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Tag Archives: minecraft

It’s Official

I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.

I’d like to think of myself as a fairly mildly-tempered person, but this is just beyond the point of stupid.  Minecraft is a LEGO simulator!  Anything you can make with LEGO you can make in Minecraft as well, with each having their own advantages and disadvantages!

I had already lost a lot of respect for Minecraft just because of the ridiculously dumb fanbase it has, but this would almost be enough to make me lose respect for LEGO too.  Sadly, with actually cool sets released like this Fallingwater one, it will have to try a little harder to lose my love.

2011 GYiR: Terraria

“But Patrick!” I can hear you saying already, “You said this game wasn’t that good, had a terrible learning curve, and basically implied that it wasn’t fun!”

Well, I’m an idiot and I take it back.  While the first playthrough of the game is really confusing and admittedly not that fun, wait a month (Which, by then, an update should have come out to add more content), start a new character on a new map, and gain a real appreciation for the game.  That’s what happened to me – a month or two after I played the game and was left unimpressed, I ended up playing it on a trip up to Moose Jaw, and was able to fall in love with it then.  They had updated it to give decent items early on through randomly generated chests, as well as adding a couple of new enemies and potions as well.  The game still kind of had the same difficulty curve, but a better understanding of what to do and a knowledge of what you’re seeking out made it much more enjoyable this time.

Even better, this is the game that keeps on giving.  This past month, they released a major expansion pack update to it that adds on to the most lacking part of the game – the end.  Now, instead of having that difficulty trail off, you can activate “Hardmode world” which gives you stronger enemies, stronger bosses, and a brand new set of weapons and other items to craft.  I’ve been playing with the new things for over a week as of the time of writing, and I’m both still finding new things every time I play, and still have yet to try even touching any of the new bosses.  Yes, this game is fantastic.

I’m avoiding the obvious correlation to another game of a similar style, mainly because I haven’t played that game’s new updates in the past couple of months, but this is a game that is now very worthy of not being called a clone.  In the fork of the gaming road where creative and adventure diverge, this one has happily travelled down the latter without apology, and if there weren’t so many other titles out this year it would have easily been a contender for game of the year awards.  Still, it’s a game that you can’t go wrong with for $10.

When Indie Devs Go Bad

The words Minecraft, Notch, Mojang, and various other related terms seem to bring up a romantic like sense of wonder and awe in gamers.   The indie company that rose to fame on their now famous block building game is a company that to most people can do no wrong.  So, of course, when a big company like Bethseda sues them, people do generally tend to side with the little guys.  But in this case, is it a case of ignorance and assumption leading people to believe that Bethseda is in the wrong?

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Terraria Review

So, after my lengthy semi-bash on Terraria last time, I figured I would do a proper review to give a full set of impressions. All in all, it really isn’t a bad game – I can admit that I got my money’s worth out of the game and got a lot of enjoyment out of it, but will happily concede that the game itself has huge fundamental flaws that it shares with Minecraft.  Like its other pixelated brethren, it suffers from three things: A wonky difficulty and “fun” curve, a lack of tutorial that forces you to look up information, and an excess amount of repetitive tasks.  This doesn’t necessarily make it a terrible game, as the good parts of the game make up for it to a degree, but it’s certainly something to consider if you’re looking at buying the game.

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On Terraria and First Impressions in Video Gaming

As a general rule, I like to give games about ninety minutes to hook me into it. As far as I see, if I can’t get a good idea of what the game is about and whether I’ll enjoy playing it in the timespan of ninety minutes, then the game isn’t worth my time. The first impression that you get from a game needs to hook you into it, as it tends to normally set your opinion of the game and outlines the rest of the time you’ll play in that game. First ninety minutes of any GTA game? You’re shooting people, killing hookers, and driving cars. First ninety minutes of any shooter? You’re introduced to the plot of the game, picked up a weapon or two and have started killing things. First ninety minutes of a racing game? You’re driving a car getting to understand how the AI works, how the cars handle, and everything like that. The list goes on. But, having been ninety minutes into Terraria, I’m honestly not seeing the point yet.

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