.

[Ash]

System Shock 2.

Honorable mention for Ultima Underworld for starting it all and being very well put together, but is sadly held back by its engine and is one of very few games that actually screams for any remake as a result (if it were to be done right of course).

And then we got Underworld Ascendant. For shame. What a stain on their legacy.

 

[Late Bloomer]

It was tough between the two Ultima games. Going with The Stygian Abyss. For me games are not only important on the game itself but what was going on in my life. Some games benefit from being at a really good spot in life and some games suffer from life doing its thing. The best game on this list is Thief. But man do I get good feels from those two Ultima games. So I picked between those two.

 

[Andronovo]

I'm a gigantic fan of the vibes of Dark Project, however Metal Age has more polished level design. Plus the vast majority of the fan missions that have eaten up so much of my life are running on it. So yeah, it's Thief 2. Calling it an actual sequel though is like calling the three different games of nuHitman sequels. They're not, they're just new campaigns. Other than new missions, what did they really add with Metal Age? Some new ambience, some new voice acting, the robots, a couple new items? Crafting? Oh yeah, and they textured a whole bunch of new architecture assets. I'm not dissing Metal Age really, but slapping a "2" on it feels a bit pretentious. It's like if Valve sold Half Life 2: Episode 1 and 2 together and called it Half Life 3.

 

[agentorange]

I'm a gigantic fan of the vibes of Dark Project, however Metal Age has more polished level design. Plus the vast majority of the fan missions that have eaten up so much of my life are running on it. So yeah, it's Thief 2. Calling it an actual sequel though is like calling the three different games of nuHitman sequels. They're not, they're just new campaigns. Other than new missions, what did they really add with Metal Age? Some new ambience, some new voice acting, the robots, a couple new items? Crafting? Oh yeah, and they textured a whole bunch of new architecture assets. I'm not dissing Metal Age really, but slapping a "2" on it feels a bit pretentious. It's like if Valve sold Half Life 2: Episode 1 and 2 together and called it Half Life 3.

Kind of a pointless thing to get hung up on because frankly I wouldn't care if they had called it Thief: The Metal Age, but for the sake of arguing, does a game have to completely reinvent itself in order to be considered a sequel? It's an entirely new campaign of a similar or longer length, added new mechanics (vine arrows, scouting orbs, security cameras, etc), made adjustments to the gameplay (no more bunny hopping, armored guards, etc), and it actually looks quite different if you play it back to back with Thief 1.

Some new ambience, some new voice acting, the robots, a couple new items? Crafting? Oh yeah, and they textured a whole bunch of new architecture assets.

All of this stuff takes a lot of effort, though, especially at the level of quality with which they made the stuff, and it kind of comprises everything that makes up a game other than building an entirely new engine. It doesn't look radically different in the way that System Shock 1 and 2 do simply because it wasn't made after a huge leap in graphics technologies. If Thief 2 isn't a sequel then neither are games like Silent Hill 2 and 3, Resident Evil 2 and 3, Fallout 2, and so on.

What is an example of a game you would consider a real sequel?

 

[Wunderbar]

More devs should iterate on their systems/tools/engines instead of ditching everything and starting their sequels from scratch. I'm absolutely fine with games looking like glorified expansion packs, provided they were built off of good foundations.

Fallout New Vegas is another game that only came into existence because Obsidian were able to build off of Fo3. It's strange how Bethesda never tried to create a B-team and dedicate it to developing 'iterative sequels' like FNV. Todd hates money, apparently.

 

[udm]

TMA is a new campaign yeah, but it has direct continuity from TDP (Viktoria, Basso, the rise of the Mechanists).

Also, special mention should go to TDP and TMA's narratives. You could argue they're simple: Garrett does his own thing, somehow gets pulled into a world-changing plot, tries to save himself but ends up saving the world, but I've always had a soft spot for how they're told. While he is the best at what he does, his main goal tends to be to look out for number one. On occasion we see Garrett developing some conscience, but he still reverts to type because that's who he is. He doesn't wax philosophical for too long, he just does shit because it benefits him. I would be happy to be corrected in this regard, but no other game has written such an interesting anti-hero protagonist.

 

[Andronovo]

Kind of a pointless thing to get hung up on because frankly I wouldn't care if they had called it Thief: The Metal Age, but for the sake of arguing, does a game have to completely reinvent itself in order to be considered a sequel? It's an entirely new campaign of a similar or longer length, added new mechanics (vine arrows, scouting orbs, security cameras, etc), made adjustments to the gameplay (no more bunny hopping, armored guards, etc), and it actually looks quite different if you play it back to back with Thief 1.

I really am just quibbling semantics here. It's really a recent cultural meme, that true sequels must be from the ground up rebuilds for video games, and everything else is just expansions or DLC.

 

[Maggot]

NewDark makes the changes with TMA and TDP less noticeable (and voodoo47's DML mods fuck with people's perceptions) but there was a definite engine upgrade between both games: a considerable poly count improvement on characters and objects, larger areas, colored lighting (which shows up in TDP/TG now for most people thanks to voodoo47), fog and rain effects.

 

[SharkClub]

Song of the Caverns is legitimately great, and I like The Mage Towers despite its problems. Even if The Thieves' Guild mostly sucks ass and the Gold version of The Lost City is slightly worse, my vote goes to Gold over Dark Project, sue me.

That is, unless we're counting Gold version as just those new maps, in which case Dark Project easily wins. Really the two should probably be combined on the poll.

 

[Maggot]

I like Gold's additions to the previous maps (except lost city's craymen removal), sounds when dropping bodies, and zombies that go into sleep mode after being knocked down instead of immediately getting up.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

All of them.

 

[Andronovo]

Song of the Caverns is legitimately great, and I like The Mage Towers despite its problems. Even if The Thieves' Guild mostly sucks ass and the Gold version of The Lost City is slightly worse, my vote goes to Gold over Dark Project, sue me.

That is, unless we're counting Gold version as just those new maps, in which case Dark Project easily wins. Really the two should probably be combined on the poll.

Gold is better than Dark Project, purely because of Little Big World.

 

[agentorange]

TMA is a new campaign yeah, but it has direct continuity from TDP (Viktoria, Basso, the rise of the Mechanists).

Also, special mention should go to TDP and TMA's narratives. You could argue they're simple: Garrett does his own thing, somehow gets pulled into a world-changing plot, tries to save himself but ends up saving the world, but I've always had a soft spot for how they're told. While he is the best at what he does, his main goal tends to be to look out for number one. On occasion we see Garrett developing some conscience, but he still reverts to type because that's who he is. He doesn't wax philosophical for too long, he just does shit because it benefits him. I would be happy to be corrected in this regard, but no other game has written such an interesting anti-hero protagonist.

He is similar to Snake Plissken in Escape From NY/LA. The ultimate contrarian hero. He's the un-invested individual who it turns out is only one that can bring some balance to a situation when the world is going too far in the direction of one ideology. And yeah I like that he has brief outbursts of emotion, like when he gets pissed off at the monsters that invaded the hammerite temple in Strange Bedfellows and decides to kill them all (if you play on expert) or when Viktoria dies near the end of 2, but he never has one of those trite "learning moments."

I always liked that the two games are perfect companions to each other in terms of their setting and central conflict. In The Dark Project it is the pagans trying to send the world back into some primordial dark age and Garrett has to kill an ancient and forgotten magical/fantastical monster to put a stop to it; in The Metal Age it is the modernist Karas trying to maniacally drive the world towards hyper industrialization using newly discovered knowledge, and Garrett has to blow up Google HQ the Soulforge, a nexus of new technology, to stop it. Not that it's a new concept for the hero to have to team up with the bad guy from the previous installment to stop a new evil, but I can't think of any games or series that do it as well as Thief.

Probably my all time favorite cutscene from a game.

 

[NecroLord]

Song of the Caverns is legitimately great, and I like The Mage Towers despite its problems. Even if The Thieves' Guild mostly sucks ass and the Gold version of The Lost City is slightly worse, my vote goes to Gold over Dark Project, sue me.

That is, unless we're counting Gold version as just those new maps, in which case Dark Project easily wins. Really the two should probably be combined on the poll.

Little Big World and the Song of the Caverns mission.
Really, really awesome mission.

I think your vote for Gold should be counted as a vote for Dark Project. I voted Dark Project, but they are basically the same(Gold is the "complete" version, so to speak). The Dark Project has better pacing.

 

[Zed]

Probably Th2ef. It's the game I'd chose to play today. SS2 was damn good (how's that remake btw?) but T2 feels more lasting to me.

 

[gerey]

how's that remake btw?

Remaster really, they're adding a bunch of community mods, higher resolution textures and updating the character models. That being said, since the release is tied to the SS1 remake it's not coming out until that piece of shit crawls out the door.

 

[Maggot]

Fuck the remaster, we don't need more shitty KEX ports when we have NewDark and the artist they have doing the remastered models doesn't understand baking lighting into textures for old games so everything looks flat and shit.

 

[kangaxx]

I've played SS2 so many times now that I don't mind the odd social session in multiplayer with the only mate of mine who still plays games. If they can make multiplayer more stable then it it might be good for me, but aside from that use case the SS2 remaster is a bit pointless IMO. As others have said the mods are already available for free.

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

Difficult question. Ultima Underworld 1 (not the abominable 2) still is one of the best conceived, most creative and imaginative games I've ever played. An incredible game where the depicted world itself is the protagonist of the story and every single element is part of the whole experience. It was - and still is - a fucking awesome game with an incredibly strong sense of immersion. But from the list I've played Thief 2 the most by far so I have to choose this one. The main game around that delightfully crazy antagonist Karras and his baroque-style army of robots is just too original to be missed. Missions are extremely varied, tell one cohesive and atmospheric story and never even for a second I felt bored. The tons and tons of fantastic fan missions and whole campaigns is another thing speaking strongly for Thief 2, so I just have to vote this one.

 

[Star Citizen]

Thief 1's a no brainer for me but man, what a line up of spectacular games

 

[NecroLord]

what a line up of spectacular games

Looking Glass Studios in a nutshell.