Raid on Washout Central

The fan mission Raid on Washout Central was released on the 31^st December 2000 by Steven Hindley aka Belboz. It is a good example of some of the earlier Thief 2 Fan Missions. It uses the weather effect capability of the game and introduces the old favorite “free City Streets exploration” like in the Assassins mission in Thief the Dark Project.

Background

The mission was supposed to be an entry to one of the old “the Circle” site FM contests that took place way back in the year 2000. The contest however got canceled in October, because of lack of entries. Exactly two months later Belboz released the first version of Raid on Washout Central. A month later came the first patch, fixing some bugs, and on June 8^th 2001 the final version was released. Other missions by the same author include Garrett’s Revenge and Dock Land both for Thief Dark Project and the Trickster’s Gem Mine series for Thief 2. Steven Hindley has a site called “Belboz’s Thief Gateway” that includes conversions of some Thief 1 and Gold canon mission to a format being able to be run on Thief 2. The author definitely has experience with mission building and this is show in this particular mission as well. As far as rating goes The Circle gives it 9 out of 10 Hammers, which is among the top; Cheap Thief Missions gives it 9.5; but the Keep of Metal and Gold focused on some of its flaws and gave it a 7.

The Mission

As far as the story goes you’re not playing as Garrett. You’re Ryalla and that is also confirmed by the female sounds when you climb, attack and take damage. You start at Ryalla’s house and to find out what’s going on you’re supposed to read her diary. It turns out that she was visited by and old friend who wishes her to help him with a guy named Jakku. Ryalla’s supposed to go to the local inn find this Jakku and follow him to his home. It doesn’t sound too difficult. There are also optional objectives and other objectives that are found in the course of the mission. That is where the story actually gets interesting. After you red this (or just skip trough it) you go the Ryalla’s secret weapon stash pick up your weapons and head for the street.

The map’s design is definitely on the level. The combo of rain and fog compliments well the dark atmosphere of the streets. Belboz has gone beyond the basic weather effect capabilities of Thief 2 and made it feel a lot more immersing. The water is dripping from the rooftops and surrounds you from every direction. This is the best rain effect I have seen in a mission so far. The outdoor areas are a mixture of mainly stone buildings and vegetation areas here and there. There are lots of explorable buildings that don’t connect to the main objectives like Estates, a Brick Factory, shops and small locations like mechanist chapels and guard post buildings. The indoor areas are mainly wooden rooms plus sewers. Jakku’s house is more like a horror house and you’ll see why. The rooms are not very well furnished and feel quite empty, but that is compensated by the inventive light source angles and the original room structures, that gives a thiefy atmosphere. The City as a whole does not present any spectacular architecture and is quite simple in fact, but it has its unique design and a mysterious concept. The downside is that the streets are as confusing as hell and the map doesn’t really help on that matter.

What the Raid on Washout Central has undoubtedly got is atmosphere. The rain…it really makes you feel wet just by playing the mission. The ambient sounds are well picked for the different areas and you can go from a nice evening at the inn to a scary experience in some basement. Before I played the mission I heard it had some wacky stuff and now I know why. Some of the character’s behavior is quite funny, Jakku himself is really weird and you’d find stuff in place you’d not expected.

The gameplay has nothing particularly special to offer. You just have a ton of areas to explore, lots of keys, plus some secrets. Still, some of the City Watch patrols have lanterns that illuminate their surroundings and that adds to the challenge. And there are a lot of guards. A fun fact is that if you start running around the streets you can get a lot of Guards to follow you and I do mean a lot. Most of the buildings’ rooftops are accessible via simple climb, but are too steep and one can easily fall off. The downside is that the game feels somewhat slow at times. It is one of those missions, like Ranstall Keep, where at the start you are required to read someone’s long diary – not my idea for the beginning of a mission. And although Ryalla’s house is well done, it takes some time to get out of it to just start the mission itself. Another example is when you follow Jakku to his home. I know it doesn’t take that much time to do it, but I still get the feeling that it is longer than it should be. And the map, like I mentioned, doesn’t help a lot, since you can’t make out what is where and which lines are buildings or plain streets.

There are some know bugs, like the dropping of a key may make some objectives’ completion impossible. Some times an objective might no thick. Also there is a chance of SHAS (sudden heart attack syndrome) in one of the areas, but although I deliberately tried to achieve it I couldn’t.

Conclusion

The pros of the mission are the interesting story and events, very original design of some of the city areas, lots to explore and of course the awesome soaking rain effect.

The cons are the confusing streets and somewhat ordinary gameplay. It may take you half an hour just to find a building you’re supposed to go to.

Still it is a fun experience, a big map with lots of side stuff to take your time and a mission I’d suggest to most taffers.