BAJO

When a game is successful, you can guarantee it will be copied, twisted, sequeled, expanded and recreated until we're sick to death of it. The first Minecraft inspired game is here - even before Minecraft has officially been finished and released - and it's called Terraria.



HEX

We reviewed this game last week on Spawn Point, but it's now proving so popular and has taken over the lives of almost everyone on the Good Game team, that we thought it was a game that deserved a bit more attention.



Terraria is a world of peril and wonder, and freaking scary worms that can go through walls, but mostly it's about discovery. You will spend much of your time mining and searching for mats, building your house, pimping it out, and taking on a variety of beasties along the way. This game is focused heavily on loot and gear rather than the bare bones creationism of Minecraft but there is still plenty to discover, and in fact we are still finding new things every session.



BAJO

Because this game is a 2D side-scroller, no nasty creepers are going to creep up on you - you can see them coming mostly, especially if you search for the widescreen patch that's floating about the internet which I recommend, but use at your own risk, it's not official as far as I'm aware. The interface is a bit fiddly, you'll often find you're accidentally dropping items or right clicking when you want to be left clicking, so much like Minecraft actually, it could be a bit more user friendly...



HEX

it's pretty forgiving if you die though Bajo, you won't lose all your stuff which is nice but you will lose some cash, so after a while you either need to make a piggybank to store it safely, but if you don't trust your friends then keeping gems that you find is the best way to hang on to dosh. Crafting options appear automatically when you have the right ingredients, so you can venture out, grab as much stuff as you can and when you return to your home or die, you can probably make something new. I love that items don't wear out and you don't have to troll a wiki online to find out how make stuff.



BAJO

Crafting a grapple hook as soon as you can will speed everything up and it can even help you smash through vines and cobwebs. The grapple is awesome but there are plenty of magical items to be found in chests... and every time I logged into this game one of my friends had something new and I found I'd just end up whining... 'aww I want that... how dug et it tell meee'



HEX

I loved going on excursions, and if you take a friend you can make an express tunnel to hell in a flurry of pick axes. Designing a hell chute takes some skill, you'll want some water at intervals for a safe landing, and also a nice tight vertical shaft so you don't get any monsters spawning. Also a door at the top is a good idea...



BAJO

Hex, the greed that came out when tunneling... when a bit of gold or topaz popped up... a flurry of pick axes after the minerals... and if one of you is a torch holder then it's even more stressful in the dark.



HEX

i have never experienced such frantic loot greed as in Terraria. It's hilarious... if you hear a friend suddenly becoming quiet on voice chat, you know they've spotted something! I really enjoyed the slow careful mining.. where you take a bed and some wood so you can make a little temporary house underground... and put a swimming pool in it of course... and the careful placement of blocks behind you so no nasty skellies or blobs can fall on your head mid-excavation. Making a house can be fiddly, you need to patch up every crack in the wall or it just won't set a save point... so you need to use the same minerals for the wall and that took us a while to work out.





BAJO

Creation is a big part of the game, expanding your base actually counts for something. If you build extra rooms on your house, NPCs will spawn: a merchant who you can buy nifty gear from, a nurse who can heal you... and also we were just discovering one that lets you buy very expensive items which make use of mana but we haven' t been able to test that out yet. She's expensive. To get a mana bar you need to collect stars, but there is also a bunch of other bonuses like rocket pants for a double jump, and other wacky weapons like this fantastic boomerang that my friend mort gave me much to the displeasure of everyone else on the good game team who worked much harder on their mining than i did... I just liked causing mischief



HEX

yes, as i get to know you more and more Bajo, you're proving to be more 'shenanigans officer' than a helpful constructive member of a team.



BAJO

It's an important role.



HEX

I found I'd just get hand-me-downs every time I logged in... thanks for the copper outfit guys! In Terraria, you're compelled to explore, there's always some hint of new mats or an undiscovered cave to see, or the challenge of summoning cthulhu, the giant eyeball of doom. Boss fights are tough and you'll need to be geared, so there is end game here and it's pretty easy to work out which zone is optimal for your mining and gear level. Zombies bashing on your door at night is neat and when the moon goes red, it's time to defend your homes! Once you start getting into the tougher zones, some of the enemies get pretty cheap - especially fire imps who shoot through walls.



BAJO

Playing online with friends is the best thing about Terraria. I think I had more fun with this online than Minecraft Hex, and it's because you can have immediate fun with 8 players here, for a small price and a 16 mb download. You get to keep the gear you craft, find or receive and... have i shown you my magic boomerang Hex?



HEX

YES. You can PVP as well but it's not much fun and that's because you feel more like you want to work together with the rewards as they are, and also the animations and combat is a bit 'drawn to life' simple.. so it's a bit awkward, but also cool in a retro way, and only made more fun by the crazy weapons you find as you mine away.



BAJO

Yeah, You'll have the most fun just trapping friends and doing things like dropping lava on them... then stealing their dropped coin. Creative world PVP is the best. It would be nice if there was a server browser or matchmaking to join in with others, but you'd probably just get your hard work trolled anyway i guess but that side of things is pretty underdeveloped. At least multiplayer worked when it worked.. with very few bugs. Hex, this is I think the second game ever to bring together this many members of the gg team at once.. the last one was red dead redemption, so It's 8.5/10 from me.



HEX

it's exciting jumping into a world and seeing what has been created by your friends.. obsidian makers and mob grinders.. but playing on your own didn't quite pull me in as much, it was more to just buff up.. it's all about shenanigans and showing off.. It would be nice if that world was persistent online so the host didn't need to be there, but even so, I'm giving it 8 Bajo.



PC

4.13 out of 10 Stars