Even though I did a review of Terraria recently, I have gone full out with this game the last couple weeks playing nothing else. If you played Terraria at all you are well aware of the starting mode which is basically “Easy Mode” and the new and harder “Hardmode” that was introduced with Patch 1.1 a while back. So the past couple weeks I have resigned myself to get every single item, armor, weapon, etc. in the standard Terraria game and defeat hardmode.

Things have been amazing. When Hardmode is activated the world spawns a diagonal line of both Corruption and Hallow (introduced in hardmode as a new biome). They both start at the bottom of the map in Hell, and split in a “V” going opposite directions from each other to the surface starting at the direct point where your very FIRST spawn point was when you created the world. Then they both spread like wildfire if you don’t contain them. I have managed to contain ALL of it! BTW this is a MEDIUM world. (With help from this map generator: http://seancode.com/terrafirma/ (I don’t think it would even be possible without using a map unless you were extremely lucky. More on that later.

This is not as easy as it may sound. These things spread damn fast. A little bit of luck is involved with it too since they can get out of control quickly. Fortunately, the Hallow cannot convert Jungle grass so I was really lucky with where it spawned. I have a massive jungle from the surface to Hell in my world that basically blocks off the spread of Hallow to the left side of my map. Only needed to block off a small bit at the bottom, and I blocked off a good bit up top to keep it from getting into my town.

The Corruption on the other hand was sort of lucky, but much more out of control. Before I entered hardmode I blocked off the existing corruption in easy mode first before activating hardmode. There were 2-3 areas that AI was able to stall. When hardmode came up I was fortunate in that the corruption from the transfer ran into one of the existing corruption areas so I had a head start on blocking it off, but it was still a massive effort.

One of the things that makes this a fruitless effort most of the time is that when you defeat the Wall of Flesh you obtain the Pwnhammer. This is the first item that allows you to break Demon Altars. When you break these it blesses the world with Cobalt, Mythril, and Adamantite. One for each your break. It also spawns a block of corruption somewhere in the world, or Hallow. This is why not using amap makes containing this stuff almost impossible. This stuff spreads so fast if it finds a good spawn spot that you would never stop it in time. In mine I broke 3 right off so I could hopefully find ores to upgrade while i was blocking off the corruption. Didn’t find much on this early part so I was extremely underpowered compared to all the new mobs. This makes blocking it all off a real test of fighting and dodging skills. You also whould have a serious stockpile of potions to help with defense and any other boost you can find.

That brings me to the base. The pic below shows my base as it was going into hardmode. Doesn’t show my Hellevators connected a bit higher than that mushroom farm since I took it before that, but there is one there to help prevent possible spread by my town. Hallow and Corruption cannot spread over 3 blocks, and it cannot spread to anything other than dirt, grass (regular), or stone. ANything player made like brick stops is, although it still has to be 3 wide at least to keep it from the other side. Corruption should really be blocked off with these materials since the vines can definitely jump gaps in the dirt/grass areas and continue to spread.

Click the thumbnail for large view:

I made my town from Dungeon Brick, which is the only material that cannot be broken with BOMBS. Clowns in the hardmode world throw bombs so you must keep them at bay. Also, outside my main dwellings I placed glass wall in the background inside my outer borders to prevent mobs from spawning inside my base. There are SOME that still can I guess, but nothing major. I pumped lava to the surface from way down below to make lava moats on both sides of town. This is a real pain as wires/pumps can only pump about 1,000 blocks which is much further than the distance to the surface from the lava. I had to make 2 stops along the way to pool lava. Could have used a nice industrial rubber hose that was 2000 feet long for sure. Two Hellevators to block spread under my base. Plus 2 connecting tunnels between the Hellevators. One towards the top and another down by the lava level. In addition make sure you have plant farms easily accessible before this as they are tough to get to and you NEED potions if you attempt to quarantine the world right away with easy mode weapons/armor. Daybloom, Moonglow are in pots, Waterleaf and Fireblossom (lava pools) are in small pools so they spawn seeds. Blinkroot in some mud inside my base. An Obsidian generator inside my base. You can see my Glowing Mushroom farm below and I have a blocked in jungle area below that. I also set up a small dart trap area with statues for bunnies and fish that I turn on with a switch on a 1 second timer for during Blood Moons since they drop a boatload of gold. Only thing I don’t have is a regular mushroom farm, but they are still plentiful. My base is basically impenetrable.

So now…I have a world in hardmode that has every biome you can muster (except snow, which I should explain a bit below), and is quarantined from spread of both Hallow and Corruption. LEaving roughly 85% of my map open to do as I please and spread anything I want.

I have almost collected every item in the game, but as I said I have no snow area. The game only generates a snow biome in 33% of created worlds, OR in 100% of the worlds between December 15 and December 31. So…we have to cheat a little to get one here since Santa Claus has a suit i need and you can’t get a Frost Lagion Invasion without it being in this time period. So I will need to change my computer clock to these dates in order to get enemies to drop the presents that allow you to summon the Legion and get Santa Claus. If you try to use the snow globe any other time of year Santa Claus will spawn, but immediately die. He dies when you change your clock back too, but I should have all his goods by them.

I guess that leaves all the Terraria MODS left to play with after this.

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IF you read my Bastion review a while back you know that I highly recommended the game. It’s just a beautiful game with a unique presentation. Mostly though, the narrator talking all the way through and narrating almost your every move is one of the best parts of the game. I know it sounds annoying, but it just…works. I mean you don’t want some guy narrating your life at your costco jobs or anything, but in a game it is cool.

Anyways, I saw this a few months ago and neglected to post it so I am doing it now. If you played Bastion already you will love it of course. It’s good either way though.

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I know that Terraria has been out for almost a year (?) now, but I never did a review on it because I wanted to play it for a long time first to give it a bit of a better write up. As you may remember I bought this like many others during the Steam Holiday Sale in December for I believe $2.49. Let’s just say that equates to about 1 penny for every 5 hours of playtime I have put into it so far, and I am still playing it.

At first glance, many called Terraria a bit of a Minecraft rip-off. I’ve never played Minecraft so I really don’t care about that. I will say that the addition of combat into Terraria likely makes it amuch different game than Minecraft.

Terraria has virtually no story. Other than the NPCs you meet, and the monsters you fight , there is absolutely no tale being woven here other than the one you create yourself in your own mind. The NPCs have a few lines of dialogue, but really it is just them commenting on the state of the universe you are in and not weaving any sort of plot.

That said, this game isn’t about story in any way. It is about creativity, digging, building, digging, and more digging. You start the game out with creating an old school 8-bit looking srt of character that can be male or female with very minimal options other than skin color and hair color. This doesn’t matter either really. What matters at the start is what level of difficulty you plan to play with. Softcore, Mediumcore, or Hardcore. Once you pick, that character is locked into that setting for all worlds they jump into. Softcore is recommended for beginners, and most people play that way all the time due to the death losses you receive from others. You jsut lose a little bit of your cash when you die on Softcore. On Mediumcore you lose all your equipment you are currently holding, which can be a significant amount of loot. IT lies there until you find it again, unless you die, or quit the game. IT totally sucks to lose this stuff. Start over worthy if you do IMO.HIGHTLY advisable to start on Softcore.

Now the bulk of the game is in minng for materials so that you can build better shelters, create new weapons, and even find yourself fancy new outfits that have to be crafted. When you acquire materials you can build crafting stations in which will allow you to create more and more unique weapons, potions, armor, and other building materials. While at first you may be lost in how to create certain things, they give you a handy guide NPC that you can talk to and ask about any materials you are holding, and what they can be crafted into. It makes this process much easier to decipher and shows you things you didn’t even know existed before you asked him about your materials.

When you first start you want to get some wood, or stone ASAP so that you can build a shelter before nightfall….because at nightfall the ZOMBIES come out and attack you. With your puny weapons and life force at the start you are likely in trouble. It will probably kill your guide too, although NPCs auto-replace themselves in a day or so if they do die so no worries there really. You start out with a shanty house probably and now you are ready to start digging to find better stuff, or you can explore left/right of your starting point to find many other biomes like Jungles, Corruption, and even water. Each area has unique enemies and resources.

Your main goal here is to buld yourself up to higher strength, with better armor, helath, mana, and weapons so that you can fight the BOSSES in the game. Softcore has 3 main bosses you can fight that you will figure out on your own. You beat all 3 and the game doesn’t end. There are still optional bosses, and there are bosses that send your game into a harder difficulty for good as well. All the while you are attacked by zombies every night (they can’t get into your shelter unless it is a Blood Moon), you may encounter a Goblin Army, or any number of random events.

As you find more resources you also must build more shelters for new NPCs to arrive.Suppose you find some grenades in a chest digging down below. It is an explosive, and until you find an explosive the Explosives vendor won’t roll into your tiny little town. You also must have a sufficient shelter built to house the new vendor, or he will not arrive. The game explains this all.

Overall the game is a MASSIVE time sink. You dig, and build, and build, and create. IT’s very fun. In fact, you can even play with other people online in a world and create together, trade resources, and you can fight them too if you want! It’s awesome.

One other thing you may not pick up on right away is that the game randomly generates world for you. You can have it create as many as you want until you find a world you actually like. At the same time you can build in multiple worlds with the same character. For instance say you beat all the bosses in one world, you can create a new world and bring all your loot to it from the old one if you choose. You can go back and forth between them from the main menu, take resources from one and bring them to the other. So you could have a boatload of great loot from your old world and be a beast already entering you new one and just destroy everything with no problems. Items like Piggy Banks, and safes can be used to transfer things to other worlds without eve taking it with you. For your character whatever is in that container is always in that container no matter how many of them you have, or how many worlds it is in. In fact, the safe is player specific completely. Even if you play online with other people they cannot steal your stuff out of a safe. It only shows them what is in THEIR safe.

This game is completely worth the money and has many other things to play with that I didn’t mention. This game gets a solid 9/10 MUST BUY from me due to the massive amount of time I got out of it, and the fun of it.

I recommend watching the video below for starting the game because you will most likely be lost when you do begin like I was. This video told me basically all I needed to know. That and the Terraria Wiki is a great resource. The game has very low system requirements so any POS Hardware can run it and can be run windowed so you can check online fin the Wiki anytime you need to which is perfect.

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As I mentioned last week, one of the many games I bought from the Steam Holiday sale was indeed Bastion. After playing the holy hell out of Mass Effect 2 for a while I decided it was time to put it away and move on. Well…Bastion I sort of played in between it and others when I wanted something a bit more light. Bastion did well in this scenario, but it had a bit more to it than I though it would. Doesn’t mean there is a lot of things that need to be covered in a review, but gameplay time and such I think was a bit longer and more challenging (if you add in difficulty) than I though tit would be.

First off, Bastion looks wonderful. The art style is very colorful and cartoonish, but fantastic. Very bright and beautiful and a joy to wander around in the world. The video trailer at the bottom should be just enough to give you the ides.

The game itself is an Action RPG. You play as a young kid that wakes up in a world where everything, and everyone is gone. The world is torn a part and you are alone. You get out of bed and begin to start searching only to find destruction. You grab yourself a giant hammer and begin to crush everything you see. All the while there is a voice narrating the journey and it is quite a good voice narration I must say.

Eventually you find yourself in the Bastion. The central hub for your character where you will upgrade your skills, your weapons, and other upgrades you have at your command. This is basically the hub for your RPG leveling elements in the game. You come here after defeating a level, or anytime and you are able to switch out your weapon loads, skills, or change around some of your level passive abilities. It’s not complicated, but you do have quite a few things you can upgrde. All this is quite simple and very low level from a planning standpoint. There are some thins you can do as a strategy with what you carry with you, or the potions you use for certain areas, but overall it’s not complicated and anyone could do it.

That brings us the combat when saying anyone can do it. Early on you have very few troubles. Enemies aren’t ‘easy”, but they are certainly easy for anyone with RPG, or gaming experience as they should be early on. As you get further into the game however, enemies certainly become stronger, but they added a neat little option to the game. You can find these “Idols” of gods that you can activate to increase difficulties. 10 in all, and they do things such as make enemies more aggressive, take more hits, or cause you more damage. The more you activate the more EXP, and drops. This can REALLY get tough if you activate enough of them. Especially in a special are an type world you will run into eventually that you need to go to if you want to get the best upgrades and EXP fast.

You fight with a melee weapon, and a ranged weapon (For some reason at first only can carry one of each, but for me eventually I had 2 ranged weapons equipped only). You also get to carry one skill with you that either relates to a carried weapon, or is a general “magic” skill. You have HP and you heal with potions. Your skills use another potion that is a black bottle. Once you use the stash of bottles (you start with 3) you must find more in the level in crates or enemy drops, or when you get back to the Bastion they will replenish. With the Leveling up you can add a special tonic to your shelves that gives you more power boosts, more HP, more bottles, etc. There are quite a few and can be changed in the Bastion at any time. This allows for a bit of strategy in how you defend/fight with enemies. The combat is very much action orientated. You shoot arrows/guns, or pound on things with a hammer, sword, etc. You have the ability to roll/dodge, and you even have a SHIELD you can carry that basically blocks everything thrown at you if used correctly (It’s not as easy as it sounds, and doesn’t make you even close to invincible. You may think you, are, but you will find out quickly when you die you weren’t).

AS you go through fighting through the levels you are searching for cores to piece your world back together, and to find other people that may have survived. All along you are meeting new people along the way and hearing about your adventures from a narrator during the fights. I mean the dude talks the whole way through the game as if he’s reading a story about your actions. It’s not annoying at all so don’t think that is what i meant. It’s not CONSTANTLY, but just enough to give you some good chuckles while playing, and to keep the atmosphere perfect for the game.

The story is simple, and the gameplay is simple. The art style is beautiful, and the narration is a joy to listen to. It’;s a very good action RPG. Very few flaws, if any. Length is probably around 10 hours or so if you take your time a bit maybe. It’s really not possible to take your time since when you beat a level there is not much reason to go back. It has a few challenge areas you probably need to complete if you want materidal to upgrade your weapons. You find materials and get cores so you can add buildings to the Bastion which if you don’t you an’t upgrade anything, or buy anything. This is quite a fun game and well worth the cheap priced I got it for of $5.09 on Steam which cost me about as much as an iphone case. It’s still only $14.99 full price I believe, which is worth it.

EDIT: Forgot to mention this in the gameplay, but it is VERY important info IMO. The game at default uses the keyboard/mouse control system. It does however offer the abilit to use a gamepad. Personally, I am using a PS3 controller with motioninjoy set to the 360 config. It is set up to work with a Microsft/360 controller by the way the buttons are displayed in game. HAven’t tried to configure it as a PS3 controller since almost none of the games work right if you do, but it is HIGHLY recommended that you use a controller. Wtihout a controller movement is rather limited and the combat becomes quite a bit more difficult.

I would say this game deserves about 8/10 as a final score. TOTALLY worth it if you get it on sale for Steam, and still worth it at the full price. It has a decent length main quest of over 10 hours, and it has replayability, but really only if you are interested in playing with a bit more challenge I would guess. Activating the idols makes it quite a different game experience. It has Steam Achievements as well which is another reason to keep playing obviously.

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Got a new computer and installed my old Half-Life 2 disc on it. Figured I’d roll it out at max settings and see what’s what. Installed Steam again, which I never even used before. Saw the add the first day and was like…hmmm these are some good deals. Next thing I know I was buying games everyday. So many, that I think I may invest in an adult diaper just so I don’t have to get up.

End of the day I think I spent only about $50 on 10 or so games. I think I may have picked up one dud, but I still played it for quite a while.

Fable III ($12.49)-The one dud. Cost the most of any games I bought and it is really just a tedious game with the same lame quests over and over again. It looks really nice, and you feel like it could be amazing, but it just gets so boring after a while.

Fable: The Lost Chapters ($1.49)-Beat this game so many times but figured I’d see the PC version and if it was any different. Controls kind of suck with a keyboard/mouse, but it’s still a great game and cheap as hell.

Terraria ($2.49)-PRobably 99% of Steam customers bought this during the sale. HAven’t played it yet.

Bastion ($5.09) -Throwback sort of RPG. Not real complicated, real time action combat. Weapons and skill upgrades. Great narration and beautiful art. Very nice game. Would highly recommend it.

Orange Box ($9.99 I think) -Already had most of this, but since I needed Episodes 1 & 2 for some mods I bought it again and gifted HL2. Mods are meh IMO. Didn’t really get a lot of enjoyment out of the major ones like MINERVA, SMOD, Garry’s, etc.

Mass Effect 2 ($4.99) -Nope…never played it before. Never played ME1 either. Played this more than all the others I bought combined though. Amazing game, and totally not what I expected. Thought it was going to have terrible combat and be some sort of all story game. It’s really a massive and amazing game all around.

Just Cause 2 ($4.99)-Already have this on PS3 as you can read here. Jsut wanted it for mods. Playing as a chick, and extra grappling cables. Worth it.

NOTE: BTW…I don’t have a 360 controller at the moment so I didn’t think I could play a lot of these games on PC since I didn’t think any good PS3 adapters worked. Fable 3, JC2, etc. (Keyboard is awesome for the rest including ME2). I looked around and found that MotioninJoy works awesome for PS3 controllers. I set it up with the 360 config for most of these games since they don’t show. Some you can use the native PS3 controls though. Fable III for instance shows all the 360 buttons in game so it gets a tad confusing, but you adjust if you play with both enough.

Amnesia: Dark Descent ($4.99) – Downloaded this a few times from a torrent, but it was always buggy and didn’t run properly. Haven’t played it yet, but I needed a survival horror game and this was the one people recommend most lately.

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All in all feel like I got some good value and a few awesome games I never would have bought otherwise.

Missed the Skyrim for $40 day. Already have Batman. Other than that nothing new I really wanted. Maybe Saint’s Row: The Third, but I’m just gonna buy that later on when it is cheap anyways.

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