Minecraft and Terraria - PC

Yeah, we're going to go with a double feature here.

I had been hearing about Terraria for quite some time, mostly about how it was this awesome 2D Minecraft clone. After watching some videos, seeing some screenshots I decided to buy it. Everyone had said how awesome it was, always comparing it to Minecraft... here's the thing though, I had never actually played Minecraft. My brother had bought it a while back and would talk about how great it was, but I just never got around to playing it.

So I started playing Terraria and I was immediately hooked. In the first week I owned it I think I put twenty or so hours into it. There was just so much to explore, digging and digging and digging, finding caves, finding ore, making bigger and better gear. This was a game about exploring. I had an incredibly extensive set of tunnels under my spawn point, so much so that occasionally I would die and have absolutely no idea on how to get back to where I was. I eventually had to start putting up signs so I knew where I was.

It was so odd to me, I realized that pretty much all I was doing while I was playing Terraria was digging. Digging into tunnels, digging for ore, digging to go lower and lower into the world. Digging. But you know what? I was having a blast doing it. If you had told me that I would be playing a game that was essentially me digging AND having a great time doing it, I'm not sure I would have believed you. The last game whose central theme was digging that enjoyed this much was Dig Dug... and that was on the Commodore 64. But here were are. Digging and having a good time doing it.

I was still hearing about how Terraria was a Minecraft clone. How Minecraft was better, how Terraria was just a rip off. I thought "Well, I enjoy Terria... maybe I should give Minecraft a try".

So I bought Minecraft.

Before I get into that let me say something. I don't see Terraria as a Minecraft clone. At least in a certain sense. Yes, you have a pick axe and a ton of other things that are in Minecraft, it's greatly influenced by it... you can tell. I would even give you that it's gameplay mechanics are a rip off of Minecraft, but in my opinion they're very, very different games.

Terraria is a game about exploring. Digging down, finding new tunnels, finding new worlds. Minecraft is about building, building houses, building villages, building... well pretty much anything you want. But there's very little exploring in Minecraft, in fact exploring can be very difficult. There's very little building in Terraria, once you've built a house to get in the merchants there really no reason to continue building as far as I can tell. So in my opinion they're very similar games but with very different end games.

So after buying Minecraft I logged on to a multiplayer server that my brother's friend hosts. I was immediately in awe of some of the things that were built. Huge buildings, giant railway systems, a giant central village. It was actually kind of amazing. Not really wanting to get in their way I decided to make my house far away from town, if my Terraria world was big, Minecraft was enormous. The world was overwhelmingly big. I finally found a place for my house... but I had no idea where I was. I actually died and wasn't sure if I could find my way back to my new house.

So I built a grand house to live in. Then I started to mine, after I could make better tools I started to make an incredibly long tunnel to my brother's house so that if I died and couldn't find my way back I could just go to my brothers house and follow the tunnel back to my own house. So then what? Well my brother was trying to catch a squid so I made him a railway so he could get it back to his aquarium. Why not build a GIANT roller coaster near my house? So I did that. Well parts of it are kind of boring, maybe I could make it go through a diorama that shows the different worlds of Minecraft. Well that's done... now what? A pirate ship, a floating island castle, a farm, an enormous castle. I built them all. If you can think it up, you can build it in Minecraft. Seriously, just look at some of the amazing things people have built.

Minecraft is like a giant game of Legos. It's like being ten again and having pretty much unlimited Legos. Minecraft is a game about creativity. It's a game about thinking of something and making it. It's a game where you'll find yourself going "Oh! I should make that!" and once you're done with that you'll think "Making that would be awesome!" and before you know it ten hours has passed. It's incredibly addictive and fun.

So which game would I suggest? Both. They're both amazing games, and they're both fun in entirely different ways. They both get updates that add new and interesting things to the games, and they both continue to get better and better. Spend the $30, get them both and enjoy them both. They're definitely worth the money and you won't regret it.

Squid.