Negative review which is not related to the actual design of the game...or wait, maybe it is.

The developers decided to make this "PhysX" based. Unfortunately that means that if you're (most likely) not using the supplied PhysX version some levels are simply uncompletable. Of course you could be rolling back to the "correct" version of PhysX, but whoever designs a game to only run correctly on ONE version of a graphics driver that is being CONSTANTLY updated has a severe lack of foresight. I just completed the last CM 1 missions and the game to this day and age still works flawlessly. Why ♥♥♥♥ with that formula and introduce randomly behaving elements that can break the game? Very nice.

So far it's only levels 1-4 (spoke doesn't move) and 1-7 (barrels do not behave the way they are supposed to), but I wonder how many more levels are broken and of course never fixed. The devs have even acknowledged these issues, but they didn't seem to be interested in fixing them. Old game and all. Even in levels that can be completed the physics are somewhat questionable (if a ball hits a spring it should be catapulted back based on its weight and the speed with which it hit the spring...this is clearly not the case...at all, it's just random). That's why it gets an automatic "not recommended". Apart from that the game launches at least.

To give you an example of 1-7: There are 3 barrels that need to be delivered into the end zone in a particular order. However, the barrels don't move the way they should at the start (where you can't even influence them). I was able to get all barrels into the end zone, but the order is impossible to achieve, which results in mission failure. I tried it with a guide, I watched YouTube videos. The barrels just behave differently. I even tried the integrated solution system in the game, which auto solves a level. Well, that one can't even get all barrels to the end zone. They get stuck well before. So, it's clearly a PhysX issue. I refuse to go through the hassle of uninstalling PhysX and reinstalling the old version. Since it is not possible to have 2 versions installed and all other games might break if I do that and because it's generally a lot of hassle...

So, I'll just finish what's possible. At least there are cheats out there to unlock all levels.

Game is not beatable at carrer 1-4 due to the wheel not move down the slightly slanted ramp. Even with verified correct solution it just does not work.

This game dissapoints me. It runs fun on my computer and I have no trouble getting it running on any of my laptops but as an incredible machine style game it fails on several levels.
The first is the Part variety, now there is a wide range of interesting parts and even some that use Nvidia physx, I particularly like the water physics, HOWEVER there is a distinct lack of things like walls, floors and slopes in player made puzzles. Yeah you see all those curved walls everywhere in the screenshots? To the best of my knowledge you either have to unlock those or cannot use those at all in your own puzzles. Also the only walls you can make can be broken and both the shelves and walls have very limited size.
This leaves me feeling creatively stunted as it looks like I more or less have to use everything they give me in very specific ways rather than letting me expeiriment with using things in ways other than its primary use.

The other thing that dissapoints me about this game is that they slapped a completely arbitrary limit on how many of every item you can use in free build mode, granted its 20 per item but its still dissapointing to see item limits applied to specific items rather than across the entire contraption as a whole.

I did not have trouble getting the game to run, it started up completely fine for me but I've heard that some people have issues with getting the game to run and I cannot comment on that because I don't have that issue.

Now when I saw this game back whenever I bought it several years ago I had three things on my mind that sold me on it "its the incredible machine, it has physx, and its in 3d." Having spent a LONG time as a kid throwing together rube goldberg contraptions in the incredible machine this sounded like a dream come true for me. And then the let downs started rolling in:
First: you don't have all the parts unlocked at the start, you have to go through the campaign to unlock them, this is bad because you don't have all the tools nessasary to start building puzzles on your own.
Second: the way the basic walls and floors are discourages building more interesting puzzles because you cannot effectively seperate things out to force the player to think the way you want them to
Third: the campaign puzzles seem arbitrary and lack a lot of the life puzzles in the incredible machine had, the decoration elements are very much lacking compared to what you could do in the incredible machine(meaning I hope you like the brick background because you'll be seeing it a LOT)
Fourth: Physx is cool but I get the impression that even with the fluids dlc(which came out some years after the game itself) that it isn't being used effectively, it seems to work fine for solid body physics but considering the trouble it causes for people to install the game I would have liked to have more things be destructable(like some of the floor blocks in the incredible machine)

All in all I'm dissapointed in Crazy Machines 2 as a follow up to the incredible machine because I think moving to 3d put a lot of the basic mechanics a step back even while it added more advanced mechanics. I don't feel like these new mechanics have as much potential for interesting puzzles or are as open ended or well thought out as some of the things in the original Incredible Machine game.

The concept of this seemed very interesting, but the game is clearly made for very young children. I would say it's best for ages 6-12, but it certainly doesn't pose a challenge for adults.
Almost every text is read aloud, and the experiments tend to only have one solution. The menu structure is a bit weird and the controls could have been implemented way better.

In general I would say: Buy it, if you got a child / cousin / friend in the correct age and let them play it, otherwise I wouldn't recommend it.

Even though I havn't played this game very long on steam, I was actualy introduced to a vertion after it came up for free on Amazon. My daughter and I played this game off and on for weeks until there were no more puzzles left. No, Crazy Machines isn't nessarily *FOR* adults but the game is enjoyable enough so that adults could get into it. Those of you who are having technical problems try this link http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-695153.html . We got Crazy Machines 2 working on our windows 8 laptop by installing the nvidia PhysX driver.

Ignore all the stupid people, searched a little bit, made sure PhysX version is correct, OpenAL is installed, works perfectly fine on Win 7 x64. If you want to try the game first to make sure it runs, download the demo!

(seriously, so much stupidity in the reviews)

I wish the game would have been updated for current-gen hardware or at least comprehending guide on how to make it work properly be present.
The game nowadays suffers from numerous bugs and glitches (i.e. aqua level 1-2, shop level 1-1 are not solvable due to physics engine not working properly)
For some DLCs you need to delete others to even start it (otherwise crash), i.e. back to the shop works only if anniversary DLC is uninstalled etc.
As a completionist, I refuse to play the game knowing that few levels are broken and no matter what I will never finish those.
Its a pity cause even the old CM1 works fine on current-gen computers and all puzzles are solvable there.

So far I cannot recommend the game due to above issues. I highly doubt it, but should there be and update for this software that will fix the issues and glitches, I would change the review to positive for sure.

I actually enjoy this game, like all the other crazy machines. Very good puzzle games and some are really really hard. Worth every penny, brought the complete packs, so I own them all. I actually think it is the best puzzle game I've ever played. Worth it!

Doesn't seem to work on windows 10 but was a great back before this.

Plagued with physX bugs that keep you from finishing the puzzles. Ran into the first one four puzzles in. No one should buy this game until fixed. In the forums someone posted an old version of physX you can download and downgrade your machine to that is supposed to fix all the physX bugs. But I'm not willing to do version swaps depending on what game I'm playing.