Apocalypse Then – Thief II: The Metal Age

Ten Years of Thief II

On this day in gaming, back in 2000, Thief II: The Metal Age was released.

The game once again centres around Garrett the Master Thief – the greatest thief the world has never seen.

In this game, Garrett was up against a new threat in the Mechanists – a splinter group of the Hammerites, and their maniacal leader Karras, who planned a terrible fate for The City and its inhabitants. Along the way, Garrett meets old allies and enemies from his previous adventures. Surprisingly, although some hold grudges, they end up working together, somewhat reluctantly, to take down this new, greater, enemy.

The game was developed by the now defunct Looking Glass Studios, the guys behind the original Thief and System Shock games. It was published by Eidos Interactive, and was only ever released on PC.

The game looked similar to the first one as far as looks go. It used the same Dark engine, with a few graphical improvements but there were some new additions, like weapons, tools, and power ups, as well as new enemy types, with hardly any from Thief: The Dark Project making an appearance.

Players engaged in more thief-like behaviour, like robbing people and more stealth and sneaking around, rather than TDP’s tomb raiding and darker missions. The levels were bigger and better designed than the original, and less linear, with great levels like “Life of the Party” illustrating this.

This was LGS’s swan song, seeing as although they planned a Thief II: Gold, just like the original received, with extra missions and such, the company closed down.

The game did receive a sequel in Thief: Deadly Shadows, otherwise known as Thief III, which was developed by Ion Storm, makers of Deus Ex and Deus Ex: Invisible War. This Thief, although not bad, was considered the low point of the series so far. Another Thief game, referred to as Thi4f or Thief 4, is currently in development at Eidos Montreal, who are also working on Deus Ex: Human Revolution, once known as Deus Ex 3.

Funny how these games, Deus Ex, Thief, and System Shock always seem to be linked to each other in some way or another. Deus Ex took the stealth elements from the Thief series, and the RPG ones from the System Shock series.

However, the fan base for the Thief games is still thriving to this day, with Thief II in particular receiving many FMs or fan missions, as well as unofficial expansions like T2X: Shadows of the Metal Age. Other notable mods, like The Dark Mod, seek to recreate the Thief experience, but in newer engines like the Doom 3 or id Tech 4 engine in TDM’s case. Various incarnations of the Unreal engine have been used for other Thief-inspired mods like Thievery and Nightblade.

Thief II: The Metal Age remains my favourite in the series so far, with excellent story-telling, and gameplay. And not to mention I’ve always had a soft spot for castles and medieval architecture, which this game has plenty of. Not to mention, Garrett is one of the best protagonists, or anti-heroes, of any game.

You can pick up Thief II: The Metal Age here if you want to play a classic.

Apocalypse Then – Thief II: The Metal Age

Deus Ex 3 and Thief 4 Looking for Mass Appeal

 

Eidos Montreal is working on two games that many people are looking forward to: Deus Ex 3 and Thief 4 (or Thi4f).

They’re now saying that they want the new games in their respective series to appeal to a wider audience. Now, I’m glad that this Stephane D'Astous of Eidos realizes that it’s risky doing this, because you can alienate the fan base, or hardcore fans or gamers, by appealing to this wider audience, which some might call casual gamers.

I mean, the first two Thief games (particularly the second one for me) were the best, and the first Deus Ex was the best in that series. Ion Storm tried to make Thief: Deadly Shadows and Deus Ex: Invisible War more “accessible” and appeal to a wider audience, and look what happened to them (not just the games, but the company). They weren’t bad games, but just felt different from the originals. Some even dubbed them Thief Lite and Deus Ex Lite, for instance.

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Source: Cinemablend

Deus Ex 3 and Thief 4 Looking for Mass Appeal

Apocalypse Then-Thief: Deadly Shadows

Developer: Ion Storm Inc
Publisher: Eidos Interactive
Engine: Heavily-modified Unreal Engine 2 (with flash renderer)
Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Xbox, Mobile phone
Release date: May 25, 2004 (US)
Genre: Stealth

On this day in gaming, in 2004, Thief: Deadly Shadows was released. That would make today the fifth anniversary.

It was the third game in the series, and the first and last game in the Thief series developed by Ion Storm. They were planning to develop a sequel but eventually closed down. The game is so far the least popular among purists in the series due to people claiming it was a dumbed-down game made specifically to appeal to Xbox owners. It is still a pretty good game, though.

There is a sequel in development as of 2009 by Eidos Montreal, named Thi4f. Eidos was the publisher of all Thief games up until now, including Thief: The Dark Project, Thief Gold, Thief II: The Metal Age, and Thief: Deadly Shadows.

Other games released on this day:

Motocross Madness 2 (2000)

Apocalypse Then-Thief: Deadly Shadows

It’s Thi4f versus The Dark Mod...or is it?

Which would you rather have? Thi4f by Eidos Montreal, that has teased about the title for quite a while, and says that it’s only in pre-production currently, or The Dark Mod, which came into being after the last Thief, Deadly Shadows, was released in 2004. It’s been nearly five years and the team, a bunch of Thief fans working on it in their spare time with no funding, says they want to get a beta release out this year.

No points for guessing which one we’ll see first, then. It’s not a race, but rather preference over which you prefer: a big budget AAA title, using newer technology or a mod for Doom 3 which looks dated all ready. It’s not all about graphics, though, and besides, you’ll be sneaking around in the dark for most of the time, so you won’t even notice. It’ll just be black with different shades of grey, and the occasional light that needs to be extinguished. Doom 3, although it looked good, was never praised for its bright and cheerful appearance. Thief didn’t win awards for its pointy, harsh looking graphics back in the day either; it was the gameplay that people were after, and are still looking for.

The Dark Mod sounds as though it’s coming along nicely, when you take a long look at some of the features that the mod is promising, and if you’ve watched the videos, and seen the screenshots and artwork. There will be intelligent AI, realistic physics, great looking city environments, a great thief’s arsenal of tools and ingenious ways of using them.

Read this: You will be able to shoot moss arrows into windows, and they won’t break, but they’ll grow all over the window pane and make less sound when you smash it in order to break in- sounds excellent.

That’s what I want most of all, is more clever ways of using tools and weapons and not just the same old point and fire approach- sort of like the modern version of alternate fire that we all raved about for years when it first debuted in the 90s.

The Dark Mod, being made by Thief fans for Thief fans, aims to keep on adding and adding new features, and after the beta release which is all ready shaping up to be quite impressive, will keep updating and releasing new versions with new features for people to use. And since the team working on it is too busy to make more than a few maps, which look great to say the least, there’s also the DarkRadiant tool, which will enable people to make their own maps and campaigns, and take that task off the devs shoulders. It will most likely keep the Thief fan community busy for years until Thi4f even sees the light of day.

Recently there’s been another attempt at trying to get the source code for the Dark engine games, namely Thief, Thief Gold, and Thief II, so that the graphics can be updated just like every other well known and loved game of the nineties, like Doom or Quake. With The Dark Mod all ready looking much better than an updated Thief ever could, there’s really little need, unless you’re a purist who wants to stick with far outdated technology, or a masochist who likes a challenge.

I just hope that The Dark Mod doesn’t get shut down by Square Enix (Square Enix bought Eidos). Think about it- it happened to the fan-made Chrono Trigger sequel recently, and it has happened before to mods for games. Think of UDoom, probably a project which little of you know about which was issued a cease and desist order two years ago. It aimed to recreate Doom in the Unreal engine, and id Software promptly sought to shut it down, and the devs complied, knowing it would otherwise lead to a legal war that they had no chance of winning.

What if Eidos or Square Enix picked up The Dark Mod on its radar and decided that, because it’s a project using the Doom 3 engine and resembles or emulates Thief too closely, which practically fits the description of what UDoom was, it must be shut down. That would be bad.

Best we keep this project in the shadows then.

Sources and Resources:

http://www.thedarkmod.com/
http://www.thief4.com/
http://www.petitiononline.com/ThiefSrc/petition.html
http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/UDoom
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/05/12/square-enix-pulls-the-trigger-on-chrono-trigger-fan-projects/

It’s Thi4f versus The Dark Mod...or is it?

Games I want: Thief 4

There have been rumours ever since the last Thief game, Deadly Shadows, was released in 2004 that there will be a fourth game in the series. It’s true that Ion Storm was working on it before they went bang years back, and that they planned to make a modern version of the game.

For years, Eidos has teased gamers with news of Thief 4 in development and even advertising for positions to work on the game, their next ‘AAA’ project, probably after Deus Ex 3 comes out.

The thing is you just can’t do that to Thief! You can’t modernize it, otherwise it just isn’t Thief. It might be okay if it goes off in a separate direction as a spin-off series, but don’t bastardize the main series that all ready suffered a blow from Deadly Shadows, that some don’t even recognize as a true Thief game due to its dumbing down for the Xbox. It could use a different name or the same name but with obvious indications that it is different, like having a new character to play as.

A modern setting could work for a Thief-inspired game, but not Thief, if you know what I mean.

At the moment there is The Dark Mod, a thief-inspired mod for Doom 3 that looks pretty good, and the thing here is that it is being developed by fans for the fans- a real DIY project that has taken a lot of time and labour of love. 

Other than this, people are still ‘taffing’ around with Thief, Thief Gold, Thief 2, and T2X; replaying them, modifying them or making new FMs (fan missions).

I don't know about a sequel, as far as Thief 4 goes, seeing as Garrett became a goody-two-shoes keeper at the end of T3. Maybe a prequel could work. If you've ever read the fan-fictions 'A Keeper's Apprenticeship' and 'A Thief's Apprenticeship' among others at thief-thecircle.com, there's a lot that could've happened before, during, and after Garrett’s training and even before Lord Bafford’s Manor, the first mission in Thief: The Dark Project. Perhaps there might have even been events in the gaps between T1 and T2 or T2 and T3 that could be explored.

 I think TDS started something though, even though it was called ‘Thief Lite’ by some, and that would be Thief meets GTA. I'm not talking about riding on horses and doing ride-bys, although it's quite a laugh- that was all ready done by GUN. I mean a main storyline, and then LOTS of side-quests, either for gold or new equipment, possibly other incentives, like an unlockable feature, ala Chronicles of Riddick: EFBB, like a map of The City, which fans of Thief have waited for and some have even devoted every waking moment to, creating their own versions.

Some ideas that I’ve read about on forums, specifically on TTLG.com, have suggested that 
they make a game based on the thief series, but more like Command& Conquer. You could have the hammerites versus the pagans; maybe have the mechanists and the keepers, possibly the city army, all the factions. It might be a good idea for a mini-game- a trading card like game, like trumps or magic.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Thief-The-Dark-Project

Games I want: Thief 4