Conspicuous by its absence in the last Games Guide was Thief 2: The Metal Age. The final title from developers Looking Glass who have since closed their doors, Thief 2 improved on the original by placing a stronger emphasis on sneaking while still retaining the uncanny "you are there" sense that the original had, thanks to superb sound design, excellent AI and some very well done locations such as a convincing forest, mansions and even a city. While Looking Glass are no more though, Thief fans recently received the possibly good news the Ion Storm Austin will be developing Thief 3, continuing the story that was left rather open at the end of Thief 2 with the help of a few newly hired ex-Looking Glass people. I can only hope the third game will be sitting here in the good FPS games section come its release.
Thief 2
Unreal Tournament and Quake III Arena both still, of course, come highly recommended. The basic games themselves are still great fun online but, as with many first person shooters before them, what has really added to their lasting appeal are the numerous mods that have been released since the games came out. For pure, one-on-one fragging action there are versions of Rocket Arena for both games. Unreal Tournament has a number of excellent realistic mods such as TacOps and Strike Force as well as the insane Chaos UT, and of course for some more traditional team-based action, Quake 3 Fortress and Weapons Factory Arena are both great. Not only are Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 Arena top quality, so are many of their mods. Bonus!
Unreal Tournament and Quake 3
As for bad FPS games? Well, Daikatana is still dire and Mortyr is monotonous. To make either game any good would require so much patching that the respective developers (Ion Storm and Mirage) might as well work on new games instead. As it turns out, John Romero's team in Dallas are apparently working away on an unannounced title and Mirage are working on a game set in Games Workshop's 40K Universe. In an ideal world, they'd both have taken criticism of their previous titles to heart, although if recent interviews are anything to go by, John Romero is still convinced Daikatana is his best game yet, willfully ignoring the numerous flaws inherent in Daikatana that have so frequently been pointed in reviews. As for Mirage and Warhammer 40,000: Agents of Death… we'll see.
Daikatana and Mortyr
