Benie's Games Blog

So this game has been splashed around for awhile, and I think it’s about time to talk about it. It’s like Terraria but from what I’ve seen, it has a lot more.

Races, an actual quest system and better crafting for one thing. But it also has unfortunate hunger and rest requirements. And also, there’s no health regeneration.
It’s in its Alpha/Beta stage, and I’ve seen quite a lot of issues being reported on the Steam forums. The one that caught my eye was character wipes, everytime a new update hit. That would really piss me off if I saw that, and possibly ask for my money back.

Let’s talk about the game. Each race starts in a ship that has ran out of fuel over an unknown planet, yet fortunately is deemed habitable and has a breathable atmosphere. This is where this handy quest system kicks in, telling you to get a Matter Manipulator and supplies. Then you beam down to the planet surface, where your survival plays a part as this planet has hostiles.
You’re tasked with having to make a crafting table, hunting bow, campfire, then eventually shelter.
What’s different about this and Terraria, is the story of this game isn’t just on one planet. It actually has a story, instead of just you appearing in a strange world with another guy who seems to know everything about survival, yet can’t tell me what gear to get to deal with a boss.
Also, the Matter Manipulator is crap. It serves as a pickaxe and an axe. But the good thing is that you can make proper tools for the job, like a pickaxe.

The game is currently $15. Right now, I just don’t think it’s worth it, due to hearing about the character wiping. I’m sure there’s ways to prevent this from happening, but at the cost of not having updates.
There’s supposed to be a patch to fix this, to not have anymore character wipes. But it has yet to come out.

In ways, I feel I’m playing what should be a Multiplayer only game. One that teaches side-scrolling n00bs like myself.
Hardmode beats into my skull everytime I play the game; that either you’re good, or you suck. There’s no “skill” involved. Terraria is an “easy” game. Some say Hardmode is too easy.

What lead up to this? I want to be able to kill The Destroyer, to have the Steampunker be summoned. I need her portals for future builds. I have the armor for it, but never the skill or the right accessories. I can’t even kill a wyvern to get the 20 Soul of Flight to get wings.
I ask why, and all I’m told is “There should be no excuse. You just need practice.” Another even ruder poster says, as long as I… know how a keyboard works?! Really? They’re pretty much saying what I said before.. “either you’re good, or you suck”. And if I said that to them as a reply, people would think the whole “n00b at side-scrollers” thing is nothing but an excuse not to be better.

Tell me. Why am I still playing this game? Why? Someone. Please tell me. I want to kick my past self in the ass so far it reaches outer space for thinking to get it!
I expect to just stand there and whack at whatever’s infront of me with my sword until they’re dead… not use fucking guerilla tactics!!! D:

Having the right armor, this is exactly as I said about WoW. That you can have the right armor to defeat enemies, but if you don’t have the skill, you’re pretty much trying to kill them naked.
But this is worse than WoW. At least with that game, there is a fine line between pros and the newbies. With this game, it’s like I’m the only newbie in the entire game.

Know what would possibly make this game easier for me? A level system, and a proper gearing system. Not the same accessory with each having a different modifier.
But yeah, a level system. Something that would tell me to fucking avoid going here and there until I reached that level. That would be nice.
And how about a fucking TUTORIAL?! HUH?! Something that would pause game time until you learned the basic mechanics of the game, and even advanced ones. That would had helped me greatly when I started the game. Instead of just throwing me in and expecting me to automatically know what I’m supposed to do.

You know what’s the worst thing? I found out the developer, lives in my home state of Indiana. So yeah, a Hoosier made this game. And it makes me feel like a disgrace to be born in this state.
Even the guy who has been helping me, lives in Indiana.

I finally took down the Wall of Flesh! It’s a pretty easy boss compared to Skeletron. But I must say, attempting to kill him… hasn’t been as easy.
I’ve set up the arena, got the Hellstone, made the Molten Armor, Night’s Edge, and Phoenix Blaster. Everything was good.
Yet, summoning and fighting, was a different story. For 4+ times, the boss bugged out on me. Basically, the mouth and the eyes (the only killable parts) started moving through the ceiling and out of the world, showing only the wall which was still going towards me.
This is a well known bug. But thankfully, it’s not a game-breaking one. What causes it, is the ceiling has too big of a gap between the Underworld and the Caverns layer. You have to summon it past large gaps, for the game mechanics to work correctly.

So, as I said I killed it. I actually did this twice. First time I was trying to hit F12 and accidentally hitting the Power button instead, turning the game and my computer off. *facepalm* So I had to do the entire fight again. This time making sure I was hitting F12. So, victory!
5 seconds later, I released Hardmode on the world (did make a backup before doing so). Thankfully, this does not mean if you die it’s permadeath. That’s only if you created a Hardcore char, which is completely optional.
So now the Corruption can spread, and like wildfire. And it’s re-taken over the Jungle, of what I had “cleansed” via TEdit.
The Hallow has emerged as well, taking over the Snow biome.

The enemies… some of them are easy like the Possessed Armor. But Derplings in the Jungle, they can kick your ass! It’s now unsafe to go far West of my house, making my Subway system seem needed (though unfortunately the corruption has spread through it). But I reached the East Coast without too much trouble.
What I don’t understand, speaking to the Dryad, she says there’s 0% Corruption and not anything about the Hallow. I wondered if I really fucked my map up by using TEdit to remove the corruption from the Jungle and the Snow biomes.
There’s also new enemies when it rains, such as an Angry Nimbus which shocks you to death.
I also got zapped to death by an Ice Golem, a rare miniboss in Snow biomes. Killing it has a chance of dropping Frost Armor.

And I found out the Christmas event isn’t just for Hardmode, but summoning the Frost Legion to defeat them to get Santa to live with you, is. On the 15th (today), all enemies have a chance to drop a present. That present contains a Candy Cane Block. These are decorative blocks.
And in Hardmode, a 7.14% chance to get a Snow Globe that can summon the Frost Legion.

The main developer of the game, is working to add more stuff for Christmas. Such as trees, a new boss, and the first ever mount for Terraria; a reindeer. Hopefully it won’t be the only mount for the game.

They’ve done it again. This update isn’t really much. So let’s break it down;

– 64 bit version for 64 bit users like myself. No one really knows how this is beneficial, as performance hasn’t been increased in key areas (like part count and lighting for large space stations).

– Small/Large Motor Blocks. This makes having rotating radar dishes possible, and then some. Mainly for creative players.

Overall in my opinion, this isn’t one of their best updates. As in, nothing I give a shit about. Hopefully the next update will be more.. useful. Instead of just eye-candy. I’m sure there will be. Just have to give it time.

But if you like this stuff, don’t let me stop you. Go nuts! As for me, I’m waiting ’till the next (hopefully more promising) update.

Curse you, sweet Steam sales! 😛 I said “No more! No more, Steam! I must resist the sweet dea– oh my, Farcry 3 Blood Dragon only $5 bucks?!… DAMNIT! Buy!”
*sigh* The willpower is weak with this one.
This is also another Uplay game, where you have to log in to another service to play a game you bought on Steam… >.>

So pretend you’ve gone back in time to the 1980’s, when Arcade Games are all the rage and the internet had just started. You find a game called “Farcry 3 Blood Dragon”. You think “AWESOME!!” and drop a quarter into the slot.
That’s pretty much what this game is, except you don’t need quarters. It’s what the future would look like back in the 80’s.

So this is another game Dan played. What is it? A futuristic FPS, back in time. Back in the 80’s, it was seen in the year 2007 that the rule of humans would end, and would be enslaved by our robot overlords. I never saw this to happen, though.
Only one man has stepped up to be capable of saving mankind, and the planet. Rex Power Colt! Half man, half robot. All American hero. Fuck yeah!
This game seems to have a story before this one, of characters you need to know before. But after you finally liberate your first Garrison, it starts to play like FarCry 3 does. Except you can use an ancient enemy as your “pet” to clear them out.

And that ancient enemy, is what is known as a Blood Dragon (name of the game). It’s a buffed up Komodo Dragon. It’s bigger, meaner, and that’s not cool enough… they can shoot laser beams out of their eyes. Fucking EYE BEAMS!! Fuck having Fire or Ice Breath, or even being able to fly. When you can shoot laser beams out of your eyes, you are the definition of ‘epic’. 🙂
They have an aggro system similar to a Big Daddy in Bioshock. When one pops up, a “DRAGON” health bar shows up on the upper right side of the screen.
When they’re green, they won’t bug you. When yellow, they’re alerted but don’t know where you are, and red, they’re out for blood and plan to eye beam everyone to death.
Fortunately, Blood Dragons have one weakness; they can’t see very well. You can sneak past them if you wish to live. And they sometimes conveniently appear near enemy garrisons.. hmm.

Yep, this means you can lure them into a enemy garrison by first taking down the garrison’s shields (which can only be taken out with explosives). It will help itself to the delectable enemies it finds in there, doing the work for you of liberating a garrison. Just stay hidden if you don’t want to be the dragon’s next target. If there’s no dragon when you arrive, take down the shields anyway. One will spawn and take care of business.
After it finishes eating all the corpses, you can either attempt to slay the eye beam welding dragon with your own laser guns, or lead it away by throwing a Cyber Heart. Killing one gives an achievement, and killing one with a Bow being the final blow for it, gives another. Killing 25 dragons gives another.
Three garrisons on the Southwest and Southeast, are set up where you can’t “summon” a Blood Dragon to “assist” you (oil rigs and stuff), that you are forced to clear out the enemies yourself.
Also in some garrisons, the Blood Dragon can be under control by Omega Team, not responding to enemies or Cyber Hearts. Shooting at its head will remove the mind control which will make it target enemies again.

I remember one, where it tells me to lure the dragon away. I attempt to and then see the dragon’s eye beams just INCHES from hitting me. Suddenly, the garrison is liberated. I had thought the dragon was stuck inside and I would have to kill it, then it disappeared.

After a garrison is liberated, the Blood Dragon disappears (thankfully) and then you can unlock upgrades for your guns by doing side missions, similar to the ones in FarCry 3. You have Hunting missions, and my personal unfavorite.. Stealth/Rescue missions. In FarCry 3, the Stealth mission is replaced with a “kill key target with knife” mission.
Fortunately with some stealth missions, just wipe out the enemies before they kill the hostage and you’ll still complete the mission.
And some Hunting missions, the description of some of them is hilarious. For example; “These birds are planning to enslave all humanity. Kill their leader before it’s too late!”, and your guy will be all “Wait.. WHAT?”

The differences between FarCry 3 and FarCry 3: Blood Dragon;
– New missions (of course)
– A new retro, futuristic world.
– Lasers as Bullets
– Funny optional quest descriptions. (Ie: “Kill this sniper because he’s a dick”)
– Floppy disks, basic Cable TV, and VHS tapes to collect. They were the shits back then.
– Blood Dragons, with EYE BEAMS!! RRRRR!!!! Though they tend to be easy to kill when you upgrade your Assault Rifle.
– No sunrise or sunset, making things quite dark.
– You don’t skin animals after killing, you loot them for cash.
– You have two options to liberate garrisons. Kill them yourself, or blow up the shield generator and invite a Blood Dragon to “play” with them while you sit back and chuckle.
– There’s no radio towers. The entire map is already revealed.
– When all 31 Garrisons are liberated, the combat against the cybernetic army doesn’t stop. You see frequent pockets of Omega Team and Scientists shooting at eachother. Occasionally a Blood Dragon shows up for you to either kill or lure it to kill everyone.

So, that’s all to say about this game, which was substantially more than what I said for Terraria.

So..Terraria! What makes this game so ultimately addicting? It’s a lot like Minecraft! Think of it as a 2D version of Minecraft that’s stuck in Survival, with more flying creatures than just the Enderdragon and the Ghast.
To me, what makes it addicting, is “hmm… digging this hole– OOOOH IRON!! Yay! Going through these caves– WOOT GOLD!!!” The more you play, the more it draws you in. There’s just… so much to do in this game! It isn’t 1 or 2 goals. It’s, do anything that doesn’t get you killed!
Terraria has pretty much set the bar of the “graphics make the game” wars. There isn’t much Story either. Everything revolves around what you do. It goes at your pace and just adds a challenge or two here and there, depending on where you are and what time it is.
There is no eating needed to stay alive. This is like Minecraft’s early days before that feature was introduced. Just without the Creepers.

You play as a guy, or girl, depending on who you choose. There’s two game modes of starting. For newbies like myself, you use Softcore. For people that have been playing Terraria for awhile and know what to look for, there’s Mediumcore.
You can permanently (as in can’t go back with that world) unlock Hardcore by killing the Wall of Flesh in the Underworld (aka the Nether in Minecraft), just come well geared and well prepared. As when you do, enemies are 10x harder. And when you die, it’s literally game over for you. This also causes the Corruption to slowly spread through your entire world.

The best way to play (from what I’ve seen), is to get geared before you get into mid-tier stuff which makes sense. What I mean by ‘mid-tier’ when it comes to this, is to have 140 Life or greater (the wiki says more than 120 life but I haven’t seen it yet, and I have 120). Having that in the evening, may cause a Blood Moon event to occour. This is when all hell breaks lose. Hence, why it’s called a “Blood Moon”. As in, monsters hunger for yours.
Monster spawn rates double, even getting monsters you’ve never seen before. It’s suicide to be outside unless you have the gear to protect you.
You see, these NPCs you can get (all except the Guide can buy/sell), they have a chance to die in a blood moon event, nomatter how fortified your base us.
What is the biggest concern, isn’t the endless zombies. It isn’t the hundreds of demon eyes. It’s this annoying guy. “During a Blood Moon, it can also burrow through your house”, which leaves your defenses obsolete and me crapping my pants. This is why gearing up is oh so important. 🙂 This way, you can deal with these threats before they can threaten your NPCs.

Why does this concern me so much? I have my NPCs living down below my house, with my actual house above it. Those Giant Worms are going to burrow through it and kill them. 😛
Another bad thing about a blood moon, you have a chance to possibly have one event every night for a week. So just keep your health at 120 or below, and you’re good.
To get your health up, you need to find Life Crystals. These are found underground, scattered. Activating one increases your Life 20 points, which puts another heart on your Life bar. You can get up to 15 hearts for a total of 400 Life.
Oh and by the way? Gold is completely the opposite in Minecraft. It’s stronger than Iron! But in Minecraft, Gold is as strong as waving a piece of paper at the enemy. So, Gold actually has a use in Terraria. And wearing a full set of Gold gear is better than a full set of Iron.
I still don’t believe it…
And unlike Minecraft, you have more bow types. You can have a Gold Bow.

How do you gear up? Well if you’re just starting, your first task isn’t to do that, but survive your first night. Talk to the Guide and he’ll hook you up on basic tools. You then chop down trees for wood, and build a house.
Now building a house in a 2D World is tedious and unlike Minecraft. You got to place your first wall, then build off of that your floor. Then the other wall, and finally the ceiling.
It doesn’t stop there, though. To keep enemies from spawning in your house (except during a blood moon encounter), you put Wood Walls to fill in the background. But before you even do that, you need to craft one of the many crafting stations in the game; the Work Bench (aka the Crafting Table in Minecraft). Once you do that and then seal the background, the room needs to be lighted. So you use torches, which are made from Gel of killing slimes (the green slimes that hop around, kill them as you’re building) and wood.
Wood is used in a lot of recipes early on, so get a shitload of wood.
Then, you’re done. Just ignore the Demon Eyes and Zombies. Or you can try for them with your crap sword. I managed to get a Zombie Arm that does 12 damage per hit. I use it as my primary melee weapon.

I mentioned you can have NPCs live with you or their own separate town? You can. When you start, you get the Guide. You can get other NPCs by fulfilling their requests which are stated on the wiki.
For example, to get the Merchant, you must acquire 50 silver coins.
To get an NPC to live in a specific room, you must have the room a specific size. From what I’ve seen, a 7 wide 9 long room is the bare minimum allowed size. Also, the room must be lighted and have a table/chair before it is listed as suitable for NPC housing.
How you set up homes for NPCs is entirely up to you. You can make a Stone Tower which every NPC has a floor. You can make an actual town. Or you can do like me and have a split tower with two rooms on each side, separated with Wood Platforms.
What’s the point of having NPCs live with or near you? The more you have, the monster spawn rate drops significantly while around this area. Only way monsters spawn near, is during a Blood Moon. Then all bets are off.

So, you got your house and some NPCs. What next? You have two options. Explore and Mine, which both can also work underground. Explore caverns, Mine ore. It’s recommended to make a ‘Hellevator’, which is a mineshaft under your house. This is a big no-no in Minecraft (one of the official “rules” of it, to never dig straight down). But in Terraria it’s OK to do so, as you can see tunnels and caverns below you before you actually do dig.
You can turn it into an elevator by having Rope, then adding “floors” with Wood Platforms. Your player character gets a device that can go up and down ropes just like an elevator.
But when digging, be careful not to go too far down. Some enemies deep underground can own you in 5 hits or less, even with full Copper gear.

And that about sums up Terraria. If you haven’t bought it yet, do so now! You won’t regret it.

These are the three games I bought last night, for under $10. And I think I’ve played Terraria the most as it’s like a 2D version of Minecraft.

So, let’s get down to it and talk about these games and what I think about them;
Game 1: Terraria
This is my favorite game of all three of the games I’ve bought. Now I won’t go into too many details. I’ll save that for another post.
So, what is this game? It’s a 2D Survival/Sandbox game, with similar gameplay to Minecraft (which is why I like it).

Terraria has a very limited story. There’s some unknown corruption sweeping the land, slowly taking over the entire planet with a dark, gloomy purple haze. A hero is needed to stop this corruption and bring peace. You, are that hero. Will you stop the corruption? It all matters on you.
For you are Benie, total n00b of this game! 🙂 lol. Anyway, your first mission is to survive your first night, similar to Minecraft. The sun goes down, and monsters come out. Thankfully, there’s no Creepers.
You must harvest wood from chopping down trees and build a house. Now house building is not like it is in Minecraft. Building a 2D house is tedious. It took me three ingame days to finally figure out how to do it, watching numerous YouTube Terraria tutorials.

To close this off, the game has a really nice soundtrack. It changes depending of your location and the time of day or if it’s raining.
Moving on.. Next game!

Game 2: The Binding of Issac
This game is quite… disturbing, and that’s putting it mildly. But it’s also pretty fun. So you’re Issac, a small boy in fear of his mother hearing voices from God to make your life a living hell.. and kill you.
So this game is a 2D Survival Game but it’s nothing like Terraria. You use tears as ammo to kill freakish bad guys, get powerups, get keys, get coins to buy stuff, and face the final boss which is random as hell… while trying to stay alive.
Speaking of random, everytime you die is a new adventure. New rooms to explore and defeat the evil guys.
This game is quite addicting, but it also gets boring killing monsters. So.. there’s not much else to say.
Next game!

Game 3: Tiny And Big: Grandpa’s Leftovers
This game is weird, but it’s quite funny as well. It also has a pretty dark story. I’ve played the Demo and saw a walkthrough of it and thought “ehh.. not really all that exciting”. But I saw that deal and decided to get it.

The game has a pretty wacky story. A very special pair of pants has been taken by Big, your arch enemy. You play as Tiny, a genius technician that has a device that can cut through nearly any object. Your job is to get those pants!
Why? Two reasons. 1. These pants meant a lot to your Grandfather who passed away and put you in charge in protecting them from Big (as his final wish). 2. These pants aren’t any normal pair of pants. In the wrong hands.. or on the head, can gain them super strength. Which is why Big has the pants. Yeah.. so now you know why you must stop him.
This game is a 3rd person Sandbox/Puzzle with Borderlands-like graphics. There is no killing involved. You just have to manipulate objects to work in your favor to get through complex puzzles.

The toolset (device on Tiny’s back) has three options of manipulating dynamic objects;
1. Cutter. Slice off from specific structures. You can use this to get through obstacles or use them as a ramp to jump across (depending on the situation).
2. Grapple. Use to pull objects towards you. Required in some areas.
3. Rocket. Attach a rocket to an object to blast it away. Best used on objects you can’t push.

You don’t come alone. You have a helpful device called “The Radio” to guide you through the first steps of the game.
There’s a few interesting items along your journey of reacquiring the pants. One is called “A Boring Stone”. I have yet to figure out why you even need to collect these. You can also get music tapes and have The Radio play music for you as you slice your way to victory.

You need to be careful how you slice things, as you can end up screwing yourself over if you don’t slice correctly. This is the Sandbox aspect of the game. Fortunately you can start over by hitting the O key by default.
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And so, that’s my thoughts of these games. Expect a Terraria full review soon. Possibly tomorrow.