thief posts

Doug Church, one of the most respected game designers in the last couple of decades, is now officially a Valve employee. Rumors of Church's hiring hit the earlier interwebs today but Game Informer has confirmed with Valve' spokesperson Doug Lombard, "On the record: It's true."

Church made his reputation at the now defunct Looking Glass Studios where he help to design some classic PC games including Ultima Underworld, the first System Shock and Thief. He later worked at Ion Storm on the Deus Ex series. Before being hired by Valve Church was working at Electronic Arts. He was the lead designer on a game that was being produced by movie director Steven Spielberg that was later canceled. There's no word on what Church will be working on for Valve.

Thief 4 was announced nearly two years ago but the game's development team at Eidos Montreal hasn't said much and shown nothing of the next game in the "sneaker" shooter series. Now a new photo found on the company's web site seems to show off something that looks like it could be from the new game in the Thief series.

The shot seems to show a person in third person with a bow in his hand. If this really is from Thief 4 it would seem to show that at least part of the game uses the third person perspective. There's still no word on when Thief 4 will be released. Eidos Montreal is still working on Deus Ex Human Revolution which is supposed to come out sometime in 2011.

[Via Strategy Informer]

So how about that Cataclysm CGI trailer? Why Blizzard doesn't expand or spin off its CGI unit to make feature films or even TV commercials is beyond us.

• The Battlefield blog gives more info about one of the new maps in the upcoming Battlefield Bad Company 2 Vietnam expansion pack
• Check out this new Geek and Gamer Girls parody video. Funny but not as good as The Guild's "Be My Avatar."
• What PC games take the most performance advantage of a six processor core PC set up? These do.
• Some folks want the source code for Thief 1 and 2 released to the public.

With Halloween now just 10 days away, thoughts are turning to decorating the house for the holiday. One artist who goes by the name "Ceemdee" has gotten a leg up on the season by creating a ton of pumpkin art designs. "Ceemdee" is also apparently a gamer as the designs are all based on classic and soon-to-be-classic games.

You can see Vault Boy from the Fallout series above but the Deviantart.com page for "Ceemdee" has a ton of similar designs for classic games like Deus Ex, Thief, Sam and Max, Grim Fandango and even the more recent Plants Vs Zombies. That's a lot of effort for art that will eventually decay and become compost.

With Eidos now a part of Square Enix, the UK-based publisher is apparently all about cranking out sequels to games that have worked well in the past. The GamingIndians.com web site has posted up a new chat with Ian Livingstone who was recently named "Life President" at Eidos where he revealed that lots of their franchises are getting new entries.

Of course you can expect a new Tomb Raider game which Livingstone states, " . . . will surprise a lot of people and reinvigorate the franchise." Yep, there's also a new Hitman game planned as well as a new Kane and Lynch entry; both will be handled by Io Interactive. Deus Ex 3 is already announced and when ask if a new Thefi game was in the works, Livingstone states, "Well, we did some research on all our franchises and the one that was most wanted was Thief. So you might want to draw your own conclusions, but I cannot confirm that." We suspect he will be able to on Monday.

Last month, Eidos Montreal's web site posted up a banner with word that their second major game project would be revealed "soon". Rumors began to fly that the second project (the first is the already announced Deus Ex 3) would a be new game in the Thief sneaker shooter series.

Now comes word via a scan of the new Edge print magazine on GameSpot's message boards that the reveal date has changed from "soon" to "May 11" which is a week from today. Furthermore the ad mentions online articles on GameSpy and GameSpot. All of them have the Thief series in common. Let's just say this: if the unannounced game doesn't have something to do with Thief a lot of folks are going to be upset.

It's been a rough couple of weeks for the revamped Gametap PC download service. Gametap users have experienced lots of bugs and performance issues since the relaunch a couple of weeks ago. As a result, the regular Thursday additions of new games to the service have been suspended.

Today the updates have returned to normal with the release of the latest installment of the episodic American McGee's Grimm series. This week's installment is titled The Adventures of Thumbling. Unfortunately it seems Gametap has done away with the series's pattern of offering each episode for free for its first 24 hours. Added to the free game list for one week is Thief, the first game in Eidos' sneaker shooter series. Finally the THQ published military tactical shooter Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers has been added to the game's premium list (with the caveat that the game's multiplayer features are no longer supported).

There have been thousands of PC games released in the past few decades but let's be honest: Most of them are not that original. Oh sure, some are professionally made and even entertaining to play but in the end very few bring anything new to the table.

There are some games, however, that attempt to break the envelope of normal gameplay and take things in new directions. Sometimes these games are big hits. Other times the ideas are used and refined by other titles even if the original game wasn't a sales success. These titles influenced many other titles since their original release.

Big Download has decided to give our picks for the top 20 most influential PC games of all time. These selections are not necessarily the best selling games ever made or even the best from a developer's point of view. However they all have elements that were original and/or popular enough to see their designs used in many other games. We are counting down from 20 to 11 today. Be here on Thursday when we reveal our selections for the top 10.

Click on the image above to continue reading about the top 20 most influential PC games (20-11)

Wow. It looks like our readers love going back down memory lane to speculate on bringing back some of their favorite PC game franchises. We have put up not one but two such installments this week and they have been some of our most popular features we have posted on our site.

The nice thing is that there are still a number of great franchises that we would like to see come back and we think you might agree as well. So let's head back to the Wayback machine to see what other PC games would be good for an eventual comeback. Among our choices this time are a sci-fi multiplayer shooter, a medieval sneaker game and a classic adventure title.

Click on the image above to read more on another 10 PC games that need a comeback

Mega Man 9 may be a console exclusive, but gamers' eagerness to re-embrace the glory days that favored substance over style is being felt across all platforms. After spending time with the blue bomber, we got to thinking: what PC series would we like to see resurrected in their previous forms? Not a sequel with a new engine, but a new entry in a series, new or old, that might benefit from the application of the technology that made it so successful in its day?

Collected here are 10 PC games we'd love to be born again in the same attire they wore when they were new to the party. After perusing our picks, consider what yours might be, and leave a Comment telling us about them. Next week, we'll tally up the 10 games with the most votes and feature them in a gallery of their own.

The Resurgence of Yesteryear