Like Dreamworks’ Trespasser, Thief has had equally passionate advocates and detractors. Trespasser had an absolutely revolutionary engine and artificial intelligence, hence its high score here and in reviews elsewhere. Yet lots of gamers were turned off by the time required to get used to Trespasser’s arm-control system, not to mention other fairly reasonable limitations.

Thief fans love the opportunity to sneak from place to place in the shadows, quietly dispatching or avoiding guards. But some levels put our hero into situations where the Quake/Doom strategy is called for -- mines full of zombies come to mind -- and then expect the player to get through on luck and sneakiness.

Here’s the story: A poor boy named Garrett tries to pickpocket a member of a mysterious sect called the Keepers. These Keepers can hide really well in shadows and are agile and good with weapons -- my gosh, just like thieves, though we don’t really know what they do. Anyway, the Keepers take our hero under their collective wing and train him in their ways.

Unfortunately, Garrett decides his skills are better suited to, well, being a thief. (Did these monks really expect nobody to hit on this abuse of their ways?) The first level is very well done, sending Garrett to a local mansion to pilfer a scepter. There’s lots of creeping about, bopping guards on the head and stowing the unconscious bodies in shadowed areas.

Of course, it all leads to a supernatural battle between the forces of good and evil, but these shooters often do.

Getting there is lots of fun, with added value coming from the game’s difficulty system. Where other shooters just pump up the number and strength of monsters at harder levels, Thief adds conditions and limitations to Garrett’s missions. On that first job, for instance, Garrett just needs to nab the scepter. Pump up the difficulty level, and he’ll also have to steal a certain amount of valuables, or refrain from killing anyone, and so on. Best of all, difficulty levels can be changed between levels.

It’s a fun and, above all, realistic way to make the game more challenging without falling into the same old patterns. That also ensures replayability: Solve the game easily? Go back and try to rescue your fence and a safecracker and retrieve something called the Hand of Glory.

In all, Thief lives up to the hype and pushes the genre in new directions. After sneaking around the pseudo-medieval corridors for a while, I find myself scouting out shadowy areas in my own home to avoid the pets’ notice. Can’t beat that with a blackjack to the back of the head.