapons to finish off people or things that get in the way and other assorted extras to keep yourself alive.

But don’t think you can run and shoot to get through a mission. Attempting to fight your way out of any corner will get you surrounded by guards and dead, fast. They give up quickly if they don’t find you, however, so it doesn’t take too much effort to avoid them on Normal difficulty if you’re careful.

That leads us to the game’s most annoying bug: the inability to change out of Normal if you save and restore your game. If you restore, you’re back on Normal – a setting that also seems to reset itself as you wander through the game. Normal is a well-balanced level, but that’s going to grate on people who want to cruise through Easy or challenge themselves with a harder mode.