On a different note, I have been replaying some of the classics lately, and I must say,
Calendra's Legacy has aged like fine wine. Mercedes remains a bad wish-fulfillment character, Garrett is a bit of a prick even by his usual standards, some of the forced ghosting is iffy, and the purple prose remains a lovable artifact of the late 90s Vampire: the Masquerade craze, and so on and so forth, but the second mission only seems to have increased in its stature.
The gameplay is still a fascinating subversion of Thief standards while keeping the core sneaking experience intact. The difficulty is right for skilled players - harder than the baseline, but never frustrating. If you screw up your stealth, you can usually escape through the canals, but at the cost of losing some progress, since there are only some places where you can climb out. (In contrast, Rocksbourg 1, which I am playing now, is absolutely unforgiving if you aren't blackjacking AI left and right.) The extra objectives keep the plot going even outside the dynamically changing main objective, and there are more sub-plots to discover and enjoy. There are simple but cool ideas like a mechanical eye that lets you see invisible rays, the vampire (sorry,
vampyre) blade that becomes a source of healing, or a zombie carrying around a hilariously mangled dead cat.
The variety of custom undead is nothing but amazing, and they range from the usual slow, lumbering zombies to preternaturally agile apparitions, stronger vampires, roaming mists and some kind of undead mages who can kill you with a single firebolt spell. Their extra lines give the mission its own personality. Maybe some of the scenery is not as impressive as it used to be, but remember, this is pre-NewDark with its strict brush and poly limits. Some of the architectural tricks are downright staggering from a technical point of view, and there are actual environmental changes in different stages of the mission - the museum heist, a mission within the mission, plays radically differently depending on your time of visit.
Aside from some mistakes and questionable stylistic choices, this is still what The Metal Age should have been - gloomy, visionary, complex, and pushing Thief in new directions.