Mission 1: This one is very short and serves as a bridge between Thief 1 and the KotP campaign, which takes place before Thief 2. Garrett is about to receive his new mechanical eye, when the courier is murdered and the eye stolen. Seeing as Garrett had been receiving invitations that soon escalated into thinly-veiled threats of violence and abuse, from a faction that wanted to examine the eye before Garrett took possession of it, the guilty party was fairly easy to find.
But the readables found in the mission set the scene for what is to come: Garrett's primary antagonist is the aforementioned faction, The Enterprise, which seems to be little more than a evil corporation run by a tyrannical CEO. The Enterprise's interest in Garrett's mech-eye is not explained at this point, but the courier's letter to Garret reveals that she was the daughter of the tyrannical CEO...and yet he didn't flinch when he ordered her killed so that the eye could be acquired. Another point worthy of mentioning is that a family of a woman and two kids can be found dead in this mission, along with a note pleading for the father of the family to come to them with some food or money, as the family has none themselves and have been evicted from their home.
A tiny mission that can be completed in 5 minutes (reading time included) and we already have 2 points that concern frobber's RL issues. Two examples of family loss, one put forth in a gut-wrenchingly sorrowful manner, and the other with barely any feeling or emotion present whatsoever. It's strange, yet clearly also a mechanism for him to deal with his loss - create characters that suffer a similar loss, and see where they go with it.
Besides this, the only other point worthy of mentioning about the first mission is that the gear found both in Garrett's apartment and in the lone secret area, is more than enough gear to finish Mission 2. In fact it's borderline overkill. But the dangers of Mission 2 lie not in needing resources to take out all the guards, but in the architecture and design of the place.
Mission 2: This is probably the mission that most taffers remember when thinking about the KotP campaign. Garrett breaks into The Enterprise's HQ, a large complex located on top of a mountain, to retrieve his eye and cause some monetary damage for his trouble. As usual, things don't always go as expected, but in terms of twists and surprises this mission doesn't offer that many - it's just a straightforward "warehouse raid" mission.
But "warehouse raid" isn't even an exact match, only the best fit. This is a complex containing the CEO's home+swimming pool with solarium, the offices of the heads of various Enterprise divisons, R&D labs, offices with cubicles, a couple of warehouses, an auditorium, test chambers, mess halls and LONG-ASS CORRIDORS. I strongly doubt you'll find another FM with longer corridors than this one. Outside of the complex you'll find a courtyard that spans 3 sides of the complex, plus a network of caverns underneath. You can run a full circle around the complex exterior, but that'll take you 5 minutes. Getting from the front entrance to the room furthest at the back is a 90-second run in an almost straight line. And almost everything is in that "institutional green" colour hospitals and mental asylums are so fond of. As far as enemies go, there are about 35 guards (plus 20 servants) patrolling the complex, with a higher-than-average ratio of archers. With the exception of a lone zombie down in the caverns, there's no variety to be found in this mission, not even vermin.
One notable fact I had missed until now was the layout and architecture of the complex - it all makes perfect sense in every way...except the one manner that everyone notices straight away: The scale. This is one giant building, with corridors long enough to run marathons through them, meeting tables big enough to host a boxing match, enough cubicles to house an army of mindless drones workers, etc. And yet it never goes overboard. For such a huge place, it feels alarmingly empty, but all those readables lying around help to construct the story of the place. Seems that the CEO has been pushing everyone to the brink in order to keep in business, to the point that workers are dying on the job, foremen are tortured to death for being unable to meet their quotas and a head of security that decides that the best way to catch an apple thief is to poison half the apples in the pantry, clueless to the fact that everyone working for The Enterprise is starving at this point. And that's BEFORE players realize what is the primary product of The Enterprise...and that the test chambers are used to "test" that product. The author is clearly trying to paint The Enterprise as the most heartless and soulless faction of antagonists as possible. Not even the Mechanists are this cold and cruel...yet.
Those who know me also know I take notice of the readables in Thief missions, and KotP is no exception. But unlike most FMs, the readables are actually written very well. As random pieces of paper scattered about the place, they make sense - the only readable lacking is the diary of the CEO's daughter, which is too long-winded. The readables in KotP suffer from a different problem, however - there are too many of them. A good picture is painted of the place and its recent events through the readables, but the truth is that at least 25% of the readables could have been shortened (or even outright removed) without the mission suffering at all. More importantly is that there's no (custom) voicework to be found in Mission 2, and this is a mission that's actually badly in need of one or two of them. One conversation involving a key character could have made so many readables in this mission redundant, but I'm guessing this is older than SlyFoxx's career as Garrett the Understudy, so people had to make do with what was available.
Overall, I think Mission 2 is a high point in the campaign. Seeing as KotP was released in so many formats and parts, I can easily recommend "Keeper of the Prophecies Ep. 1 - The Enterprise" as a worthy download.
Mission 3: Brace yourselves, this mission is nothing but one long camvator, clocking in at 6:30 minutes. The good news is that now there's voicework, and it's not bad in terms of performance. The bad news is that the quality of writing drops sharply. The narrator is the tyrannical CEO's daughter recapping the story so far, and even squeezing in the point where she's murdered by her father's thugs and is now floating about as a ghost - from a story perspective this is a big No-No, but considering the author's background and all, I'm gonna let it slide for now. This mission does do something worthwhile...it shows us the cathedral that frobber built. I'll admit that I haven't played every Thief FM out there, but that has got to be THE biggest building ever made in DromEd. This cathedral is so big and imposing, that if it would come to life and sprout legs it could go toe-to-toe with Godzilla and have a good chance of winning. It's a veritable monster of a building - and it will be the centerpoint of a mission later in this campaign.
More on KotP later, stay tuned for Part 2.
