Freeware games

[pershainovitsh]

Alright, now The Dark Mod, previously known as the Thief-like mod for Doom 3, is a standalone game. Of course I'm already downloading it. The game's site was down for days because of the huge amount of people trying to download it, and I have a good feeling that people are excited for a good reason.

Here's a trailer:


The Dark Mod official site:
www.thedarkmod.com/main/

Download page:
www.thedarkmod.com/download-the-mod/

All, or at least most of the missions are made by various users, so all of them may not be as good. You can download individual missions through the in-game mission launcher or from this page: www.thedarkmod.com/missions/
The mod's developers did make a training mission and a proper mission (Tears of St. Lucia), both of which are included in the download.

I'll surely report again after I try it.

[pershainovitsh]

I played through the training mission. Stealth works just like in the Thief games it's imitating. Stay in the shadows, don't cause too much noise. Melee combat is difficult, as it should be. You'll be fighting enemies only in an emergency, and even then you'd just better run away and hide. It's very easy to die from a few slashes of a sword.

Lockpicking is handled in a different manner in every game, it seems. This time you have to wait for a series of random clicking sounds to end, and click during the silence before the audio loops back to beginning. It was cool and not terribly difficult, but you can alter the lockpicking difficulty (or even set it to automatic!) independently from the settings.

Archery is an important skill in the Thief games and in The Dark Mod. The further you want to hit, the higher you must aim. There are water arrows for putting out flames and for cleaning pools of blood, there are moss arrows to make the ground softer and walking on it more silent, there are broadhead arrows for killing enemies, there are noisemaker arrows for creating a distraction, and there are rope arrows to help you climb up or down to places in a different height. Swinging on the rope is done by left-clicking, but when I tried it, it just looked like I was having a seizure while hanging on the rope and didn't build any speed at all. Also, I couldn't find a way of just dropping down from the rope so I always jumped forwards and away from it with a fierce speed.

The Dark Mod was made with the Doom 3 engine, and it looks great. I didn't play any proper missions yet so I can't say if it really is a good game or not. Judging by the reviews it is. More reports coming!

[pershainovitsh]

I played the mission that came with The Dark Mod, called Tears of St. Lucia. In it you must steal an item from a cathedral, destroy a statue and steal lots of stuff to make it look like a robbery gone wrong. Before the mission begins, you get to choose what items you wish to buy to make life a bit easier. I don't know if money or items carry over to other missions, but I don't think they do.

There were at least two ways to get inside the cathedral. The direct route felt too dangerous so I went to look for another one, and found it. When I finally got inside the building, I had to sneak around, steal keys from guards walking by, read letters and diaries for clues and hide in the darkest corners while people were walking past me. It was quite intense. I avoided killing enemies, mostly because I'm a thief, not a warrior, but also because killing is difficult in this game. I clubbed a few guards with a blackjack, but when I tried to do the same to a priest, he just freaked out and started running away. I hit him with my sword quite a few times before he died. I hid the body in the guards' bedroom and carried on with my mission.

I'm liking this game. The mission mentioned above felt difficult at the beginning, but by the end it felt easy. If you happen to be a huge Thief fan (I'm not, the first two games wouldn't work on my computer and the third was just...bad) and want to make the game harder, you can try to play without saving or without clubbing people unconscious.


So try it out, it's free and it's good.





Oooh, now I'm a contributing guru with five red stars... And 1000 posts!