Saturday, October 31, 2009

The Dark Mod

As a fan of the Thief series, I had been looking forward to the release of The Dark Mod since they announced it five years ago (is that all?), back when they estimated it would only take 1 or 2 years to release, tops. This is a Thief-inspired total conversion using the Doom 3 engine, conceived back when that engine was state of the art. Well, time to break out the champagne, because it's finally been released!

"We could keep working for years adding more features and better assets," they said in their news, which would have continued pushing the release date forward ad infinitum, probably saying "just one more year" each time like they did at least twice before. "...But we believe the community would be happier if we released a fun but unpolished product this year, rather than wait another two years or more for everything to be perfect." I say if they'd taken any longer, the engine would start showing its age, or have trouble running on modern computers.

But as I said, I am a Thief fan, and they have made a fine accomplishment. I'm happy that it's released. My handshake may be barbed with criticism, but it's still a hearty handshake.

See here for a high-def gameplay video of the game in action. Seeing this made me lose a little of the bitterness from the years of waiting. Watch only the first minute or so if you want to avoid spoilers.

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