Thief™ 2: The Metal Age

I finished whole game on highest difficulty before reviewing TL;DR I think Thief 1 was a better game because of a better story and more interesting mission design and variety. Also – I don’t like the new mechanical enemies in Thief 2. However, it’s still a fantastic game and if monsters annoyed you in Thief 1, then this could be a better game for you. Not so TL;DR Thief 2 continues the story of the first game. Hammerite order was replaced with the new Mechanist order, who are adept at creating automatons, cameras and traps. Garret will be thrown right in the middle of a conspiracy that, again, places the fate of the world in his hands. All mechanics are the same as in the first game – you just get a few more gadgets like vine arrows (upgraded rope arrows that can attach to metal grating). There are almost no animals, monsters or undead in this game. Instead, it has cameras that will rotate and after seeing you – will start alarm or run traps in nearby area unless you break line of sight quick. There are also automatons in 2 varieties: small and big, both will patrol some areas just like normal guards, but to dispose of a robot you need to hit it with a water arrow in it’s back engine. 1 arrow for small robot, 2 arrows for a big one. Some guards will also wear reinforced helmets that make them immune to being knocked out with a blackjack. Most levels are large and have many ways to get to your objectives. The usual briefings/cutscenes are still great. Nearly every mission will be focused on sneaking around guards, cameras and robots. A lot of people disliked spelunking/treasure-hunting levels in the first game - I liked them, so to me this is a downgrade. Machines, especially cameras are just annoying. Most of the time they just test your timing instead of providing interesting dilemmas in level progression. The worst by far is the last mission, which is overly long and deliberately doesn’t give you enough resources to deal with all the machines.

Really great world building (lore, theme, setting). If you're of a mind there are lots of Fan Made missions and mods for this game. It truly has a life of its own. I wish more games were made like this.

If You loved original Thief go get the sequel. Both games are still best as far as mechanics, lore, story and stealth gameplay. Sequel have more variation to missions, bigger levels (Life of the party level rules) and better story. Enemies variations is a bit lacking comparing to first game also this one have a lot less horror elements. Still both games are 10/10.

First of all the good things. The voice acting is amazing, the sound effects are the highlight of the game and the locations look really attractive. It is visually very appealing game up today. Secondly, the game like Thief absolutely needs to have a good story and interesting missions. Unfortunately the story in Metal Age is weak. It is just a plain bad supervillain story. The main villan is so ridiculous that he could be as well Dr. Evil from Austin Powers. So I wasn't really invested in it at all and that is a big problem because without a good story it is just a pointless looting. Another issue is the enourmous size of some missions with a lot of backtracking. What starts as immersive often turns into tedious with and looses all of its tension and you just want to desperately finish it. There are some really awfully designed tedious mission like Shipping... and Receiving with a huge warehouse that should not be in the game at all. At the end of the game you go to the same not so interesting building in two separate missions which is just boring from the very start the second time. The best missions are in the middle of the game from 4 (Ambush) till 10 (Life of the Party) and suddenly the game is really fun but then it goes again downhill. So in the end just half of the missions are good and the rest of them suffer from various issues (annoying music that you cant turn off being one of them in otherwise decent mission called Framed), It is just not as good as its predecessor but I would still recommend the game for the good missions. The bad ones, just skip them if you get bored.

A true masterpiece. I really loved Thief:Dark Project and Metal Age, my favourites of all time. I'm replaying both of them. Best stealth game ever and best character and level design ever.