For the past year I have been valiantly trying to get my favorite game of all time, Thief: Gold, working again.

It is an old game, having been made all the way back in 1998, and it is the first game I ever played seriously. It is my true love among games; sure, Halflife is neat, Bioshock scared the s*** out of me, I like to piss off the police in GTA4, and the Resident Evil games are my favorite little zombie apocalypses, but Thief is the game that lives in my dreams and resonates in my soul.

It hurt me to find that I couldn't play it anymore, because I had to replace my graphics card and the drivers were no longer supported; meaning each attempt to play got me only the main menu and beginning cutscenes before it dissolved into a pixeled crash of doom. But I resolved my hideous conundrum; a friend was looking to get rid of an out-dated computer and I was looking for something that would be old enough to support my game. Thirty bucks and a promise that I would cook for him for two weeks and I was back in the game, literally, I rushed home and hooked it up to my monitor and keyboard, installing Thief and joyously returning to my favorite reality.

The first two Thief games, Thief: Gold (alternately known as Thief: the Dark Project) and Thief: The Metal Age, are both too old to readily purchase in a store (I've had luck on eBay when I needed a replacement disk, although some of them are of dubious legality) but Thief: Deadly Shadows, the third installment in the series, is more recent and can still be purchased in stores (or, if you have a Steam account, just download it directly).

You'll miss out on some of the backstory because the games are supposed to be played in-sequence, but it is still a fabulous game with amazing characters, great locations, beautiful cutscenes, and challenging missions. Also, the game is trackless and built so you have absolute free-range of your environment, you are completely free to do whatever you what, wherever you want, to whomever you want (even allies, though they'll retaliate). The AI for the Dark Engine (which the games are built upon) is really neat to play with.

I highly recommend you play it, because if you don't you'll be missing out on a great adventure. (And if you do decide to play, let me know)

Happy Thieving.
Ange