Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-12-17, 07:03:

Lots of progress in Dark Souls 2...

It's always nice reading your thoughts on the game. I know you're enjoying it (though not to the extent of the first game), but you might find that you enjoy it even more on a replay; after replaying it a couple of times, sometimes I think it's my favorite game in the series!

The DLC is quite excellent, though can also be very difficult depending on what kind of character you're using, so I'm looking forward to reading about your DLC adventures!

newtmonkey wrote on 2025-12-17, 08:40:

The DLC is quite excellent, though can also be very difficult depending on what kind of character you're using, so I'm looking forward to reading about your DLC adventures!

Cheers! I'm playing a melee focused build, with high strength, vigor, vitality, endurance and a fair amount of adaptability. Other stats are largely ignored. This allows me to wear heavy armor and use big weapons like the Large Club and the Dragon's Tooth. I pair those with the Stone Ring, which makes it easier to knock down regular enemies.

This isn't the approach that I used in DS1, but it seems works well here. My swings are slow though, so I need to time them carefully. Also, I always aim manually, and never use lock on. Not sure if that helps or hurts my chances, but I just don't like how the lock on mechanic restricts the camera viewing angles. Never used that in DS1 either, and I had no problems there.

Avadon 2: The Corruption
I just completed this. I mentioned earlier that I got really bored with it... but, much like the first one, it ended up being a perfect casual RPG to play while listening to music or watching old MST3K episodes, and I ended up spending a couple hours a night finishing it up over the last week or two.

It took me just over 38 hours to do absolutely everything I could find in the game, including reaching max level for each character. The game isn't actually particularly massive, it's just that the maps are large and mostly full of nothing but endless trash fights against the same encounters over and over, and you're required to slowly backtrack over the handful of maps. Walking speed is surprisingly slow, so during the last 10 hours or so I used Cheat Engine to speed the game up 2x and then 3x over; so playing the game normally would probably take about 45-50 hours.

It's more of the same Avadon, to the point where it feels like I just got done playing through a fan mod of the first game. The only really interesting thing it adds is the "corruption" area, which features a fun mechanic where enemies can be corrupted into other forms as you fight them.

Although the game is overall extremely easy on Normal difficulty, there were some infuriating sections in which you are forced to sneak through areas or run away from endless waves of enemies. The game engine was designed solely for walking around in real time exploring and then fighting in turn-based combat, so none of the stealth or chase sequences work well at all, and required endless saving and loading just to get through them. The game is also fond of taking your companions away for story reasons, forcing you to tediously fight wave after wave of boring enemies when you are hardly ever in any danger. It's also fond of having you do something, and then immediately invalidating what you just did for story reasons, which always drives me up the wall.

Overall, I think I liked the first game more, and I honestly didn't really like that one very much. The RPG mechanics are just too simple to really get anything out of them, and I don't find the Avadon setting and story to be interesting enough to carry a single 40-hour game, never mind three of them. Still, Avadon 3: The Warborn is just sitting there in my Steam library, so I might as well complete the trilogy... just not this year (or next).

Right then, been spending time with other stuff lately but did finally manage to complete Thief II: The Metal Age. Took a while to explore those pleasently large maps.

About a year ago I completed Thief Gold and found it pretty conflicting experience. At its best I loved it, and at its worst I thought it was so bad I wasn't sure should I even continue playing it. Level design took some pretty heavy swings and the lack of detailed map drove me nuts occasionally, getting lost is very low on my list of things I like to experience in a game. But the thing is I've never been that into stealth games and yet Thief still made me genuinely love it at times. A big thanks to that goes to its horror-esque atmosphere and ambient music.

And here we have Thief 2, which tones down the horror aspect with a heavy hand. Disappointingly the ambient music is far less upfront and oppressive, diminishing the atmosphere. Also the undead are nearly gone, there are a few around but not many. But on the plus side avarage level quality is better and there's also a more detailed map which I'm very grateful for!

Looking at it from an objective view I do think Thief 2 is the better of the two, it's more polished and even game. But personally I like the gothic horror of T1 much more than the steampunk stuff T2 has going on, especially security cameras started to get on my nerves. The last level in particular is pretty damn far from what I would consider fun, but I suppose it demonstrates what kind of steel hellscape Karras wants to create.

I guess I could say Thief 1 has lower lows, but also higher highs than Thief 2 in my opinion. I get a huge kick out of strong atmosphere, and while Thief 2 has its moments I found it lacking in comparison overall. But I still had pretty good time with T2, which isn't bad at all considering I'm a guy who generally prefers to shoot the guards with a shotgun than sneak around.

I have to say I've taken a liking to the dark world and characters of Thief. Stealth isn't really my genre of choice, but both Thief 1 and 2 have levels I really could replay just about anytime. And levels I'd be ok for never playing them again.

Sombrero wrote on 2025-12-17, 09:41:

Right then, been spending time with other stuff lately but did finally manage to complete Thief II: The Metal Age.

Congrats! Glad to hear you enjoyed it, despite the shift in atmosphere toward a more industrial setting. I imagine you played it on EAX capable hardware? I liked the improvements to the soundstage that occlusion brought to the table compared to the first game.

Sombrero wrote on 2025-12-17, 09:41:

The last level in particular is pretty damn far from what I would consider fun, but I suppose it demonstrates what kind of steel hellscape Karras wants to create.

You're not alone there. That's pretty much considered to be the low point of the game by most people in the community. I'm curious if you liked Life of the Party? The level with the rooftops and prominent Table Fog use. 😄

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-12-17, 09:50:

Congrats! Glad to hear you enjoyed it, despite the shift in atmosphere toward a more industrial setting. I imagine you played it on EAX capable hardware? I liked the improvements to the soundstage that occlusion brought to the table compared to the first game.

Thanks! Sure, though not on original hardware. I gave it a quick test on my Win98 system back around last spring and noticed pretty bad issues with audio, if I recall correctly every time I closed the map/objectives screen for a few seconds all audio was so loud it hurt my ears before going back to normal. Pretty weird. Gave a quick googling and found old posts of people having the same issue with Audigy cards. Probably could have been fixed by updating the Audigy 2 driver but didn't try it at the time.

That Win98 system has since been stored away and partly dissassembled, so I went with the newdark version and OpenAL Soft audio. Can't say how similar it is to original EAX, but I was very happy how it sounded. Occlusion effects were great, especially with spoken dialog. I'm honestly pretty impressed how good OpenAL Soft sounds, both Thief 2 and System Shock 2 sounded great with it.

I'm curious if you liked Life of the Party? The level with the rooftops and prominent Table Fog use. 😄

Oh boy. I hope I don't ruffle anyone's feathers here since it seems to have a bit of a legendary status, but I was a little disappointed. I was expecting a big indoor manor with a party going on, which would have been right up my alley. Well, I guess I got that in the end but I didn't find Angelwatch terribly interesting place.

I kinda got the feeling it must have impressed people back in the day with all the quick side detours to other houses while making your way through the rooftops, and it all being one single big map from start to finish. Back in 2000 it must have been pretty great demonstration of level design.

I did like the argument between the guards, one side defending their Lord and the other their Lady, and if I got my names right you could find out the Lord got escorted out the party for getting blasted and the Lady is basically a prostitute. Also the pet spider was great, running around happily. But otherwise I was kinda indifferent to it, I guess it comes down to me not being quite able to see it with 2000's eyes and it not really having background music at all, just ambient wind. By now it's probably getting pretty obvious music can really affect how much I like something. Has nothing to do with me loving games like System Shock 2, Deus Ex and Unreal Tournament, no sir!

Having to come all the way back in the end was something though. My favorite levels were the bank job and all the ones with a big manor to explore, and the pagan village one. The pagan map wasn't terribly satisfying stealth wise, but I really enjoyed the atmosphere there. The only map that managed to scare me, weird tree monster managed to sneak up on me at the end!

Sombrero wrote on 2025-12-17, 11:09:

Thanks! Sure, though not on original hardware. I gave it a quick test on my Win98 system back around last spring and noticed pretty bad issues with audio, if I recall correctly every time I closed the map/objectives screen for a few seconds all audio was so loud it hurt my ears before going back to normal. Pretty weird. Gave a quick googling and found old posts of people having the same issue with Audigy cards. Probably could have been fixed by updating the Audigy 2 driver but didn't try it at the time.

Ouch, that's too bad. If I remember correctly, I last played Thief 2 under WinXP on an Audigy 2 ZS, with either DanielK's driver pack, or the latest official driver from Creative. Not sure which. In any case, I had no audio issues there.

Sombrero wrote on 2025-12-17, 11:09:

Oh boy. I hope I don't ruffle anyone's feathers here since it seems to have a bit of a legendary status, but I was a little disappointed. I was expecting a big indoor manor with a party going on, which would have been right up my alley. Well, I guess I got that in the end but I didn't find Angelwatch terribly interesting place.

Haha, don't worry about it, everyone has their own preferences. I like that level a lot, due to the amount of freedom that you have to roam around, and just listen in on random people while robbing them blind. 😁

Sombrero wrote on 2025-12-17, 11:09:

The pagan map wasn't terribly satisfying stealth wise, but I really enjoyed the atmosphere there.

I think I may have mentioned this before, but Thief 3: Deadly Shadows shifts back the atmosphere towards horror, and the world kinda regresses technologically for (valid) plot reasons. If you end up playing it sometime, I think you'll like the atmosphere in many of its areas. Also, EAX 4.0 is superbly implemented there.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-12-17, 11:54:

Haha, don't worry about it, everyone has their own preferences. I like that level a lot, due to the amount of freedom that you have to roam around, and just listen in on random people while robbing them blind. 😁

Yeah, listening in the silly banter really is one of the best parts of the game(s). Reminded me of that one guy being an incredibly whiny baby for not being invited to that party and scheming a stupid revenge party, while on the party you can find out they were invited but never got any reply, suspecting misplaced invitation.

I think I may have mentioned this before, but Thief 3: Deadly Shadows shifts back the atmosphere towards horror, and the world kinda regresses technologically for (valid) plot reasons. If you end up playing it sometime, I think you'll like the atmosphere in many of its areas. Also, EAX 4.0 is superbly implemented there.

I had a look at some gameplay at some point and there is something really off with the movement, I don't know what's up with that but it looked extra janky to me. Just how it looked made me pretty sure I couldn't tolerate it. Also the game seems to have a case of consolearthritis otherwise too. I'd love to experience it, but the gameplay just didn't look very enjoyable to me.

Had it been made with the Dark engine I'd be already playing it.

Sombrero wrote on 2025-12-17, 13:06:

I had a look at some gameplay at some point and there is something really off with the movement, I don't know what's up with that but it looked extra janky to me.

I think the devs implemented what they call "body awareness" in Thief 3. Meaning, you can see your hands and legs on screen, and they move "realistically" as you walk around. In practice, this just looks goofy and makes people nauseous from the excessive head bob. I can't play that game in first person at all, but switching to third person view solves most of my problems. The movement still feels a bit clunky, especially compared to the first two games.

Sombrero wrote on 2025-12-17, 13:06:

Also the game seems to have a case of consolearthritis otherwise too.

Oh, for sure. You can see from miles away that it was developed for the Xbox first and foremost. Similarly to Deus Ex 2, from the same studio. But I can still appreciate Thief 3 for what it is, despite its flaws.

Sombrero wrote on 2025-12-17, 13:06:

I'd love to experience it, but the gameplay just didn't look very enjoyable to me.

I recommend that you try playing the first proper level, which comes right after the crappy tutorial. It's called "End of the Bloodline" and takes place in a castle/fort, similar to the first level in Thief 1. This makes it a great EAX showpiece, and also gives you a snapshot of how the game feels. If you don't like that one, you probably won't enjoy the rest of the levels either, and vice versa.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-12-17, 13:49:

Oh, for sure. You can see from miles away that it was developed for the Xbox first and foremost. Similarly to Deus Ex 2, from the same studio. But I can still appreciate Thief 3 for what it is, despite its flaws.

Ah. Well as it happens I just happened to build a dedicated TV PC mainly for emulators, maybe I should then try the XBox version with a controller. Probably would be able to take it as it is better like that.

Seems to currently have an issue with resolution scaling. I'll keep an eye on it, Xbox emulator development isn't exactly on fire but it might get fixed at some point.

Sombrero wrote on 2025-12-17, 14:31:

Ah. Well as it happens I just happened to build a dedicated TV PC mainly for emulators, maybe I should then try the XBox version with a controller. Probably would be able to take it as it is better like that.

A while back, I briefly tried that version on my Xbox 360 via back compat. It worked, though there were graphical glitches with certain light sources.

I did like how Garrett moved when using the controller's analog sticks. Also, the lock picking minigame was better due to rumble feedback, which made it easier to determine when you were getting close to the proper pin. But yeah, the game was running at 480p and barely holding 30 FPS. Texture quality also seemed lower. Lastly, not having EAX felt like a huge downgrade after experiencing it on the PC.

Geneforge 2
Avadon 2 left such a bad taste in my mouth, that I didn't want to end the year with poor experience with a Spiderweb Software game... so I resumed my old game in progress. I completed Geneforge a few years back and absolutely loved it; definitely a top-1o if not top-5 RPG, and I've played through a lot of RPGs. In fact, the only reason why I dropped Geneforge 2 back then is because I played it too soon after completing the first game!

Anyway, it's more of the same and it's awesome; just like the better AD&D Gold Box games, a sequel to an awesome game that basically plays exactly the same is still entertaining. It's unbelievably addictive exploring the world, which is node-based and has you unlocking new areas simply by reaching exits. Since you create your own party of summoned monsters, you can pretty easily bypass difficult encounters by simply throwing your monsters at them while you run across the map to the next exit. It sounds cowardly, but it's sometimes necessary to make your way through such a truly nonlinear game (no leveling scaling).

I'm only just under 10 hours in, but so far it's just as good as the first game, though I suppose it suffers a bit in comparison since the setting and concept were so unique in the first game and are pretty much the same in the second. Still, I'm interested in seeing where the story goes this time around.

Mars: War Logs
This little action RPG has been a fun little surprise! I didn't expect much going in, but it's like a very low-budget version of latter Bioware games like Mass Effect or Dragon Age, but taking place in a prison colony setting sort of similar to The Chronicles of Riddick - Escape from Butcher Bay. Areas are quite small but there are plenty of side quests to do, and the simple character development system works well; you really do feel quite a bit more powerful even after a single level up or two. It's a pretty charming game, if you go in with your expectations in check. I like the clean, sharp look of the game, free from stuff like motion blur, chromatic aberration, bloom, and all that stuff.

I'm around 10 hours into this one, too, and I've read it's not that long (under 20 hours). It's nothing amazing, but it's a nice little casual action RPG with a fun setting. I like it.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-11-09, 09:40:

Interesting. Everyone always says how difficult the Ultimecia fight was, but I honestly don't recall having that many problems with her back in the day. And that was while playing on original hardware (PlayStation 1 + CRT TV). Also, Quistis was best girl. Too bad the devs shoved Rinoa into the protagonist's arms without offering us a choice.

I was reading through some of the older posts in this thread and caught this! Agree 100%! I played through FF8 for the first time a couple of years ago (also on original hardware) and, while I was dreading the Ultimecia fight, didn't have any trouble with it. And Squall is a dumbass for turning down his hot teacher for the boring Rinoa.

Went through the Crown of the Sunken King DLC in Dark Souls 2. It had too much platforming for my taste, and I also didn't like the gimmicky ghost enemies. The Queen Elana boss fight was wild, due to her summoning Velstadt half way through. If it wasn't for that, this wouldn't have been too bad, but he literally made the encounter twice as difficult. And while I could summon two phantom NPCs of my own, they were only useful as distractions. I managed to win by focusing on Elana as much as possible, which was no easy task on that chaotic battlefield. After she died, Velstadt thankfully got unsummoned, which was good, since I was too low on health to deal with him too.

The Slumbering Dragon boss was an absolute nightmare for my pure melee build. He would stay in the air like 70% of the time, throwing fireballs or poison mist at me, and rarely providing a chance to score a hit. On top of that, my weapon durability rapidly degraded during this battle. Not sure if that's due to his poison or something else, but I had to swap weapons twice. The two summoned NPCs helped a ton by distracting the dragon, while I mostly circled around him and tried to land a hit on his back when possible. After several attempts, we somehow won, and one of the NPCs miraculously survived as well. I guess we both got lucky.

Lastly, I went to fight the three grave robbers in the Cave of the Dead. This was also incredibly hard for my slowpoke strongman character. Using my normal approach, I could usually kill one of them, but then the other two would either stunlock me, or deliver a backstab which was often fatal. I died many times to this fight, with or without the summoned NPCs. In the end, I looked up a guide on YouTube, and it turns out you need to circle the arena constantly in order to separate the three opponents. While doing that, take out the archer by hitting him during each run, and it gets easier from there. The remaining two could be split up more frequently due to their different movement speeds. One on one, they were no match for my melee bruiser, and went down without too much fuss.

Overall, I can't say that I enjoyed the Crown of the Sunken King a whole lot. The area design didn't really entice me, and the bosses weren't exactly my cup of tea either. Maybe someone with a different character build would have had a better time here. I hope the other two DLCs are more to my taste.

newtmonkey wrote on 2025-12-17, 17:31:

I was reading through some of the older posts in this thread and caught this! Agree 100%! I played through FF8 for the first time a couple of years ago (also on original hardware) and, while I was dreading the Ultimecia fight, didn't have any trouble with it. And Squall is a dumbass for turning down his hot teacher for the boring Rinoa.

I vaguely remember reading that FF8 scales enemies based on your level, which might explain why people are having different experiences with that fight. Not really sure.

I played through the Crown of the Old Iron King DLC in Dark Souls 2. The level design here was much more to my liking, as were the opponents that I encountered. I also appreciated how the developers added a few shortcut routes that circled around to bonfires, just like in DS1. Good stuff.

The Fume Knight boss was hard as hell. His moveset was fairly varied, which sometimes made it difficult to predict what he would do next. And the second phase when he ignited his sword was especially tough, as every hit was either a one shot, or close to it. I died many times while trying to learn his moves, but it ultimately paid off. Also, I used one of those super rare brightbug items to increase my damage. During the fight, I timed my dodges carefully, settled for just a single hit when there was an opening, and only healed when I deemed it to be safe. Bit by bit, I whittled his health down to nothing, and finally won. No summoned NPCs this time, I did it all by myself. Great fight, extremely satisfying to complete.

The blue Smelter Demon was a cool boss, but I almost gave up on beating him because of the bullshit runback. Specifically, those mages with spells that slowed my character to a crawl were completely ridiculous. And the archers standing on unreachable ledges weren't so great either. The actual boss fight was fine though. Blue boy here used the same moveset as his red counterpart from the base game, so I was already familiar with it. I chewed on some green blossoms to improve stamina regen, and just timed my dodges carefully. He went down on my third try, and I was more than satisfied.

Finally, we have Sir Alonne, who provided the absolute hardest boss fight so far. No contest, no one else came even close. He was so fast, and his attacks covered such a long distance that my slowpoke melee bruiser was completely outclassed. After more than a dozen failed attempts, I learned three things. First, summoned NPCs are worthless here, so I shouldn't bother with them. Second, I needed a faster weapon with longer reach. Third, even my best armor was useless against him, so I should just focus on dodging.

For my weapon, I chose the Mastodon Halberd since it scales with strength, which is my main stat. I then upgraded it to +10, and infused it with darkness to further improve damage. Lastly, I took off my armor for better mobility, entered the arena, and popped another brightbug. I knew his attack patterns pretty well by now, and managed to dodge nearly everything, due to having just 20% equip load. I only healed when it was completely safe to do so, since he punished that severely during my previous runs. The speed and long reach of my halberd were the key, because he liked to jump back a lot, but that didn't help him anymore. After a long and grueling fight, I finally beat him to a pulp. Can't really say I enjoyed this one, and the runback was annoying as well. Might have been due to my particular build though.

It's always fun to finally complete a game, because that means it's time to go install a bunch of games and figure out what I want to play next! So, here's some impressions after 10-30 minutes playing each game:

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
I completed the main quest back in 2022, but never got around to playing through the two major expansions. I played Dawnguard for 30 minutes or so, and it was alright. I didn't love Skyrim, and this is basically more of the same. I guess I can turn into a vampire now.

Exile: Escape From the Pit
I had played this quite extensively a couple years back, in Win 3.11 in DOSBox, though I got sidetracked and ended up playing other games. The game plays fine like that, but then I found out about "otvdm," which allows you to run 16-bit applications in modern Windows (GitHub here: https://github.com/otya128/winevdm; Windows installer here: https://mendelson.org/otvdm.html). This works great, but then you get the game running in a tiny window on your desktop. Here's where Magpie comes in (https://github.com/Blinue/Magpie). This is a window upscaler application that provides you with a ton of options, but for Exile it's enough to just scale it 2x up:

Fallout 2
I (finally) played through the first game back in 2015 and absolutely loved it... so I of course immediately went and tried playing its sequel. I'm sure it's an awesome game, but playing something so similar immediately after was a mistake, and I couldn't stay interested and put it aside. Since then, I've completed both Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 (didn't really like either), and decided that tonight was the night to get back into Fallout 2! I was instantly met with a very jerky cursor and awful frame rate, and at first I was thinking that maybe this is just how this game plays. Of course that's not the case, and a quick trip to PCGamingWiki solved the problem; it's a known issue when playing on "gaming" laptops, and forcing the game to run on integrated graphics fixed it. Now that's it working, onto the next game!

Minerva Labyrinth
This is an intriguing dungeon crawler, most similar to a classic Wizardry or The Bard's Tale game. It has a weird "magical girl" concept, where all of your characters are normal women but when they enter the dungeon they become super heroes or something, like Sailor Moon. There's quite a mismatch between that concept and the look and atmosphere of the game (you'd expect anime graphics instead of the lo-fi high-res EGA look the game actually has), but it's interesting. There are a lot of classes and tons of stats. I'll need to spend some more time with this one.

The Nameless: Slay Dragon
This is a really interesting hybrid of a traditional RPG mixed with a gamebook or choose-your-own adventure kind of game. It's mostly menu-based, and every single choice you makes develops your character somehow. You explore the map by selecting "hotspots" and then choosing what to do, based on your stats. It's kind of fascinating, because it really plays like nothing else I've ever played before.

Passageway of the Ancients
This is described by the developers as a sort of love letter to classic 90s RPGs. It's certainly no Baldur's Gate, but it's charming. The game starts with a very tedious tutorial that has you being teleported from room to room to just open boxes, which is annoying. It has potential, though.

The Sinking City
Now on to (somewhat) modern games. This is an interesting mix of a detective adventure game, an action RPG, and a Lovecraftian horror game. It seems pretty cool so far, and the atmosphere is excellent. There are a lot of option to tweak with regard to how much you want the game to hold you hand throughout, but I've turned most of the helpful stuff off as the game was designed to be completable with the quest compass, markers, etc. turned off. The game got a (free) upgrade to UE5, but the upgraded version looks worse (and of course runs worse), so I'm playing the original version, which is included as a bonus on Steam. So far, so good.

Space Wreck
This is a heavily story-focused RPG that is most comparable to Fallout (1997). It's apparently a pretty short game, but you're meant to replay it multiple times with different types of characters. It has a really quirky but fun interface that adds a ton to the atmosphere and feel of the game. Extremely intriguing!

Sudeki
An Xbox exclusive back in the day, the PC version still runs fine today. I only played it for 15 minutes or so, but I have to admit that I really miss the look and feel of games from this era; it feels so earnest, and the graphics are so clean. And who knows, maybe it might be fun?

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-12-17, 09:50:

I'm curious if you liked Life of the Party? The level with the rooftops and prominent Table Fog use. 😄

Coming back to this a bit, knowing I missed a ton of secrets I've been watching a playthrough of Thief 2 on YouTube and just saw Life of the Party. Sheesh it's possible to disable the wall safe alarm?? And no alarm = no guards on the rooftops, a tad easier to get back. The alarm disarm was pretty damn hidden though, as has many, many other buttons, who the hell is able to find those things?! Also missed the journal of the guy trying to travel on to another planet by setting off explosives under a wooden box, made me laugh out loud.

On the video the player also had only the pet spider in the greenhouse and no one else. I missed the greenhouse on my way to the Angelwatch but found the way to there while coming back, there was someone standing there and the spider was running excitedly around the person which was pretty funny looking. That's how I realized it's not a hostile spider. Once I knocked the person out the spider hopped on the table looking judgemental.

I'm guessing that only happens if you go to the greenhouse on your way back?

Sombrero wrote on 2025-12-19, 19:08:

Coming back to this a bit, knowing I missed a ton of secrets I've been watching a playthrough of Thief 2 on YouTube and just saw Life of the Party.

Heh, there are many cool little things and easter eggs in that level. I think this guide lists them all, if you're curious.

I like to play it pure stealth, never getting detected and so on. But yeah, the alarm off switch was very well hidden.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-12-19, 19:16:

Heh, there are many cool little things and easter eggs in that level. I think this guide lists them all, if you're curious.

Well that's a goldmine of information for sure. Doesn't say anything about the spider though, other than it's there. But no matter, things like that are pretty clear indication the devs weren't there just for the paycheck. I wish Looking Glass would have survived at least a bit longer.