Is Pentagon Thief just kind of a tribute to "ZORK"?

[GermanZombiefreak]

Hey folks,

today I looked for a Walkthrough of ZORK :-)

I found something very interesting...

...

Regarding the Thief

At any point underground, the Thief may come by and steal valuables from you. If this happens, don't worry; you'll get the treasure back at the end of the game. The Thief is hard to defeat in a fight. If he is already in a room when you enter, it is usually a good idea to leave immediately; giving him a treasure will also distract him from attacking you for one turn. The nasty knife from the Attic is a slightly better weapon against the Thief than the sword is. You also become a better match as you gain points, so save purposely attacking him for the very end of the game.

...

Full Walkthough here:

http://www.eristic.net/games/infocom/zork1.html

What do you think about it?

[agaguk]

Great find! We need to try to get him with a bowie knife, I bet it's a one shot (stab?) kill.

[Anti Earth]

Wow, Awesome discovery!

And it's very unlikely that it's coincidance, since ZORK is on the terminal!

Brains for you~! [brains]

[GermanZombiefreak]

Great find! We need to try to get him with a bowie knife, I bet it's a one shot (stab?) kill.

Thanks.

I never expected find something like that!

For me it indicates, that EVERYTHING in Black Ops is somehow related to Zombies.

[ThreeProphets]

NICE ONE!!! [brains]

That's funny, especially since it's such a big gameplay change, just as a tribute to that game.

[Anti Earth]

bump

[KamiKazee]

yeah, I was noticing this too. thought it was pretty interestingg!

[Anti Earth]

You think it could contain secrets of defeating the Thief easier in FIVE?

Maybe the bowie knife kills him easy, and he's easier if you have lots of points?

Maybe that's a little too retarded :P

[Cpt.Stylin]

Hello everyone, this is my first post on these forums. I've lurked around for a while and decided now was the time to throw my two cents in.

The Thief is a pain in the rear but extremely easy once you know how to deal with him. This little tidbit GermanZombiefreak provided has some juicy information regarding the Thief, but alot of it is simple symmetry.

At any point underground, the Thief may come by and steal valuables from you. If this happens, don't worry; you'll get the treasure back at the end of the game. The Thief is hard to defeat in a fight. If he is already in a room when you enter, it is usually a good idea to leave immediately; giving him a treasure will also distract him from attacking you for one turn.

Most of this is stuff we've come to know from the Pentagon Thief. The bolded part intruiges me. I've never tried throwing the Monkey Bomb at the Thief since I'm too busy running. Is the Thief distracted by the Monkey Bomb? If he's not this could warrant further investigation.

Actually I had a brain-fart there. This could simply be when he takes your gun and escapes, as he no longer has interest in coming after you until the next Thief Round.

The nasty knife from the Attic is a slightly better weapon against the Thief than the sword is.

I'm not sure if this simply means "use the Bowie Knife". If we're continuing the allusion to ZORK's Thief, the Bowie Knife comes from the basement where the Thief lurks. However, the Mystery Box roams and could possibly spawn in the Board Room, or the attic in this case. The Ballistic Knife is a pretty nasty weapon, perhaps shooting the Thief in the head with it is an OHKO?

It's my personal experience that if the Thief takes your gun the Krauss Refribulator gives you more than enough speed to keep up with him. When combined with the Bowie Knife it will even kill him in a couple swings. Further testing should be done with this, as I had shot the Thief with a few mags before he caught up with me.

The scaling HP in higher rounds needs to be taken into account, of course. I can't recall exactly what round I was on at the time. Around 15 or 16 sounds about right.

*UPDATE* No luck OHKOing the Thief with a Ballistic Knife shot. On round 7 it took 6 knife swings to kill him. This was just with the regular Ballistic Knife+Bowie Knife combo. I don't think the Krauss Refibulator would have been an OHKO either. This might just be a red herring.

You also become a better match as you gain points, so save purposely attacking him for the very end of the game.

This simply means you won't be steam-rolled later on since you'd have more goodies at your disposal like Speed Cola, Double Tap Root Beer, PaP weapons, Wonder Weapons, etc.

But I digress. Very cool find, GermanZombiefreak! Sorry about the long-winded analysis.

[Hellsling]

Actually the zombies thief slows down after u shoot his legs. This is a real life saver since u can run around the war room without him catching u AND still give u enuf time to chat. I'm saying this because maybe cutting down the Zork thief's legs could actually do something