Benny’s Dead

Personally, this is one of the most fun headings for a mission. Benny’s Dead offers a varied gameplay and one of the most horrifying sewer experiences in a Thief FM. I’m not aware of any other missions made by The Gingerbread Man, but this one is really worth it.

Background

The first version of the mission was released on 26^th July 2000 and the latest version 1.2 was released on the 12^th September later that year. Many fans reported technical issues with the mission, but in the end the Gingerbread got it running OK. And the mission itself is a great example of the early Thief 2 fan missions. Benny’s Dead has its own loot list and walkthrough, and celebrates positive reception from the fans. The scoring is very high: the Circle gave it the amazing ten out of ten hammers, right next to The 7^th Crystal FM, which is one step away from a Gold Hammer; Cheap Thief Mission gave it an 8, but commented that every taffer must play it; Komag from the Keep of Metal and Gold as usual has a little different method of rating, but still very fair, and gave it a 7.

The Mission

Please note that the screen-shots are done with enhanced textures and may look different from the original mission.

Well…what can one expect from a mission with such a name? The overall goal is as plain as the mission heading. Benny is dead and Garrett must find out what’s really happening. But the background story goes way beyond that and introduces quite a descent aftermath mission of the Thief 2 ending. In general, both Hammerites and Mechanists have united to build a wall which will contain the leaking gas from Soulforge (much like the 50 years before that, when the barricades were built). But when the wall was built the two factions began to fight each other with no holdbacks except what’s left of the City Watch under the command of Mosley. Garrett flees to a small town called Moth and waits there at a friend for all the madness to pass. There you get visited by a couple of mysterious men, who want Garrett to investigate the death of Captain Benny – Captain of the Moth Town Watch. From this point it is obvious that this Benny is not supposed to be the drunken officer Benny, who we all know and love, but this doesn’t ruin the mission even one bit. But this review shouldn’t retell the story. You should read the mission “readme” and pay it yourself. Or if you skip the readme and go on, you won’t even notice that this is a “different” Benny in the first place.

The Gingerbread Man is a representative of the Classical Mission Designers. Opposed (nor real opposition) to the Modern FM school, where the focus is on visual effects, tons of custom objects and scripts, and tons of readable book and scrolls, Gingerbread Man concentrates on well made and very well aligned textures (Komag’s own words), few but very well written texts and good balanced gameplay. He utilizes what Thief 2 gave to DromEd very well. Yes, there is a new custom creature introduced in this mission, but as I mildly remember custom content back then was rather a new and grand thing. Most of the streets are rather simple but well made, with the emphasis being placed on the complexity of the whole map (room alignment) rather than individual rooms or buildings. Still the sewers and many of the internal rooms are very detailed. The build up to the sewers is quite scary. You find scrolls talking about some “creatures” in the sewers and the whole city feels like there’s something wrong. And when you finaly find out what’s going on there, you’re in for a nice treat. Believe me it is both mysterious and hilarious at the same time. The ambient sounds are very well picked, but there are some deaf places and some EAX variety would be great. And in there are lots of places just begging for more shadows.

In order to talk about the atmosphere of the mission, I absolutely must mention that there was a whole topic at TTLG forums named “A stupid question from a really paranoid guy about Benny’s Dead” with the following text in the first post: “I’m scared to go in the sewers. Any help here?” Yes, the build up to the sewers is an absolute masterpiece. The SFX and ambient picked for both the City and especially the sewers is on the spot. You can get used to the sewers quite fast if you’re a Thief veteran, but it is all about those first moments when you walk down a ladder and there is nothing around, but the dreadful silence (except the ambience). And the ambience gets along great with the “detective” theme of the mission. And the story-telling is among the top.

The gameplay is quite realistic, but still balanced. On Extra Spicy (Expert) you mustn’t touch or get seen by any City Watch or knock-out more than 5 civilians. This leans the gameplay towards ghosting, but that is not easy, because there are lots of bulldogs and few shadows at places. Sometimes the mission goes over the reasonable challenge and gets plain irritating. Loot is scarce and mainly concentrated in some areas. There are lots of keys and interesting hidden passages to compliment the thief tradition and the books to be read are very interesting and story-immersive. Then again, some people might not want to read trough a 24-page diary, but it is worth the additional details. Except for an area where it is completely dark, but your light gem still shows yellow, there are no serious bugs in this mission.

Conclusion

Mission pluses include an awesome story and atmosphere, visual variety, amazing new creature and quite and intriguing gameplay.

There are no real minuses on the mission except maybe the sometimes frustrating hide and seek scenarios and some dead-ends.

To sum it up: a nice, interesting story, fun gameplay and a must see (and hear) new creature. Give it a spin!