So at last Minecraft’s Adventure Update 1.8 (now 1.8.1) is upon us. It’s a really substantial update as expected so not everything will be covered here. Nor, it seems, was everything included and update 1.9 points to filling a lot of those gaps. Such as adding boss mobs to Strongholds and people to villages.

Minecraft now has animated startup screen and a few more options. The main new option relates to creation mode (as opposed to the more usual survival mode) which allows flying, unlimited resources and instant mining. I guess this could be called a true sandbox mode.

Generated a new world to have a look around for the big world additions. Namely;

• Villages
• Abandoned Mineshafts
• Ravines
• Strongholds

The first world was an island more barren the Minecraft’s survival mod and surrounded by lots and lots of water. Probably an Ocean biome. Delete. New World Regen. Found the Vines almost immediately hanging off trees, apparently they can grow too if you transplant them. This was one of the new biomes, in this case swamp and you can see more mushrooms there too. There are also Ocean and Mountain biomes and all of them can be much larger now.

Ran around looking. I knew the Strongholds were rare (3 per map!!) but the others hmm, who knows. Spent the night up a pillar of quality dirt. My first sighting of the inestimable Endermen. They work pretty much as advertised. Frozen while looking at them once you look away they are upon you pretty damn quick, but not up a pillar They do shake a bit and plenty of them spawn. Notch and team did a good job. They do do convey a sense of spooky. My only strong worry with these though is the damage they will do to my structures by picking up blocks. Endermen drop Ender Pearls which have no current use.

Yes they are after me

A few creeper explosions and a hop or two away I found one of the ravines. A nice addition, they really are enormous and that lets sunlight, lava, water stream in.

I spent quite some time looking until I discovered by using seed ’666′ or ‘Lol’ a Village will spawn near your own spawn in spot. The 666 village is pretty borked you can see it for yourself if you use the seed. Villages look very European. They include small farming plots, water wells, backyards, several types of homes and sometimes a tower or smithy. The smithy has lava and a couple of furnaces.

This is the borked 666 Village

Naturally I fell in the well. Not advised without a pickaxe.

If I find the other two structures (Abandoned Mineshafts and Strongholds) with the new Cave Spider and Silverfish mobs I will share that too. Both are apparently rich in resources making the dangers worth it.

This new Cave Spider native to the mine shafts poisons and can fit through 1×1 spaces. The silverfish seem to pretend to be stone blocks and can swarm you with numbers. They might be a bit spooky in themselves.

There’s a new food system where food no longer heals directly but fills a food bar which heals you over time if over 80% full. Most foods are now stackable. There’s now raw beef dropped from cows which can be cooked to steak and raw chicken from… chickens which can be cooked too. Eating raw food can cause a kind of food poisoning which isn’t too severe but it is more efficient to cook food. There’s melons which can be farmed. Pumpkins can now be farmed too.

The combat system has also been changed. Bows can be charged up over 3 steps in under 1 second. Critical hits can be delivered by hitting a mob while falling or if you are above a mob. The main thing is the experience bar though which levels up by collecting glowing balls which drops from mobs you kill. I yet have no idea what significance this has currently.

Lighting has changed with the colour determined by the dominant source. White for sunlight, blue for moonlight and red for other sources. The moonlight blue is a serious throwback to old movies.

There’s also other new items.

• Stone bricks
• Slabs and stairs, for both regular bricks and stone bricks.
• Fence gates
• Glass panes which work much like doors and are thin
• Iron bars, perfect for holding the inlaws.

Overall the Adventure Update is a great addition and can help encourage more exploration outside the walled comfort zone.

Update: Ironically it looks like Bethesda’s forum has had another security breach on the 12th of this month.  A full password reset has been conducted by the company.

One of the games I’m looking forward to which is not even slightly indie, is Skyrim, the latest in the Elder Scrolls Series from the famed software house, Bethesda. This role-playing game due on 11th November this year and I think Skyrim will hit that target.

There’s a collector’s edition at $AU199.99 in Australia which is around $US207. However in the US it’s $US149.99 showing us all once again how often and much Australia is ripped off by the games publishing industry. It’s not a bad kit as far as collector’s editions go with an artbook, making of Skyrim DVD and statue.

Apparently the character most desired by fans was the Dunmer thief and it looks like they’re in from this screenshot.

Zaldir on the forums of Bethesda has compiled quite a nice list of all the features and details of the upcoming game. It’s well worth checking out as the detail is staggering including information about the dragon shouts.

h/t SystemLink Multi

“What did he say? ‘Spit lead?’ What, like pencils?”

Release Date: 19^th July 2011

Developer: Obsidian Entertainment

Genre: RPG

Mode: Single

Old Worlds Blues is the third and latest Downloadable Content (DLC) expansion available for Fallout New Vegas. It is set in Big Mountain (Big MT), colloquially known as the Big Empty since the scientists blew the mountain up. It is a pre-war research area you are brought to as a lab rat/guinea pig. You have to decide if you want to turn on your scientific captors or ally with them against a bigger threat.

The core thing about Old World Blues is the tongue-in-cheek Science Fiction setting in a “stand back we’re going to try science” kind of way. It exploits a great deal of the silliness of this genre such as roboscorpions, brains in jars, lobotomy, experiments gone awry. If you love this kind of humour or setting you are going to love Old World Blues as it does the job so well. If it sets your teeth on edge, Old World Blues may not be for you.

Old World Blues is better than the last two DLC offerings Dead Money and Honest Hearts in my opinion. It too, offers 5 more levels for your gaming and more of the usual monsters, characters, perks, quests and so on. You cannot bring companions to Big MT.

The primary offering of Old World Blues, apart from the setting, is the Sink. A new upgradable home. It’s very compact, useful with all three crafting stations as well as having objects with personalities. I would love to talk about them but I think discovering their little quirks for yourself is more fun. One has bartering and one is a doctor so all your needs are covered. It’s also much easier to access than the Lucky 38 but I find the water in it does not reduce your water needs enough if you happen to play in hardcore mode.

The new area to explore, is perhaps ¼ the size of the main game though I think a bit more densely packed. No equipment restrictions exist when coming to Big MT. These locations can also be revisited after completing the DLC main quests so Old World Blues gives more of an expanded area than the other two DLC offerings. However, before the main quest series is complete, you cannot leave and the only vendor never refreshed their caps or goods for me. Fortunately you can store all your stuff at the Sink for later sale.

Old World Blues also comes with new traits and you can, once and once only, change your traits.

New implants with no endurance (END) restriction are available.

Old World Blues explains some of the main game monster origins such as the cadazors.

There are a few leads into the next DLC expansion called Lonesome Road.

To be fair, parts of Old World Blues can be quite difficult. There are several of the harder creatures from the original New Vegas area such as nightstalkers and cadazores. Newer creatures, especially roboscorpions definitely give you a bit of a go. Roboscorpions are tough as nails and often come at you in groups. I’d wait till level 15-20 before giving it a go.

The main degree of positive entertainment value in Old World Blues is via the fresh setting and the personalities in the Sink.

I found Old World Blues much the same graphically as the main game. A few nice new Jazz sons are added to the game. I also found the ambient noise in the Sink rather soothing for some reason.

Plenty of the usual kind of crash and other type of bugs which seem common for Fallout New Vegas but for the first time my saves were not permanently corrupted by a new patch or DLC.

Old World Blues requires Fallout New Vegas and is available on all the same platforms, namely Windows, Xbox 360 and PS3. You can get if from Steam for $US12.99.

Old World Blues is a very entertaining and relatively generous DLC for Fallout New Vegas. Fans of bad sci-fi movies won’t want to miss it.

Game: 4/5    Positive: 

Adventure, Bosses, Blocks!

Release Date: 17th May 2011

Developer: Re-Logic

Genre: Side-scrolling sandbox-action-adventure-RPG (very cross genre huh?)

Mode: Single/Multiplayer

Version: 1.0.5

Terraria inevitably gets compared to Minecraft and I’ve done a bit of that in this review. All told that’s fair enough as both are exploration-rich sandbox games. However, it may do injustice to Terraria. For as a Minecraft clone, Terraria is pretty awful. It’s simple graphically, 2D and the building scope is limited. But, you see, Terraria shines because it has grown beyond a simple Minecraft clone. It truly fleshes out the sandbox genre by offering something new. Terraria crosses the fun of platform games with the sandbox concepts and as such is more combat intense and rewards exploration more than Minecraft does.

Terraria, frankly, is even more unforgiving to a fresh player than Minecraft was. You really need to build a basic shelter pretty damn quick and it’s not quite obvious how everything works. Fortunately an NPC, the Guide, will help you in this area. The community is quite active and, like Minecraft, the wiki is a super-important read. If you’re the gung-ho explorer type it doesn’t take long to discover than the corruption biome is cruel to newbies.

In terms of complexity Minecraft easily wins out due to things like redstone and the 3D nature. However, Terraria probably has more item variety and certainly has more different mobs to face, approximately 30, including 4 or so bosses. A real seller for me was the inclusion of Silver which I adore.

Terraria has an alchemy system which comes in very useful, especially for healing.

There’s also some very nice touches. One of them is the Bloodmoon where the moon turns to blood and an awful lot of evil walks the earth. During Bloodmoon zombies can open doors. There’s a similar event called Goblin Attack which is fairly self-explanatory.

Another nice touch is Mana which is done in a brilliant way via falling stars. Hello Notch, paying attention? This leads to spells and all the fun that entails.

The last nice touch I thought was that Terraria has NPCs and they are even useful, mostly as traders.

Oh BTW if you’re wondering how to pause Terraria you just have to switch focus out of the game. Doesn’t work in multiplayer though, of course.

Terraria is a fairly difficult game, especially as you first adapt to the game mechanics. It’s even worse if you’re not used to platform style games with the jumping around being a problem I experienced. As you get used to it though the difficulty sharply reduces and really boils down to where precisely you go and explore and if you feel like tangling with the game bosses. The more you explore, the more new and difficult areas you will find.

Terraria offers positive entertainment via the innovative cross of platform with sandbox play. There’s some scope for creativity, as for all sandbox games, and there’s a lot to discover.

Terraria is built like a 16-bit sprite based side-scrolling platform game. The graphics are basic and 2D which you can see from the screenshots. The only real complaint with the graphics is how difficult it is to spot ores. Iron ore, in particular, is just a shade redder than stone making is a bit of an eye-popper to find. Actually come to think of it an option to make all the graphics a bit bigger would be very welcome.

Terraria’s lighting is quite dynamic compared to Minecraft. Sparks fly out and plants pulse with light.

The music is a different style than what I’ve heard before and really I quite enjoy it even after many hours of play. The sound effects are mostly good and come in useful in many cases.

Terraria runs on Windows only via Steam for $US 9.99. It may come for the iOS or Xbox in the future.

In the end, Terraria puts adventure first and crafting second, unlike Minecraft. As such it plays quite differently and can be quite a lot of fun.

Game: 3½/5    Positive:

I’m hardly one for donation mania but this project is known to me. It not only spends the money wisely, it does so on the target and is also effective.

Your money is well spent on providing US soldiers seriously injured in the course of their duties with supportive equipment like laptops with voice recognition software in order to improve their functionality and recovery.

Donate to Project Valour-IT here via Team Army.

If you’re on the fence or not quite sure what help is provided this account by a recipient puts things quite clearly.

Running your Own Farmstead

Release Date: 9th May 2011

Developer: Hammerware based in Brno, the Czech Republic

Genre: Simulator/Tycoon

Mode: Single

Family Farm can easily be summed up as a kind of Sim Farm (although this ancient title already exists) or Farm Tycoon and revolves around building up and running a 19th century style farmstead. It does so quite well by balancing realism with simplicity.

Family Farm is reasonably intuitive to use and has a good tutorial built into the earlier games to help learn how to play. There is also a manual available.

Family farm has a series of game challenges called stories as well as a more free-form sandbox mode. There is also a rank system to unlock new plants, animals, areas and other goodies to try.

Goals of short term yearly, as well as longer term story and trophy goals drive each story forward. Your farm needs to be both managed and expanded and you only have a limited time to do so. Each year is broken into two seasons of spring and summer only and each season is played like a full day. You have to get all the planting, harvesting and other farming activity done in that day as well as feed your workers. Sundown stops all activity and can be disastrous if you haven’t planned well.

Thus, Family Farm has a strong time management element as well as the need to manage the farm finances. To help things along, you can expand your family via children or hire temporary labourers. There is a lot to do such as plowing, growing vegetable crops, raising poultry, breeding animals and expanding the house or farmland.

The system built into the game has skills, abilities and things like soil fertility. Altogether it is a well balanced system with enough depth without bogging you down in serious simulator detail.

I should also point out that this is an extremely family friendly game. It should be playable by relatively young people and while reproduction is represented it is only done so via the atypical pop here suddenly we have a baby, calf etc. None of the ugly side of real agriculture is presented. What is presented, is of some learning value.

Family farm is not too difficult and is aimed to be inclusive of a wide gamer base. The stories do get progressively more difficult, however.

Family Farm is not at all innovative but is well done in the genre and is good learning value in both basic farming and time management and so has some positive entertainment value.

Graphics are a colourful, fun style exaggerated almost to cartoon style which are adequately clear, except on occasion it can be difficult to tell workers apart if they are wearing the same clothes.

Good sound effects, including background sounds, some decent music.

I experienced very few problems with Family Farm which was play-tested on Windows 7 and Linux Mint. Saving the game can also only be done at years end in all games. In Linux Mint some portraits are missing.

Family Farm runs on all three major operating systems; Windows, Mac and Linux. There is a generous demo available for all operating systems on the main site. Family Farm is translated to several major languages besides English. You can get it direct from the website or via from Desura, Mac Game Store, Impulse, Direct2Drive, GamersGate and even Ubuntu Software Centre for around $US17.99 depending on where you get it.

Consider Family Farm an excellent game for casual farming play that is truly family friendly.

Game: 3½/5   Positive: