The Dark Mod Halloween Competition is now on

It’s been dry over at The Dark Mod HQ for months now. The version 1.06 update was in June, and the last fan mission released was in July. And it finally happened: I finished almost all of the TDM missions out there, save for a few, which I didn’t like.

But I happened to check the main page yesterday, and noticed that there’s a new competition on. It’s the Halloween Speed Build Contest of 2011! I’ll be lazy and quote the text from the website, which explains it all perfectly:

“A new Halloween speed-build contest is underway! There are at least half a dozen mappers participating, including heavyweights Melan and Bikerdude.

The mission must have at least one element that evokes Halloween. Scary missions will be preferred but things like: playing tricks, finding candy, fall decoration (Gourds, Pumpkins, etc), Pagan harvest festivals, etc ... are all acceptable ways to evoke the holiday. Missions must be completed by October 31th.”

The “Halloween Speed Build Contest 2011” is the 4th contest hosted by the TDM team. The others in chronological order were “Grand Christmas Contest ‘09”, “Summer Vertical Contest ‘10”, and “Seasons Contest Spring ‘11” (which took place earlier this year).

At least this means that we’ll get some more good missions by the end of next month, and I have a reason to fire up TDM again! Like I said, I’ve finished most of them, even replaying them on different difficult levels, but I soon tire of doing the same mission again and again. My replays of Thief or Thief II were at least a year or two apart, until I discovered the FMs for T2, of which I’ve played a few.

Source:

TDM - TDM Halloween speed-build contest forum thread

The Dark Mod Halloween Competition is now on

Looking Glass Studios Classics Dreamcast Beta Builds Discovered

        

                                 System Shock 2 and Thief II: The Metal Age

Looking Glass Studios is known for having done two series that inspired their respective genres of FPS/RPG hybrid and the first-person sneaker: System Shock and Thief.

Up until now, those series have both been PC exclusives. This is no different with the sequels in those series, System Shock 2 and Thief II: The Metal Age – both great games, both of which I regard as even better than their predecessors. System Shock 2 is sometimes mentioned as one of the greatest PC games of all time, usually miles behind Deus Ex – a game it inspired.

But I read something interesting the other day. It was the Sega Dreamcast’s 11th anniversary this past week, and to coincide with this event, a collector happened upon what he claims are beta builds for Dreamcast versions of not only System Shock 2, but Thief II as well. He found them in a discarded development kit which apparently once belonged to Eidos. To date, I’d only really ever been aware of a Dreamcast port of SS2 which was eventually cancelled.

This person over at Dreamcast-Talk decided to share the files by uploading them to the PSO archive online. These beta versions of the game aren’t playable, but with enough work, it’s thought that at some time in the future, though doubtfully, you could be playing these classics on your old Dreamcast. Why you’d want to is another matter. But then I hear that it was quite the popular little console years ago, albeit short-lived seeing as the Playstation 2 and Xbox eclipsed it when they were released soon after.

In addition to the Dreamcast turning 11, System Shock 2 turned 11 last month, and Thief II had its tenth birthday earlier on this year. I also read that this week, the first PlayStation celebrated 15 years since it was brought to the US. So good news and reason to celebrate all round.

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Source:

Download Unreleased Thief 2, System Shock 2 Dreamcast Beta Builds [GameSetWatch]

Looking Glass Studios Classics Dreamcast Beta Builds Discovered

Thief II: The Metal Age Remastered Soundtrack up for Download

About two or three years ago if not longer, it was announced on TTLG and Thief-The Circle that the soundtrack for Thief: The Dark Project, originally written and composed by Eric Brosius, was available for download. Only this time it was remastered by Child of Karras, a forum dweller over at TTLG. It was called “The Golden Soundtrack”, and had 23 tracks all on one mp3, plus some fancy CD artwork and a booklet in PDF format with the entire tracklist.

I just read the other day that after a long while, the sequel, Thief II: The Metal Age’s soundtrack has received the same treatment and is now available online for free.

Quite fitting as earlier on this year, this classic title celebrated its tenth anniversary.

This time it comes in two forms. You can download the whole collection in one mp3, or you can get them separately. And the interesting thing I read about it is that it blends melodies from the English and German versions of the soundtrack. I likely haven’t heard some of those.

Thief 2 Soundtrack Gap-less MP3 [114 MB]
Thief 2 Soundtrack Single MP3s [100 MB]

You can bet that I’ll be recommending this some time for the NAG October 2010 Cover DVD Request Thread, which was opened recently. I’ll likely try my hand at downloading it myself as well though. Can’t wait a month until the next NAG!

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Source: Thief 2 - The Soundtrack Age [TTLG]

Thief II: The Metal Age Remastered Soundtrack up for Download

Visceral And Thievious: More Thief Inspired mods [Mod Watch]

I happened to have an occasional glance over at ttlg again, and there was a thread bashing some new Thief mod, started late last year, called Visceral.

“Visceral is a stealth-action game in a medieval/fantasy setting with steam punk elements. It takes place primarily in the city of Cressport, a dismal place rife with secrets and those who would seek control at any cost.”

It’s a mod utilizing the Unreal 3 Engine, in which you play Slater, “a hired mercenary specializing in stealth assassination.”

Taking from the website’s pages up so far, I can tell you:

The game supports first and third person views, and allows you to switch between the two. It has the stealth elements from Thief, but has some RPG elements in it, with side-quests [more like Thief: Deadly Shadows, which inspired the team behind it]. The player can trade and sell artefacts and loot. The game takes place in a “Rich medieval & fantasy atmosphere blended with steampunk elements, uninterrupted, vast mission areas.”

Factions in the game borrow from Thief too, with the City Watch mentioned, thieves, Pagans, and the Beggar’s Guild, which is more from The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, where the beggars worked closely with the thieves, as “the eyes and ears of the city”. The Penumbrals faction sounds a lot like the Keepers, and the Esoterians sound like the Hammerites.

There’s also ruins of an ancient lost city, called Gordion, likely inspired by Karath-Din from Thief or perhaps the Kurshock city from Deadly Shadows.

In addition to comparing it to the Thief games, it does look quite like The Dark Mod as well.

And that’s not all. I was over at Planet Doom the other day where they talked about another mod in the making, using the Doom 3 or id Tech 4 engine, called Thievious. Development on it has just started this week, but it’s set to be a co-operative Thief-inspired mod, where you can play with a friend.

The author, Oneofthe8devilz, was keen to see if he could make a multiplayer based mod much like was done with the Thief II Multiplayer mod.

This mod is also inspired by Thief: Deadly Shadows. And on the Doom3World forums there’s a discussion going on about it, where surprise, some Dark Mod fellas rocked up and started talking about the mod, and offered to lend some support, like letting him use their source code, seeing as both use the Doom 3 engine. Some said that The Dark Mod could even use his help on their team, and so it went.

Speaking of The Dark Mod, a new Fan mission was released for it just the other day, called the Builder’s Influence.

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Sources:

http://www.visceralgame.com/ [Visceral]

http://www.moddb.com/mods/thievious [Thievious]

Visceral And Thievious: More Thief Inspired mods [Mod Watch]

Thrifty Thursday: Magic Gauntlet Karath-Din [Freeware]

Okay, so version 1, and pretty much the only release of this little game so far, came out last year.

I noticed a post on the ttlg forums back then, right on Christmas Eve, that talked about a card game based on the Thief games, called Magic Gauntlet Karath-Din, or just Magic Gauntlet. I only managed to get around to downloading it just the other day though.

My hopes weren’t that high to be honest, but after a few days, I’ve become hooked on the bloody thing!

No doubt the game is heavily inspired by both Magic: The Gathering as well as the Thief games, Thief: The Dark Project, Thief: The Metal Age, and Thief: Deadly Shadows. Art from said games appears on the cards as well as the background of the playing area.

As far a MTG influences go, the game even “borrows” sounds from an old game from the 90’s developed by Microprose, which falls under the MTG universe.

It reportedly took 2 and a half years to make this seemingly simple but enjoyable little flash game, and several people from the ttlg forums contributed to the project, with some doing the art, either ripped from the games or concept art done by Looking Glass Studios, Eidos and Ion Storm, or creating new pieces, as well as coming up with ideas for the actual cards that you play with.

        

It’s been months since the V 1.0, and all has been quite quiet on further development on the game, but I would like to see some new stuff eventually, like some new cards and so on. Maybe they’ll be a resurgence in production when Thi4f or Thief 4 comes out, and there will be more content to be inspired by. Or else, just like was said a lot on the forums, you go digging in the thief lore scattered all over the internet on various websites for ideas. I’ve read through a number of these lore articles myself in the past, actually.

And the best part is it’s free! Non-commercial, and probably for the best, seeing as it “borrows” quite a lot from aforementioned sources. It even comes with a manual.

AAA says:  4/5

Download: [1] [2]

Forums Threads: [1] [2]

Thrifty Thursday: Magic Gauntlet Karath-Din [Freeware]

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

Hex in the City: Issue #2 [Video Game Comics]

This is just another one of those comics I talked about, that I made years ago. As you can tell, it’s Benny the lovable guard from Thief, with Garrett in his Thief II: The Metal Age get-up.

Hex in the City: Issue #2 [Video Game Comics]

LaMB Has a Good Idea, Reminds me of Thief II: The Metal Age

LaMB is an animated program that started on Animax last year, but I’ve been seeing these adverts for the program on the channel lately, when they talk about LaMBs and Lamination.

It’s caught my attention, and my brother’s, which is a rare thing. It’s got a lot of things going for it, as I’ve been reading it’s Animax’s first and biggest original production, broadcast in high definition. It even has mobile versions available and an online game.

But I couldn’t help but think when looking at the adverts such detailing the plot, that it reminded me of good old Thief II: The Metal Age, released in 2000. Of course LaMB is said to be based on Laminated Woman: To the Sand Planet Cerra, but it’s when I read about those prisoners being put into suits and serving in virtual slavery. That reminded me of Thief II: The Metal Age, when you see all those slaves walking around in those suits with golden masks. Maybe they weren’t all criminals – some of them were "vagabonds, street scum, prostitutes...those who will not be missed by anyone of consequence", in the words of Sheriff Gorman Truart.

Funny, I just connect these things and compare them sometimes.

In any case, perhaps it’s a good idea – to have imprisonment without prisons. To have these people in positions of slavery to pay off their debt to society. I mean from what I hear and read, these gang members and criminals in the Cape Flats prefer being in prison to being outside, because that’s where the power is. That’s where the number resides and controls things.

Imagine all the more room you’d save without prisons, and the money you’d save – having these guys sit in jail all day wasting tax payers’ money, not contributing anything of value to society. You seemingly can’t rehabilitate most of these people, seeing as they were never good people in the first place, because they weren’t raised properly, weren’t taught right from wrong, and just ended up being recidivists: habitual criminals who prefer being in jail to being outside with nothing and nobody, so they repeatedly commit offences. To them, jail is a cheap hotel with all the basic necessities that they can’t get on the streets.

LaMB Has a Good Idea, Reminds me of Thief II: The Metal Age

What did you get for Christmas?

I’ll start off by posting what I got”

• Terminator 1& 2 on DVD – both classic films, but I prefer T2, and this DVD contains scenes I hadn’t scene before. And of course the theme song by Guns n’ Roses, “You Could be Mine” is awesome.
• Operation Flashpoint GOTY Edition, Deus Ex, Thief II: The Metal Age, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, and Hitman 2: Silent Assassin – these are classic games I was able to pick up at Musica for low prices each.
• Left 4 Dead 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Star Wars The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition, Resident Evil 5, Fallout 3 GOTY, and Red Faction: Guerrilla – new games that seem to be among the best released in 2009 that I didn’t all ready have.

And I also got a permanent marker for my backup discs I make each month (fear of another HD failure like a while back).

How did I afford all this? Well, I didn’t buy it all myself. The classic games I mainly bought myself, but the Terminator DVDs were given to me by my brothers, and the money to get the rest came from my aunt who is quite well off.

Besides all that stuff, I got some new T-shirts, a cap, and some Ferrero Rochers – one of my faves. There’s likely some other stuff I got that I can’t remember. Oh, some frames for my certificates and so on.

So, if you like, tell me what you got for Christmas in the comments.

/\\/ |\|\

What did you get for Christmas?

Got Some More Classic Games on the Weekend

I posted the other day about how I went Christmas shopping and ended up picking up something for myself: Operation Flashpoint GOTY Edition. Well, I went Christmas shopping on the last weekend as well, and went to Musica once again, where I picked up four classics: Thief II: The Metal Age, Deus Ex, Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. All of these were between R50 and R70 each.

Right now I’m playing Deus Ex. It’s the first time I’ve played this game in years. Even though the AI, animation, and graphics aren’t that good (even when it was released), it’s still a good story and addictive gameplay that reminds me of System Shock 2.

Got Some More Classic Games on the Weekend

An Interview with Daniel Thron, AKA the guy who did the Thief box art

…as well as quite a lot of other stuff

The other day, I came across a thread at TTLG.com forums where a guy was asking for people to come up with some questions for one of the people who worked on the original Thief games with the sadly missed Looking Glass Studios, as well Thief: Deadly Shadows: Daniel Thron.

Thron, not Thorn.

Daniel Thron was mainly known to me and others as the person who did the voice of the guard who constantly bickered with “Benny”, the other, drunken guard in all three Thief games. I think his name was supposedly Sinclair. He also voiced the creepy sounding Eye from Thief and Thief Deadly Shadows, as well as several other characters, allies and enemies, from the series.

But he’s done more than that, it turns out. He made the box art for both Thief: The Dark Project, and Thief II: The Metal Age. He did the wonderful cutscene art and animation in both games too, and on top of that, he had something to do with the in-game maps, and the particle systems (whatever that means).

So, quite a lot to do with the art of the Thief games, in general.

Anyhow, a few days later, and after sifting through all the suggested questions for the man, the most interesting ones were picked and quite an interesting interview was put together on the forum in another thread, as well as on the same domain, except on Dominus' blog, which has some pictures.

I like reading through interviews sometimes, seeing as the reveal a lot of behind the scenes style stuff, and give you more insight into what it was actually like to develop a game. And not just any game, in this case, one of the most iconic PC exclusive titles that helped start a new genre, instead of the usual FPS titles of the nineties.

So, Daniel talks about what he did before getting into the video game business, what it was like working at TTLG, the art of the Thief games that he was so heavily involved in, his inspirations while working on the games, his opinion on why Thief Deadly Shadows paled in comparison to the originals, what he thinks of the Dark Mod, and whether he will work on Thi4f (Thief 4), announced this year. And he also gives some other info on what he’s working on, some movies mainly, as well as tosses a few names around and such.

Quite a good read, so go and check it out.

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Questions for Daniel Thron
Out of the Shadows – interview with Daniel Thron
http://dominus.ttlg.com/?p=65
http://www.danielthron.com/

http://eidosmontreal.com/en/games.html
http://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?t=98473&page=3

An Interview with Daniel Thron, AKA the guy who did the Thief box art

Do You Want Thief Ringtones for your Cellphone?

I came across this on the ttlg.com forums the other day. Someone went and made it possible to play sounds from Thief II: The Metal Age on your cellphone as ringtones. All it really is, is a bunch of mp3s, converted from another format, (WAV, I think) which you can also listen to on your PC and so on.

It's fairly easy to do this yourself. All you need is the Thief CDs, and you can extract the sounds in the CRF files. I've done it myself a while back, with Thief II and Thief: Deadly Shadows (different file format) anyway. My Thief: The Dark Project CD isn't working anymore.

I’ve always been a big fan of the Thief series’ music and sound effects, and of games in general, and I downloaded at one point the Thief Gold Soundtrack, which is basically one big long mp3 that you can play.

By the way, you can download the ringtones and such from here. I like mediafire. More people should use it rather than rapidshare or megupload, I think.

Do You Want Thief Ringtones for your Cellphone?

Thi4f: The Eidos Montreal Store

Among all the other Eidos Montreal stuff, there’s quite a bit of Deus Ex 3 merchandise, and also some new Thief 4 things- well, only two T-shirts which contain the logo that everyone is hating on at the moment, “ Thi4f”, claiming that it spells Thiaf and not Thief. 4nyb0dy wh0 r3gul4rly t4k35 5h0rtcut5 w1th t3xt m3554g35 0r r3fu535 t0 5p34k pr0p3r 3ngl15h kn0w5 th4t!



They should have gone with Thief 4 or Thief IV. You didn’t see Th1ef, ThIIef, or Thi3f: Deadly Shadows did you? Thief: Deadly Shadows didn’t even have a number…

In fact, even though it’s the fourth in the series, Thi4f is only the second to feature a number of any kind, and the first to not use a roman numeral, like Thief II. It’s also the first not to have a subtitle, like The Dark Project, The Metal Age, or Deadly Shadows, although this might change later. Imagine Thief 5- ThieV!

Apparently Eidos Montreal is very proud of their logo and so we have been urged not to make fun of it.



Sources:

http://twitter.com/eidosmontreal/statuses/1789108148
http://www.eidosmontreal.com/en/shop.html#thief4

Thi4f: The Eidos Montreal Store

Thief Fans Running a Source Petition

Since Square Enix has bought Eidos,  the Thief fans are now pleading with Yoichi Wada to release the source code for the original games in the series, namely Thief: The Dark Project and Thief II: The Metal Age, which both use the Dark engine, the same as Thief Gold and System Shock 2.

"To: Mr. Yoichi Wada, Square Enix' President and Representative Director 

Dear Mr. Yoichi Wada!

 We are the Thief-community and are inspired by the fact that your company, Square Enix, has bought Eidos. Your corporate slogan, «It is the mission of the SQUARE ENIX Group to spread happiness across the globe by providing unforgettable experiences», has brought hope to us, who are pained for ten years by the futile, but at the same time ineradicable, dream. Let us share it with You. 
The games Thief: The Dark Project and Thief 2: The Metal Age, which were released in 1998 and 2000, opened for PC players a door to the mysterious and mythical world based on Medieval Europe. The world that is tissued from steam and magic, made by the geniuses of Looking Glass Studios, became so attractive to Thief players that they began to create their own missions by themselves, and these missions enlarge and fill up the original games (now there is more than 800 of them). Not few among them are better in quality than the original games (see, for example, rating at http://www.keepofmetalandgold.com/fmarchive.htm). 

The world of Thief still lives over a decade after its initial release through the efforts of its fans – isn't it proof of the fact that the game is a work of genius? However, time passes by, and the technology, made for the base of Thief: The Dark Project and Thief 2: The Metal Age, can no longer provide enough freedom for the activities of those who want to enlarge and improve the original games. We, as the Thief-community, dream of receiving in our hands the original source code of Thief: The Dark Project and/or Thief 2: The Metal Age in order to make changes and improvements to it. By releasing the source code to us fans, it would give more scope to those who continue to create the world of Thief. 

We are by no means calling on Square Enix to release the games Thief: The Dark Project and Thief 2: The Metal Age as freeware. We are only requesting the original source code for the graphics engine to these games, not anything more. More than ten years has passed since the release of Thief: The Dark Project and more than nine years since the release of Thief 2: The Metal Age. Because of this, we realize that these two titles are likely to be of little technological and/or commercial value for publisher. That's why we charitably ask you, the new owner of the "Thief" brand, to make the Thief-community happy and publish the original graphics source code of the games Thief: The Dark Project and/or Thief 2: The Metal Age, thus confirming Your corporative slogan. 

Publishing the original source code of an old game is a widespread demonstration of good will to players - it is done by known of PC game developers: id Software (Wolfenstein 3D, Doom 1&2, Quake 1-3), Raven Software (Heretic 1&2, Hexen 1&2), 3D Realms (Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior), Volition (Freespace) and others. We cherish hopes that Square Enix will do the same with Thief: The Dark Project and/or Thief 2: The Metal Age as well. 

We understand that it has been nine years since the closing of Looking Glass Studios, and that it is possible that the original source code of Thief: The Dark Project and Thief 2: The Metal Age does not exist integrally and ready for compilation. If this is true, we understand this but then, please, publish everything that is left, and we will try, like archeologists, to rise the great past from the ashes! 

Sincerely, 

The Undersigned"

This has been provided as is, and there are bits and pieces that look as though it wasn't proofread,
but the message is clear. I agree that it's about time that the source code is released and those enthusiastic about it can get to work with giving Thief a bit of a face lift.

If you're interested, and want to know more, and sign the petition (I all ready have), then head on over to http://www.petitiononline.com/ThiefSrc/.

Thief Fans Running a Source Petition

Human Rights Day

Apocalypse Then: Resident Evil 2, Thief II: The Metal Age& Tribes 2

Today is a day of sequels.

On this day, Resident Evil 2, Thief II: The Metal Age, and Tribes 2 was released in 1998, 2000, and 2001 respectively.

Resident Evil 2 is of course the sequel to the progenitor of the now hugely famous Resident Evil series.

I am particularly a big fan of the Thief series, and Thief II: The Metal Age is one of my favourite games of all time. It was preceded by Thief: The Dark Project, which was good, but not as good as said successor. I also happen to have a couple of Thief fan-fiction pieces that I’ve written. 

Tribes 2 is the sequel to Starsiege: Tribes, a game that had a big multiplayer focus, which is now freeware.

Human Rights Day