Rock, Paper, Shotgun

If I had a Thief 2 commemorative mug, I’d be supping water (because of water arrows, of course), while pondering losing weight just in case I need to use rope arrows. As it is, I just have a hoodie up. Why? Right now “The Making of Thief 2” is playing on my other monitor as the full game is downloading from GoG.com. Given how excited I was when Thief: Gold hit there last week, I’m even more excited that the second game available now. I loved the first game, but the second game’s rangy missions just edge it for me.
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Now that my initial excitement has waned to a deep, purple coloured throb in the centre of my soul, the stark reality of GOG.com‘s Thief port has settled in. It runs, which is the big step up from my original version, but it’s not widescreen, the resolution is stamp sized, and it’s a bit grimy. Fret not, lovely Taffers, for I’m about to tell you how to make it work. And it’s ridiculously simple.
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I can’t believe that writing about a 14 year-old game is getting both me and Adam so excited (He: “This is the best thing ever!”), but Looking Glass’s genre-defining classic Thief is now available to download on Good Old Games. I’m downloading it right now, Taffer.
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Quick, somebody sound the Thief 4 gong! Looks like we’ll be getting a tiny glimpse of the still very much in-development title at GDC, which kicks off on the 28th of February.
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As of this weekend, Christmas has come early for the Through the Looking Glass community. A CD’s been discovered containing the source code for the Dark Engine, aka the engine used by Thief, Thief II and System Shock 2 (not to mention Irrational and Looking Glass’ cancelled cold war spy game Deep Cover).

What does this mean? Well, if the fans can get the code into a workable state, initially it’ll mean versions of those Dark Engine classics optimised for modern systems. In the long term, you can probably look at the FreeSpace 2 Source Code Project for a glimpse at what lies ahead.
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Okay, this is an interesting one. A couple of days ago Eidos Montreal lobbed up a notice they were now recruiting staff to work on their new game. To quote the statement from their site: “Eidos-Montréal is proud to announce the recruitment for our 2nd “AAA” project. … A hint! The title begins with the letter “ T”.” Which doesn’t mean much until you notice – as a forumite of theirs did – the previously existing line on their site here: “The first two games we develop will revive successful franchises.” With the Montreal Studio already at work on Deus Ex 3, it’s an easy leap to the further adventures of Mr Stealy rather than the further adventures of the-also-Eidos-Owned-Terracide. Or, less facetiously, they could be Tomb Raider… but that franchise doesn’t need reviving. Let’s be honest: It’s almost certainly Thief. They wouldn’t have said the teasing “T” otherwise.

[Thanks to Comrade Larington for the heads up]

Upset that I didn’t notice this immediately, but news reaches me from Broken Glass Studios’ Subjective Effect that they’ve released an alpha demo of their long-in-progress Doom III mod The Dark Mod. For those who haven’t been following it, it’s basically… well, creating Thief, but in the Doom III Engine. It’ll consist of a set of tools to allow you to make Thief-inspired levels and also a campaign made using those tools. It’s a ludicrously hubristic aim, and while I admired that, I also thought that like most of these enormous projects, it’ll all amount to nothing.

I love being wrong.
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Four days away from the internet means I miss two of the biggest PC announcements of the year. Bah. So, have this token morsel of factoid uselessness while I try and think of something cleverer to say.

Urban pop songstress Lily Allen, she of Smille, LDN and clearly not actually being a Cockernee commoner fame, played ‘Townspeople #1′ in Thief: Deadly Shadows before she shot to MySpace-assisted chart-straddling.

Presumably this involved lots of “What was that?”, “Must have been rats” and “Ooh, he’s got me purse” soundbytes – possibly a death scream if we’re really lucky. I’ll check later, maybe.

She also spoke slowly and clearly into the mic for both Freedom Force games (prior, lesser efforts from Bioshock devs Irrational. Which means I’m now oddly picturing Keith Allen inside a Big Daddy suit. Makes a lot of sense, really).

All this does, of course, mean her recent re-recording of Smile in Sims-talk was in fact a canny reference to the great debt her current success owes to formerly scraping a living from videogame voicework. And not just a stupid EA marketing stunt.