When comparing Thief Gold vs Machinarium, the Slant community recommends Machinarium for most people. In the question“What are the best Steampunk games on Steam?” Machinarium is ranked 2nd while Thief Gold is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose Machinarium is:
The player is forced to move their character across the map in order to find objects of interest. This, coupled with the great sound design and soundtrack which also do their part in giving cues as to where the objects are and if the player is close, really help you immerse into the atmosphere and art style of Machinarium.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Rich atmosphere
Thief is set in a fascinating world, rich with its own history and lore. An early conversation in the game features guards talking about betting on bear fights. The game's multiple factions each have their own unique histories and personality as well. A player can learn much about Thief's world just by exploring its streets and listening to the sounds of the city.
Pro Sound design enhance stealth gameplay
One of Thief's grandest achievements is its dedication to sound design as a means of stealth gameplay; other stealth games are often set in the third person perspective, allowing players to swing cameras around corners, cheating their way through a level. Thief instead emphasizes sound. Walk on a marble floor or metal grate, and you're likely to make some noise. Creep across a carpet, and you'll be quieter. This works for the guards as well, so you can listen for them pacing on the other side of a doorway, but watch out! If there's carpet on the other side, you might not hear them coming. Thief uses this mechanic in a wide variety of ways; you can use arrows that sprout beds of moss to avoid detection, for instance.
Pro Basically a "directors cut"
Updated to support full HD, Thief Gold is the classic game thief remastered to support modern hardware. It also features additional levels that were not in the original game.
Pro The gameplay is perfectly interwoven with the overall aesthetic and atmosphere of the game
The player is forced to move their character across the map in order to find objects of interest. This, coupled with the great sound design and soundtrack which also do their part in giving cues as to where the objects are and if the player is close, really help you immerse into the atmosphere and art style of Machinarium.
Pro Beautiful art style
Machimariums hand drawn graphics exude a very steam punk style that definitely has a very unique look by being all hand drawn.
Pro Challenging puzzles
The puzzles are quite challenging to the point of frustration but in the end give a sense of immense reward when figured out.
Pro Interesting protagonist
The main character and the one controlled by the player is just a normal, average, everyday robot. He doesn't have any special powers or abilities other than being able to slightly extend his midriff in order to reach high ledges or making his body shorter. He's pretty much an ordinary robot thrust into an extraordinary situation.
Pro Built-in hint system
For those that do find some of the puzzles too challenging there is an inbuilt hint system shown through "thought bubbles" on top of the playable character.
Every level has its own hint when pressed and it's usually a hint on where to go or what kind of object you need. Although it's advised not to rely on the hint system too much since it takes away from the experience of actually enjoying the game.
Pro The well-designed gameplay mechanics avoid making the game boring to the player
Unlike most point-and-click games, objects of interest in Machinarium light up only when the main character is close to them; this completely changes the way the game is played. In point-and-click games where this is not the case, the gameplay is usually reduced to aimlessly flailing the cursor around waiting for something to light up.
Machinarium on the other hand completely avoids this, keeping levels interesting and the player interested to the game.
Cons
Con A really messed up dark story that just makes you not want to play the game at all
Con Default controls are not great
Before beginning the game, the user will most likely want to to change the default controls, which predate the normal WASD control scheme, using some strange bindings that may not make sense to modern users.
Con Items may be difficult to find due to similar colors
At points in the game there are needed items that blend in too well with their surrounding making it quite difficult to actually see them.