Alas, poor Looking Glass - I knew them well. Well, that's not true - but the fact that they produced such top quality games as System Shock 2, Thief and Thief 2 is enough to make their bankruptcy a real tragedy. It also seems somewhat ironic that conversely Ion Storm are still going and have had millions of dollars spent upon them yet only managed so far to produce a dire real-time strategy game and a much delayed and uninspiring shoot-em-up. Granted, there was a Thief 3, but it was nowhere as good as Thief 2, which is the pinnacle of the series.  And while BioShock does have some promise, but it won't have Shodan, which is midly disappointing.

As with Thief, Thief 2: The Metal Age casts you as Garrett, a freelance thief out to make a comfortable living by nicking stuff from the residents of the nameless city where he lives. Like Thief, the first few missions introduce you to Garrett's world and work while the rest draw you deeper and deeper into Thief 2's rather dark story, pitting you against a sinister foe (aren't they all?). But whereas in Thief you were pitted against a pagan gone bad, Thief 2 pits you against the Mechanists, a techno-centric order set up by a former Hammerite priest called Karras, the Hammerites themselves now just a memory.  You have to use stealth and cunning to sneak around the various levels in the game, hiding in the shadows and avoiding or disabling any foes who get in your way. But bear in mind that any guards who spot or hear you or your handiwork will come running and while you may stand an even chance of taking out a lone guard, you've got very little chance of taking out two sword-wielding guards in a head-on fight. Stealth definitely pays off more, especially as the game progresses and you find yourself facing the mechanists robotic creations who are a lot tougher than your average night watchman.

Plot wise, Thief 2's story is superior to that of its predecessor - Thief 2 features more plot twists, unexpected deaths and new revelations to keep you guessing right till the end. And the main characters themselves are superbly fleshed out, aided by the professional but never hammy voice-overs. Karras himself comes across as not merely a grade one nutter, but a character who in the beginning actually believes what he's doing is right by his god but gets more and more fanatical as the game progresses. And the twists and turns in the plot allow for some superbly atmospheric and usually quite tricky missions. One level you can be wandering into a bank, trying to retreive a message and blackjacking guards, in another you can be wandering through a dark and slightly off-kilter forest, avoiding flying willo-the-wisps.

There are about fifteen levels in total which are challenging enough in single player mode, but become even harder on higher difficulty levels, requiring you to achieve additional objectives and in some cases not kill or blackjack any guards, forcing you to adopt stealth as your sole m.o. And best of all, some of the levels are very creepy indeed, with the strange chunnering of Karras' creations being genuinely unsettling.

Overall, Thief 2 is rather similar to its predecessor, but with a game as good as Thief, this is no bad thing. And while it may not be as graphically stunning as some modern games, it's still . highly playable, atmospheric and compelling.  Thief 2: The Metal Age is by far the best in the Thief series, and given that it can now be had for the princely sum of five pounds, you owe it to yourself to play it.