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:

Pioneering a Great Sandbox Game

Release Date: 6th June 2006

Developer: Onetoofree AB ie Rolf Jansson and Team

Genre: Sandbox RPG

Mode: MMO

Wurm is a light fantasy, role-playing, skill-based, sandbox game which is done in the first person perspective. Notch, who developed Minecraft, was one of the original developers of this game but had left quite some time ago, and Rolf Jansson and his Team are the current developers.

There are two servers with ‘Freedom’ being the most populated. ‘Wild’ is the Player versus Player (PvP) server and Freedom is the Player versus Environment (PvE) server. The two are linked but most of your stuff does not go with you. There’s also a player economy based on coins. Silver coins can be bought with real money. The coins can be used to buy player made items (which are actually worth it) and to pay for villages and their upkeep.

The fantasy elements are very light with a few fantasy creatures such as goblins , trolls and unicorns. There is also magic but it is not like most fantasy game because it has to be developed and puts severe restrictions on your character. This means magic is quite rare as well as very useful.

In many ways the role-playing and sandbox elements of the game give it a very strong pioneer and survivalist feel especially on the more dangerous wild server. Because Wurm is so open ended, players are able to assume realistic and varied roles.

The game world is vast at around 512 square km (198 sq miles) and rich with topography, structures, biomes, people and wildlife. Because it is a sandbox game it is designed to be altered. You can chop trees down, alter the ground to flatten or shape, build your own structures, mine into the ground, build roads and found a village.

The tutorial allows for a gentle learning curve. Although it is tightly scripted the world opens up once done which lets you do what you want

Being new to Wurm means you will likely benefit from the community’s vast knowledge and the Wurmpedia. You may also decide to join a village or some friends. All these will help you understand how to do things from making a rake to finding iron ore in your mine. There is a lot to learn. This game is very rich in content.

There are no NPC quests. Nope not a single one. Everything you are driven to do is through yourself or other players wanting or needing it done. The fictional and boring NPC quest driven time wasting device is gone. No more of fetch me 45 golden eggs of magical whimsy by killing 250 mystical Poobahs. And it couldn’t be less missed. Now any ‘quest’ is driven by desire and need. You want to find gold for a reason, you’re hunting for the meat you need, you visit somewhere because they have something you actually want.

Monsters are another big difference. They are relatively rare and not instant kills and there is no +10 Great Chainsaw Sword of Instant Death. Most creatures are real or enlarged real animals eg deer or huge spider. Some of these creatures are quite dangerous. Death in the game leaves all your valuable stuff on the body and causes slight skill loss. Thus death is a serious consequence and you have to go back to your body (and likely the monster which killed you) to get your stuff back. For really hardcore players in the Wild server your stuff can be looted as well. This monster difficulty and death mechanism is a huge improvement to immersion in the game. In other MMOs like Everquest 2 and World of Warcraft you can’t turn around without bashing your shield on one of the millions of fast spawning monster clones. In Wurm killing just one giant spider can be an epic battle and because it was fun it can actually be memorable. In Warcraft killing 100 is just boring. Ask yourself, do you remember many of the battles in those other games?

What I can’t do in this space is go over all the content, but let me assure you that there is a lot for you to enjoy. There are 114 Skills, 10 Player Characteristics, 3 Religion Characteristics and 4 Gods. There’s also a huge array of titles to earn. The content is enough that the question of not having much to do pretty much never pops up.

Wurm is also actively developed so content comes in on game updates all the time. The major update changes I’ve seen while playing are ships and boats, animal breeding, a great deal of graphical improvement, ambient sounds and non housing structures.

The goal in Wurm is just as open ended. Obviously survival is a plus but past that is what you would like to do. Run a village? Go PvP and raid? Explore and hunt with friends? Try your hand at squeezing some money out of the economy with traders? Blacksmithing all day? Design and Build your own house? Breed ridable horses? Build a winery and vineyard?

Wurm is a good game for positive entertainment because it can help people unfamiliar with products in their everyday life to understand the basics of where they come from as well as providing a good place for creativity and open ended expression.

I want to emphasize that wurm can be quite difficult at two levels. One is the learning curve factor. The tutorial and community can help but there really is a lot to understand since this game mimics real life to a degree.

There’s also creatures which are very tough and there’s no ‘red’ type of warning for that. The solution to that is to learn to see them before they see you and to run away like a screaming girl in pigtails if you have to.

Wurm is very much pretty and even more so at a distance. You can see some stupendous vistas in many places in the game. There are sunsets, rain, fog and lightening. The water is breathtaking and has been the best water I’ve ever seen in a game. There is one glaring problem amidst all this beauty. Player models and many creature models are awful especially in animation. They say they are working on this. It is needed.

There is the occasional music played in the game but I admit I turn them off. It’s not so much that the music is unpleasant, quite the contrary, but more that it suddenly blares out at you for no apparent reason.

In game sounds have vastly improved and are now very good with the only exception I know being fires are painfully loud for some reason.

Getting into the game flaws, there are a lot of rules on villages and other things which can detract from the fun. The rules are fair for the most part but can be hard to follow and sometimes cause mistakes.

Sometimes the interface can be a bit confusing because it is not the standard type one usually expects.

Wurm runs entirely through Java which means it runs on Linux, Macs and Windows of any flavour, and installation is easy. You can get it from here but make sure you have Java installed first.

There is one character per account. You can play for free but to play at a premium level letting your skills become high and giving you access to other features costs €10 for 2 months.

Onetoofree also makes money from in game silver spent on village upkeep for those who like to do that. You can also use the in game currency to buy premium time.

Game: 4/5    Positive: 

I’m Still Alive

Release Date: 9^th October 2007

Developer: Valve Corporation

Genre: First Person Puzzle-Platform

Mode: Single Player

Portal 2 has just been released two days ago and by most accounts is likely to be an excellent positive game, if in a little bit of a darker setting. I thought I’d finish up the original Portal game review.

You begin as protagonist Chell a woman who is trapped in the Enrichment Center for Aperture Laboratories. It becomes clear pretty quickly this pristine environment is deserted except for a talkative but off-screen Artificial Intelligence (AI) GLaDOS (genetic lifeform and disk operating system).

The key to the entire game is the portal gun or the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. This device allows you to open two way portals in each testing environment which are crucial to getting through each challenge. The portals are the key of the game and an interesting idea not well adopted before. It is quite disconcerting at first but you get used to it and can even play with the idea.

Along with the portal gun are the various challenges which include energy dispensers, moving objects, toxic liquid and weighted activators. You need to imaginatively use the portal gun to solve the puzzle in order to make it to the next level accessed via a lift.

During all this GLaDOS is your only companion. It’s quite clear the GLaDOS was originally a helpful guide to the facility but has since been corrupted, possibly internally, into a rather dry witted being. The deadpan humour and interesting commentary greatly lift the game beyond the puzzle elements. I will not say more, so that the story is not spoiled for people who haven’t played the game yet.

I will say though that the game is rather short. So keep that in mind.

The innovative distortion of the physical laws of nature, as well as the puzzle elements and GLaDOS provide good positive entertainment.

The graphics of Portal are very good and are put in an interesting style which definitely gives a laboratory feel to the game.

Music in Portal is one of the greatest things about it. The end credits include a little song which I have embedded in this article. The sound effects are also well done.

Portal can be slightly difficult at the latter stages only because those strong on platform elements might have trouble with the logical elements and vice versa. This is a logical challenge where timing matters in some cases. Having said that it’s not too difficult to get through the challenges.

One of the reasons Portal grabbed attention so quickly, aside from being a good game, was that it was part of the Orange Box bundle which included various Half-life games.

Portal runs on Windows, Mac, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. A demo version is available on Steam. Portal is available for $US10 on Steam which is also run by Valve Corporation.

Game: 4½/5    Positive:

Adventuring is rarely so beautiful

Release Date: 16^th October 2009

Developer: Amanita Design

Genre: Point and Click Adventure

Mode: Single Player

Machinarium is a point and click adventure game built on the Flash platform. It involves a world of robots with personality who break the mould of efficiency quite a bit. Our hero launches into the game as dumped in a rubbish tip. You first goal is to pull you bits and pieces back together. Along the way you meet you bully opponents and save everyone including your girlfriend which is all quite typical. All in all perhaps 4-5 hours play for an experienced adventure gamer.

What is not typical and what aids this in being a positive game is the innovation. For one thing this game does not involve speech at all. Instead messages are conveyed via animation, simple sounds and thought bubbles. This alone is a nice change. For example, when you try to do something in the game which is not possible or going to work you get a short cute shake of the head ‘no’. As opposed to tired old lines like “I can’t put those two things together”.

What’s more, there is a reach mechanism in the game where you can only interact with objects you robot can reach, unlike in most adventure games where all on-screen is within reach. You can activate a crouch down or reaching high to help. The puzzles in game are interesting and varied.

In fact that’s the thing that is great about this game, it always offers more. So many small touches which add up to heighten your enjoyment of the game.

Machinarium graphics are truly a beautiful work of art. The are done in a free-form, light grunge style and naturally include robots. The animations are smooth and often quite cute. Amanita games have taken care to animate the game from start to finish giving it a feel of life. The interface, while simple is attractive and functional. The game resolution is limited which is hardly surprising given the drawn nature of the game.

Music in Machinarium is pretty good too as are the sound effects. They have to be in order to better convey information which would usually be done via speech.

The difficulty of Machinarium is well balanced. There’s a thought bubble hint you can activate and there is also a brilliantly done built in walkthrough which shows you, comic style, what you need to do but not exactly how and when. This walkthrough is accessed via a locked book you can unlock via an arcade minigame.

Machinarium runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. A demo version is available on their main site and is great for getting a feel of the game. There are also plans to make it available on the Wii, PlayStation 3 and possibly some computer tablets.

Machinarium is available for $US20 on it’s main site and is also available at Steam, Gamersgate, Direct2Drive and Impulse.

Game: 4½/5      Positive:

Firefox 4 has been released two days ago and has already garnered over 13 million downloads. You can watch the crazy numbers yourself.

It’s definitely on time as Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and other browsers have greatly improved, thus tightening the competition between all the browsers. Realistically all the browsers are now very good, but can Firefox prove better?

Installation was quick and flawless on the two systems I used. Most addons were already working with the new browser, with the exception of Norton 360′s toolbar. Pretty unfortunate if you’re dependant on its security features. Norton promises an update ‘soon’.

The first thing most will notice is the significant change to the interface. It looks good, is sleek and clean, a bit like Google Chrome. In other words, like Chrome, Firefox now makes far better use of screen real estate. Not quite as spartan as chrome but a way in that direction and a bit more functional and attractive.

The other main interface change I noticed was the tabs. Firefox has been kind to tabaholics who open large numbers of tabs. You can now pin tabs and Firefox 4 will also help you switch tabs if a url you type in is already open. However, the big feature is ‘Panorama’ which is a smart way to group tabs when you have too many of them.

Firefox 4 is fast too. Firefox claims 3 to 6 times faster than Firefox 3.6. I’ve found it is indeed faster and reminds me of Firefox versions of the more distant past and Chrome. It’s also fast to load up.

Firefox has a number of other small improvements such as built in 3D graphical support with WebGL. There’s more emphasis on customisation and I noted the actual Firefox website has also been sleeked up. Firefox Sync, which allows you to synchronise bookmarks, passwords and so on to other computers running Firebox is now built in rather than an add on. I prefer the Xmarks addon which allows synchronisation other browsers as well.

Overall definitely upgrade if Firefox is your current browser and give it a go if using one of the other browsers, especially if these features appeal or customisation is important to you.