Terraria - XBLA review Fri Mar 29, 2013 4:03 pm by GrahamOfTheDead TERRARIA Developer: ENGINE SOFTWARE Publisher: 505 GAMES Price: 1200MSP Minecraft was, and is, a bit of a phenomenon. It has become the poster boy for indie games everywhere and in the process captured the hearts and imagination of millions of gamers. It's probably the biggest success story of this generation. Inevitably, when you're successful you spawn imitators. Minecraft is no different, but how do you stand out from the crowd? Terraria has found several ways to do so. Originally released for PC back in May 2011, as of January 2013 Terraria has sold 2,000,000 copies. Now it's arrived on Xbox Live Arcade.  It is a tad unfair on developer and their game to describe it as a Minecraft clone. Yes it has the mining, the building and crafting, but it more than holds it's own. It would probably actually be fairer to describe Terraria as a 'Metroidvania' game. That is the biggest difference Terraria brings to the table....2D over 3D. Losing a dimension does little to no damage to the sandbox-esque gameplay. It follows a similar pattern to Minecraft by creating a random world (you can choose either small, medium or large.) and giving you the freedom to do whatever you like. This is where the crafting comes in. You start off with three basic copper tools in the form of a sword, a pickaxe and a regular axe. Mining and felling trees gets you your basic materials but as you delve deeper in to the world you're going to need equipment that is a bit more substantial. To forge these new tools you'll need workspace and you'll need to kit it out. A workbench, furnace, sawmill, anvil and more, will be required to get the best stuff. As you'd expect this isn't as easy as it sounds. The game has a fully-realised day/night cycle and while there are a few bad guys roaming the land in the daytime, at night the game world is lethal. Best to follow the tutorial's advice and build a shelter as early as possible. Zombies can't open doors, unless you're unlucky enough to get a night with a blood moon. All three of your tools can be used as weapons, with the sword generally the best.) Other weapons can be found scattered throughout the gameworld in pots and chests or crafted if you have the materials.  The random enemies aren't the only opposition you will face. Terraria also actually includes several "boss" fights with some larger foes. Defeating these bosses affects the world as a whole. For example, you may attract other characters to your world. These NPCs (Non-Playable Characters) can then be housed in your shelter, or you can build them their own. These characters all have different purposes. Arms dealers, mechanics, nurses and apparently - if you play it at Christmas - Santa. Defeating certain bosses will also impact the difficulty of the game by spawning tougher enemies. It's these potential changes and unique elements that make Terraria such a blast to play. You can approach it in different ways. If you simply want to build stuff, then that's fine. However, if you want to treat it like a more linear RPG/platformer you can do that as well by hunting bosses and focusing on getting the best gear. In terms of sound and vision, Terraria is wonderfully old-school. Looking and sounding like a 16-bit game. This is all done to absolutely benefit the player. By keeping things simple, it makes things a lot easier to keep track of and you never get too overwhelmed with the details. You can customise the look of your character at the start of each game, although that is rendered pretty redundant when you start to equip armour.  In terms of multiplayer, Terraria offers co-op for up to 4 players during which you can either go off and do your own thing or work together building your dream projects or taking on the more difficult bosses. There is also the option to activate PvP mode during which you can take on your friends or team up for some 2v2 action. With different armour and weapon variations, it can make for some interesting battles and potentially lengthy gaming sessions. All of this can be done either online or offline. Finally, achievements. It is NOT a game for someone looking for a gamerscore fix. The 30 achievements on offer reward you for exploring everything the game has to offer from wearing a full set of armour, to defeating certain bosses. You're also challenged to reach both the top and bottom of the play area. There will grinding as you're tasked to mine 10,000 blocks, smelt 10,000 bars of metal and craft 500 items using the anvil. That's the only tiny blot on an otherwise outstanding game, but really most of those will come naturally as you will be coming back to this a lot. Terraria will appeal to a massive selection of gamers. With the multiple ways to play and depth which isn't all that apparent based on first impressions, you're guaranteed to lose hours at a time digging, mining, building, crafting and fighting. It will take up a lot of your time and you'll love every second of it. 9/10 Comments: 19 Like/Tweet/+1 Social bookmarking |
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