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argurotoxosThis was originally one large, somewhat eclectic, and photo-heavy update. It's been broken in half because I had more to say about the first topic than I realised. As such, this post is all about computer games with specific talk about The Dark Mod, Doom 3, and the Thief II fanmission A Night in Rocksbourg part III: Ink and Dust, plus musings on horror in games and a few screencaps.
Outside of fanmissions [FMs] and mods, I only play one to two new games a year. And by 'new' I mean 2005 and older since my laptop is coming up on eight years old. Nevertheless, I love my laptop -- it's in good condition, does pretty much everything I want it to, and there are only two or three newer games out there on my 'to play' list. This may be somewhat inaccurate, but as I remember it, my game play for the past near-decade has been:
~2003 - Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption, Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force
2004 - Thief: The Dark Project
2005-2006 Thief II: The Metal Age [I ran into an error during one mission and picked the game up again the next year.]
2007 - Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, Thief2X: Shadows of the Metal Age [game-length fan mod]
2008 - Thief III: Deadly Shadows, Deus Ex
2009 - Deus Ex: ZODIAC [fan mod], The Nameless Mod [game-length fan mod]
2010 - System Shock 2
2011 - System Shock, 2027 [fan mod]
There are also a few games I bought during this time and didn't finish, plus many, many FMs and mods that I did. Since I've played all of the Thief and System Shock games, I started Ultima Underworld late last year with the idea of playing all of Looking Glass' games, only to realise that I don't understand how to fight in that game at all. Amazing how much 3D games progressed in just a few years. The last game I actually bought was probably Deadly Shadows four years ago.
Though most of my Christmas money is saved, I did buy four things this year. Two were songs ("Can't Stop a Riot" and "A Greater Good" by Neuroticfish). One will be talked about later. And one was a new game.
Doom 3, which I bought for The Dark Mod. Yes, I bought a game solely for a fan mod. But it's a Thief fan mod! Sadly, I've had trouble getting a number of The Dark Mod FMs to load properly, but haven't troubleshooted it much yet. What I have played is fairly impressive, though it isn't quite the same as Thief I or II. The one thing about the interface I don't care for is the use of two speed modifiers instead of having two forward movement keys. (My Thief I and II setup is: 'w' for run forward, 's' for walk forward, 'x' for move backward, 'f' for crouch, and 'space' for the creep modifier. I often bind both 'w' and 's' to forward in other games because I can't tell you how many times I've accidentally moved backward while hitting 's' out of habit.) On the other hand, lockpicking in The Dark Mod is more challenging and object interaction is much more comprehensive than I had expected.
Since I bought Doom 3, I figured I might as well try the main game. I'm not the biggest fan of first person shooters without any stealth/RPG/exploration/melee/hybrid options, but have played more than I expected. I am using a mod, which I usually reserve for after I've finished a game once, but this Duct Tape mod adds mounted lights to all but the first gun. (Guns in the future lacking mounted lights was something I complained about when I played the demo.)
The game looks good and loads quickly, though it is pretty linear; I've had to quickload after getting into places I apparently shouldn't be several times. The horror tends to be the 'oh no, a demon spawned in front of/behind you!' type that I have little but disdain for, but there have been some good uses of lighting and ambient noise. I find it hilarious in a frustrating way that, during the short cutscenes where new types of demons appear, the main character - a marine - simply stares at them instead of, I don't know, trying to take cover. Then again, I'm glad the game isn't trying to play my character for me.
Speaking of horror, I don't know what the System Shocks has done to me. I avoided horror up until high school and, even when I began exploring the genre, mostly stuck to psychological horror. Playing all the Thiefs, System Shocks, and Bloodlines, plus Thief FMs, must have raised my tolerance. I still remember how terrified I was during Bloodlines's Ocean House and how truly unnerved I felt on System Shock's Maintenance Deck or System Shock 2's Engineering Bays. But walking past corpses and through blood-spattered rooms in Doom 3? Seen it all before.
(I actually blame the Thief II FM The Inverted Manse for starting this as it was from that undead-filled mission that I learned to stop being utterly terrified of haunts simply because I'd never manage to complete the FM otherwise. Discovering that you can kill haunts by backstabbing them with your sword helped.)
A case to illustrate my point: I was standing in a hallway in Doom 3 looking the other way when I heard a wet thump behind me. Turning around, I noticed the ceiling air vent was open and something had thrown a piece of human flesh out onto the floor. My first reaction? 'It's too bad that hunk of flesh isn't frobbable like the zombie torsos in Thief; those make a rather fun yet disturbing squishing noise when you throw them.'
I hope I haven't become so immune to survival horror and its tropes that I'll never be terrified by a FM again. I'll say this -- the fright I experienced during Ocean House will make me remember Bloodlines for a long time to come. And, for the first time, I began to understand why some people enjoy being scared. I think atmosphere is much more important to horror than any specific monsters, but I'll get into that more below.
We'll come back to horror, but first I want to introduce DrK's absolutely gorgeous Thief II FM A Night in Rocksbourg part III: Ink and Dust. I have so rarely wanted to be able to visit a FM in reality before. This mission takes place in an immense library and the starting view is breathtaking. Rows and rows and rows of books from floor to ceiling, so many that even the long ladders on the walls can't reach them all. Truly something that would belong to a scholarly, shadowy order. It pains me that the Keeper Library in Deadly Shadows wasn't this phenomenal, because this is everything it should have been and more.
There was one particularly unnerving section in Ink and Dust that had me paranoid and constantly looking around me with every step I took. Once I realised there was little that could hurt me, I calmed down, but that, in my opinion, is the best horror. Not jump scares, not grotesque monsters, but an unnerving fear of what might be lurking created by your own mind, even if there's really nothing there. Especially if there's nothing there.
Deadly Shadow's Shalebridge Cradle mission is a good example of this. During the first part of the mission, the rumours, ambient noise, architecture, and readables all have you on edge. You creep through the corridors as distant screams assault your ears, lean cautiously around corners, jump at the ominous pounding coming from the other side of a door . . . and there isn't a single hostile AI in the area. Then, when you move into the second part, thinking that maybe the structure is abandoned after all, you catch a glimpse of something running through the main reception area out of the corner of your eye and your breath catches. You aren't alone anymore this time. And it gets worse.
This setup works particularly well in the Thief series since your character is already physically vulnerable. Shadows and silence are your tools and, unless you're extremely good, talking on more than a few guards at a time is a quick was to get yourself killed. You're not going to pick up a gun and slaughter the zombie hoards with bullets.
In theory, you might be able to slaughter creatures in the System Shocks, but you'll likely find yourself running out of bullets, holding a broken or jammed weapon, or simply expanding too many resources to keep up with the spawn rate. I'm normally not a fan of respawning enemies in games, but in System Shock I think it works beautifully as it prevents any area from being completely safe and preserves the unforgiving, tense atmosphere.
As for Bloodlines, even though you're playing a fairly powerful vampire, the fact that you can't touch or harm any of the ghosts in Ocean House but can be hurt by them gives a similar sense of vulnerability.
One unfortunate thing with Thief II's screenshots is that they don't match the gamma you set in-game. As such, I have to brighten them up after the fact and, because Ink and Dust is such a dark mission as it is, none of the screencaps look half as good as in-game.
Just a tiny, tiny section of books in the mission. I want to visit this library.
For comparison, this is the above screenshot prior to brightness and contrast editing. Even though Thief uses the Dark Engine, it is not this dark in-game.
Some beautiful, enormous statues.
A different section of the library with one Soul writing at his desk.
Outside of fanmissions [FMs] and mods, I only play one to two new games a year. And by 'new' I mean 2005 and older since my laptop is coming up on eight years old. Nevertheless, I love my laptop -- it's in good condition, does pretty much everything I want it to, and there are only two or three newer games out there on my 'to play' list. This may be somewhat inaccurate, but as I remember it, my game play for the past near-decade has been:
~2003 - Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption, Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force
2004 - Thief: The Dark Project
2005-2006 Thief II: The Metal Age [I ran into an error during one mission and picked the game up again the next year.]
2007 - Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, Thief2X: Shadows of the Metal Age [game-length fan mod]
2008 - Thief III: Deadly Shadows, Deus Ex
2009 - Deus Ex: ZODIAC [fan mod], The Nameless Mod [game-length fan mod]
2010 - System Shock 2
2011 - System Shock, 2027 [fan mod]
There are also a few games I bought during this time and didn't finish, plus many, many FMs and mods that I did. Since I've played all of the Thief and System Shock games, I started Ultima Underworld late last year with the idea of playing all of Looking Glass' games, only to realise that I don't understand how to fight in that game at all. Amazing how much 3D games progressed in just a few years. The last game I actually bought was probably Deadly Shadows four years ago.
Though most of my Christmas money is saved, I did buy four things this year. Two were songs ("Can't Stop a Riot" and "A Greater Good" by Neuroticfish). One will be talked about later. And one was a new game.
Doom 3, which I bought for The Dark Mod. Yes, I bought a game solely for a fan mod. But it's a Thief fan mod! Sadly, I've had trouble getting a number of The Dark Mod FMs to load properly, but haven't troubleshooted it much yet. What I have played is fairly impressive, though it isn't quite the same as Thief I or II. The one thing about the interface I don't care for is the use of two speed modifiers instead of having two forward movement keys. (My Thief I and II setup is: 'w' for run forward, 's' for walk forward, 'x' for move backward, 'f' for crouch, and 'space' for the creep modifier. I often bind both 'w' and 's' to forward in other games because I can't tell you how many times I've accidentally moved backward while hitting 's' out of habit.) On the other hand, lockpicking in The Dark Mod is more challenging and object interaction is much more comprehensive than I had expected.
Since I bought Doom 3, I figured I might as well try the main game. I'm not the biggest fan of first person shooters without any stealth/RPG/exploration/melee/hybrid options, but have played more than I expected. I am using a mod, which I usually reserve for after I've finished a game once, but this Duct Tape mod adds mounted lights to all but the first gun. (Guns in the future lacking mounted lights was something I complained about when I played the demo.)
The game looks good and loads quickly, though it is pretty linear; I've had to quickload after getting into places I apparently shouldn't be several times. The horror tends to be the 'oh no, a demon spawned in front of/behind you!' type that I have little but disdain for, but there have been some good uses of lighting and ambient noise. I find it hilarious in a frustrating way that, during the short cutscenes where new types of demons appear, the main character - a marine - simply stares at them instead of, I don't know, trying to take cover. Then again, I'm glad the game isn't trying to play my character for me.
Speaking of horror, I don't know what the System Shocks has done to me. I avoided horror up until high school and, even when I began exploring the genre, mostly stuck to psychological horror. Playing all the Thiefs, System Shocks, and Bloodlines, plus Thief FMs, must have raised my tolerance. I still remember how terrified I was during Bloodlines's Ocean House and how truly unnerved I felt on System Shock's Maintenance Deck or System Shock 2's Engineering Bays. But walking past corpses and through blood-spattered rooms in Doom 3? Seen it all before.
(I actually blame the Thief II FM The Inverted Manse for starting this as it was from that undead-filled mission that I learned to stop being utterly terrified of haunts simply because I'd never manage to complete the FM otherwise. Discovering that you can kill haunts by backstabbing them with your sword helped.)
A case to illustrate my point: I was standing in a hallway in Doom 3 looking the other way when I heard a wet thump behind me. Turning around, I noticed the ceiling air vent was open and something had thrown a piece of human flesh out onto the floor. My first reaction? 'It's too bad that hunk of flesh isn't frobbable like the zombie torsos in Thief; those make a rather fun yet disturbing squishing noise when you throw them.'
I hope I haven't become so immune to survival horror and its tropes that I'll never be terrified by a FM again. I'll say this -- the fright I experienced during Ocean House will make me remember Bloodlines for a long time to come. And, for the first time, I began to understand why some people enjoy being scared. I think atmosphere is much more important to horror than any specific monsters, but I'll get into that more below.
We'll come back to horror, but first I want to introduce DrK's absolutely gorgeous Thief II FM A Night in Rocksbourg part III: Ink and Dust. I have so rarely wanted to be able to visit a FM in reality before. This mission takes place in an immense library and the starting view is breathtaking. Rows and rows and rows of books from floor to ceiling, so many that even the long ladders on the walls can't reach them all. Truly something that would belong to a scholarly, shadowy order. It pains me that the Keeper Library in Deadly Shadows wasn't this phenomenal, because this is everything it should have been and more.
There was one particularly unnerving section in Ink and Dust that had me paranoid and constantly looking around me with every step I took. Once I realised there was little that could hurt me, I calmed down, but that, in my opinion, is the best horror. Not jump scares, not grotesque monsters, but an unnerving fear of what might be lurking created by your own mind, even if there's really nothing there. Especially if there's nothing there.
Deadly Shadow's Shalebridge Cradle mission is a good example of this. During the first part of the mission, the rumours, ambient noise, architecture, and readables all have you on edge. You creep through the corridors as distant screams assault your ears, lean cautiously around corners, jump at the ominous pounding coming from the other side of a door . . . and there isn't a single hostile AI in the area. Then, when you move into the second part, thinking that maybe the structure is abandoned after all, you catch a glimpse of something running through the main reception area out of the corner of your eye and your breath catches. You aren't alone anymore this time. And it gets worse.
This setup works particularly well in the Thief series since your character is already physically vulnerable. Shadows and silence are your tools and, unless you're extremely good, talking on more than a few guards at a time is a quick was to get yourself killed. You're not going to pick up a gun and slaughter the zombie hoards with bullets.
In theory, you might be able to slaughter creatures in the System Shocks, but you'll likely find yourself running out of bullets, holding a broken or jammed weapon, or simply expanding too many resources to keep up with the spawn rate. I'm normally not a fan of respawning enemies in games, but in System Shock I think it works beautifully as it prevents any area from being completely safe and preserves the unforgiving, tense atmosphere.
As for Bloodlines, even though you're playing a fairly powerful vampire, the fact that you can't touch or harm any of the ghosts in Ocean House but can be hurt by them gives a similar sense of vulnerability.
One unfortunate thing with Thief II's screenshots is that they don't match the gamma you set in-game. As such, I have to brighten them up after the fact and, because Ink and Dust is such a dark mission as it is, none of the screencaps look half as good as in-game.
Just a tiny, tiny section of books in the mission. I want to visit this library.
For comparison, this is the above screenshot prior to brightness and contrast editing. Even though Thief uses the Dark Engine, it is not this dark in-game.
Some beautiful, enormous statues.
A different section of the library with one Soul writing at his desk.
