The first time I ever wrote anything about games, it was because I was still brokenhearted about a relationship that had dissolved years ago. PC Gamer edited the 4000 word essay into a six pager about Dota in 2012 and it is still one of the best things I have ever written. But wherever I go, whatever I do, games participate in a meaningful way in many of the relationships I see. Welcome to a special edition of S.EXE: the love letters edition. Brace yourself, you are in for chop. Here are seven stories about falling in love next to a loading screen.
We tried to play Thief: The Dark Project and chat about it. Honest! But Twitch, the purple scab of a service, wouldn’t cooperate with one of the most storied series starters in gaming history. It’s almost like I shouldn’t have expected a 15-year-old game to be compatible with a crazy space-age cyberfuture streaming platform, but no, that’s just ridiculous. At any rate, today – for real this time – I will be joined by former Thief: The Dark Project director Greg LoPiccolo and longtime Thief series designer/Thief: Deadly Shadows director Randy Smith. Expect stories from the dank depths of the first three Thieves’ development chambers, inside info on what could’ve been, and opinions from series vets on Eidos Montreal’s reinvention of their storied stealther.
This will be a pretty special episode, so make sure to tune in. We’re kicking off at 2 PM PT/10 PM GMT. A little late, I know, but come on: only amateur thieves skulk around during the (UK) day.
Update: We’re done! It went quite well, all things considered. Watch the full thing below.
This week’s episode of A Game And A Chat is very special. Very special indeed. For one, I’ve got two whole guests this time – namely, former Thief: The Dark Project director Greg LoPiccolo and longtime Thief series designer/Thief: Deadly Shadows director Randy Smith. Yes, it is time to talk (and play) all things Thief. Classic Thief, nu-Thief, and everything in between. Expect stories from the dank depths of the first three Thieves’ development chambers, inside info on what could’ve been, and opinions from series vets on Eidos Montreal’s reinvention of their storied stealther. This is one you absolutely should not miss.
We’ll be kicking off at 11 AM PT/7 PM GMT. Tune in below.
Update: We’re having some technical troubles. New kick off ETA coming shortly.
Update 2: No end in sight to the technical issues. We’re rescheduling for the same time tomorrow. Apologies to everyone for what was, frankly, an unmitigated disaster.
Update 3: I finally got Thief working with Twitch! So it’s a lock: tomorrow at 11 AM PT/7 PM GMT. This will finally happen.
Update 4: This feature is cursed, clearly. A scheduling issue has come up, so we’re doing this tomorrow at 2 PM PT/10 PM GMT. A late, spooky night show for Thief. Kinda makes sense I guess.
It’s been a very long time coming, first confirmed in 2009, but the new Thief is out this week. Tomorrow in the States, Thursday in Australia, and Friday in Europe. Having just managed to get a copy of the game in time, I’ve done nothing but play Thief for three days in order to be able to tell you wot I think:
Here at the RPS retirement home for weary writers, our memories are often akin to a swirling sea of confusion. Just yesterday, I was watching the trailer for Peggle 2 and thought it looked terrible. I realised that Peggle the first has come to resemble a Jackson Pollock gallery retrospective in my mind’s eye. How strange then that our collective memories of Thief were lucid and strong. Looking Glass’ masterpiece is more than a memory though. Astonishingly, fifteen years after its release, the fan community has continued to work on the game and a modder going by the handle Bentraxx has released a Thief Gold HD Mod. It looks gorgeous and there’s a full changelist and video below.
Fifteen years ago to the day, with some variance depending on where in the world you lived at the time, Thief: The Dark Project, went on sale. It is one of the games that continues to define the possibilities of first-person architecture and also an example of interactive storytelling that has endured over a decade and a half without being fully tapped. Some of the lessons that the team at Looking Glass laid out in their masterpiece has influenced a great deal of gaming. Other parts, like the Thief himself, appear to have gone unnoticed. Here, we remember and celebrate the brilliance of The Dark Project.
There are a lot of words being written about the new consoles this week but when I spoke to Warren Spector a few days ago, he was clear about where his future lies: “I think all the interesting stuff is happening on PC now… Assuming I make more games, which I intend to do, PC and Mac are going to be my targets.”
It’s good to hear. We spoke at the Bradford Animation Festival and covered a wide range of topics, from his theories of design and pioneering role in PC gaming to thoughts on the current state of the industry. In this first part of our conversation, there’s insight into how Spector see his own legacy and the work of his former colleagues, and how frustrations with Thief’s difficulty inspired the player empowerment of Deus Ex.
With Thief 4 bearing down on us like a robber with a toothy smile, we thought it might be interesting to go back to where stealth began: the creation of Thief. Joe Martin stole away with this report.
There’s a line I had wanted start this article with. It is a line from the ironic finale of The Neverending Story and it would have been an obscure reference to the fact that before it was The Dark Project, Thief was originally called Dark Camelot. It was: “Beginnings are always dark”.
I can’t use that line, however, because if you go far back enough you eventually uncover Thief’s beginning wasn’t dark at all. It was red. Read the rest of this entry »
“Hello, can you sssshchch – No turn the knob to the right… Hello? RPS? Yes, I think they’ve got me. Thanks, Kieron! Miss you! Hello, RPS. This is Craig. I accidentally fell into another universe when I left a spoon in the bowl of soup I was microwaving. Cara’s chilli-laden recipe, combined with the destabilised positronic matrix caused by the spoon, dumped me in another universe. It’s much like our own, only Kieron is now Prime Minister, running the country on a platform of Partying Hard, and the Thief series was never made. Instead the game it was before it became Thief, Dark Camelot, carried on development. Do you want to see it? Good. I’m transmitting the footage I have for you sssshchssscht- in the hope sssshchssscht better sssshchsssch understand sssshchssscht…” Read the rest of this entry »
System Shock 2 and Thief 2 are regularly hailed as classics for a reason. They’re meticulously designed, tough but not unfair, and, well, they’ve been around for a gazillion years – at least, in gaming technology time. Unfortunately, our light-speed-traveling future machines take about as well to them as modern automobiles to giant stone Flintstones wheels. In other (pseudo) words, clunkity clunk clunk crash. But now – finally, wonderfully, mercifully – some kind soul’s seen fit to release unofficial patches that bring both games up to speed. And, according to early reports, they make some positively massive improvements.
I’ve been visiting various cities recently, which always fill me with confusion and wonder, then Dishonored made me think about how much I miss Looking Glass. Put the two together and this happens. Join me in a meandering word-search for cohesion and theme in the use of the city across Thief, and the selected works of Rockstar and Charles Dickens. Be warned, there are spoilers for all three Thief games.
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. Read the rest of this entry »
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. Read the rest of this entry »
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. Read the rest of this entry »
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. Read the rest of this entry »
With the announcement of Thief 4 (Thifourth) this week, it seemed an apposite time to go back to the very beginning and remember why this series was so special. Armed with a commission from Eurogamer, I snuck back to 1998 to play Thief: The Dark Project once again. It begins:
“This is a game where turning the difficulty up reduces the number of enemies you have to kill. Certainly it also increases the number of guards (but slightly and smartly, never feeling unfair or unrealistic), and repositions them into more strategic patrol routes. But it doesn’t make your weapons less effective, or raise enemy hit-points, or artificially hinder you in any ‘gamey’ way. It simply asks you to be a better, subtler, smarter thief.”
