Recent reviews by a goat ΘΔ

Rogue-like where at the end of each level you can switch out the modules on your robot. Using weapons and abilities drains energy and once its empty, it goes into overheat mode where nothing can be used until the energy is full again. Energy regenerates passively and those stats can be upgraded via the module system. You fight other robots who can use the same modules that you have access to. Its neat that you can see a cool weapon that a robot is using, then find that weapon yourself. Beat the game on the hardest difficulty on my fourth run. Once I understood which guns are good and which ones aren't, the game becomes a lot easier. That being said, it points to a lot of flaws.

There are flat out good weapon types and bad ones. Despite what the stats tell you about the DPS, some weapons are too inaccurate, use much energy, or have damage over time effects- which trade out flat damage for the effect... keeping the enemy alive longer; giving them the chance to deal more damage to you. I have yet to use a "glitched" (highest rarity) weapon that performs better than the tier under it, simply because the gimmicks of glitched weapons reduce the efficacy THAT much (high energy usage, inaccuracy).

It's quite fun to swap out and upgrade all the cool new things in between stages. Using a money-like resource, repairs can be made to the robot to increase the HP again or upgrade your parts. Recycling unwanted parts can give you some of that resource back. The UI leaves something to be desired, it's not easy to view everything you have. The menu that lets you compare two parts right next to each-other is confusing... I couldn't figure out how it works. I do love that there's a "preview" to see exactly how a weapon shoots. It even shows your current energy bar to demonstrate how it affects your sustainability. This influenced my decision making a lot and in a good way. I found module swapping overwhelming on my first playthrough and spend half of my time played in those menus. It can be designed better but gets the job done.

Inside of a stage is where all the modules are found; destroyed robots and objects will drop them. Fighting robots feels... a little weird. By far the most efficient way to dispatch them is to lure then walk backwards while shooting. Often enemies will shoot you while they're still off-screen which feels pretty unfair. I think this issue was known; when enemies spot you off-screen, a danger indicator appears at the edge of the screen where they're located. It doesn't do much to feel better though, being damaged from there still feels unfair. At least it can be mitigated if you pay enough attention. It's difficult to keep an eye on the energy level since its tucked away in the top left of the screen. If it were on the cursor, that'd help reduce the amount of times your eyes need to jump around the screen. The music implies that its supposed to be played fast, but doing that will get you destroyed easily. Enemy projectiles can be hard to see; some are just really small or blend in with the background.

More than a few times its difficult to tell which objects can be walked through and which ones can't. It also goes for shooting; in one particular kind of stage, projectiles will pass through walls while on every other stage, they don't. Only after turning the music off (its great music, don't get me wrong) did I notice a sound cue when a particularly powerful enemy spots you. I like this a lot but wish more sound cues were present.

The bosses have a HUGE jump in difficulty. Sometimes the stage is so small its impossible to dodge the projectiles. Most of the time, additional enemies are just blasting your health away. And there's always projectiles on the screen to try and dodge. Its extremely difficult to manage your health, energy, and positioning. Its jarring just how much more difficult the bosses are compared to the regular stages. Late level stages are easier than over half of the bosses. Reading other reviews, this is a huge wall that players just have no interest in getting through.

I have a lot of complaints and got frustrated at things that felt unfair, but I really did enjoy the game for what it is. Swapping modules, upgrading, and trying out new weapons is fun. It feels good when rare items drop. Defeating those ungodly difficult bosses felt good. It's flawed, but still fun.

Fine, overstays its welcome for a little too long. Good ol' HL gameplay. Description calls itself a 'total conversion' but takes place in another black mesa with more or less the same gameplay beats. Story is virtually non-existent. Environments look nice. Would've liked to see different enemies other than xen aliens and soldiers. There are a couple of new ones, but nothing to write about really. New weapons feel nice. Lots of achievements to get if you're into that.

A fine mod

There's so much wrong with this game. It's fun bad, as long as you have someone to coop with. Immensely frustrating parts and terrible game design choices. Bad bad bad.

Fantastic sequel to another amazing game. The game-play is essentially the same, but with enhancements to the graphics, writing, voice acting, level design... just everything really. I especially enjoyed the story here; consequences of the events of Thief 1 directly tie into the story here. And you can hear / read about why things happen in this game. The motivation for everything to unfold is there. It's just incredible. New enemy designs made for some tense moments. They're unnerving from the way they move and what they say. The loud, droning footsteps make their approach feel alarming and scary.

There is some discourse over the last level- lots of people agree that it's the worst level in the game, and I have to agree. It was by far the most time I spent in a single level. One of the problems is that you cannot get enough resources to incapacitate all of the enemies, however, on that level I found an exploit that can make them incapacitate themselves so I had free reign to run everywhere I needed to. Without doing that, I can see it being incredible tedious to crawl throughout this massive, multi-layered level. Even then I had trouble finding everything I needed.

The ending felt a little lackluster to me. The animation at the end felt unclear, even though I knew what should have happened. Thief 1's ending was more satisfying.

Just like the first game, I used a mod, TFix, which enables widescreen. I did not use any other graphics-enhancing or game-play mods. My first play-through was ~40 hours, almost the same amount of time I spent in Thief 1.

Despite some slight shortcomings, this is still one of my favorite games. The game-play is fantastic, tense, and rich with character and story.

Great immersive game, easily one of my favorites now. Somewhat steep learning curve and TFix mod needed for widescreen support, among other things. I used TFix with no game-play or graphics enhancing mods (except for widescreen). My first play-through was ~40 hours. I loved that you can get parts of the story by paying attention to what NPCs are saying and by reading the notes left around.
The game has had a big modding community so there are plenty of fan missions if you're itching for more. I, so far, haven't played any.
Overall, just a fantastic game.

Bots have been dealt with :)

Brilliant game with puzzles you really have to think about. Very atmospheric, great soundtrack, and the idea of having a single red button be able to evolve the board into something bigger really just captures you.
You can complete this without having to Google direct solutions. Some puzzles, however, are given in different parts, meaning not all of the information is there all the time for the puzzle you're working on. ~80% of the puzzles though don't do this.

Game with great potential ruined by poor development. Now abandoned.