Review: Terraria

Dig, fight, explore, build! Nothing is impossible in this action-packed adventure game. The world is your canvas and the ground itself is your paint. Grab your tools and go! You can do many things in Terraria: make weapons and fight off a variety of enemies in numerous biomes, dig deep underground to find accessories, money, and other useful things, gather wood, stone, ores, and other resources to create everything you need to make the world your own and defend it. Build a house, a fort, even a castle, and people will move in to live there and perhaps even sell you different wares to assist you on your journey. But beware, there are even more challenges awaiting you… Are you up to the task?

Pros:

•  Now with pad support! PC players have been asking for this feature and now console users get it. It works really well with the controller thanks to the new auto dig/build mechanic. Basically it will auto select the blocks in front of you and smash them down going 3 high or 3 blocks wide. It basically means you can dig faster and not have to stop so often.
• Random world created every time you start a new game.
• You start with the basic essentials like a pick-axe, axe and sword.
• Build as far as your imagination can take you, dig, build and mine precious ores to create your own fantasy land.
• Different biomes give you new areas to explore and new items to find. Biomes such as snow,dessert,jungles,and even hell if you dig far enough down.
• You can build furniture, work shops, furnaces and lamp posts to help create your home.
• Meet criteria and NPC’s will move into your house and you can use them to buy things or some can heal you if your feeling down. NPC’s can also harbor rare or hard to find items like a mining hat or a piggy bank or TNT.
• Each biome has its own library of nasties from slime’s to bats to snakes to vultures. This gives each biome a unique feel and a sense of character.
• Online play is now made easier and is just a few button presses away. This is a big deal as PC players had to tweak a lot of settings to get it running.
• Clicking the right analogue stick takes the auto dig mechanic and turns the cursor into a emulated mouse arrow. This is handy for precise building or digging tasks. To the point where the cursor is the PC version and the new fangled auto one is the console version.
• Bosses can be found and fought for great rewards. They usually have a set criteria that must be met like it has to be dark or you need to be in a certain place. The game does an alright job on what needs doing.
• Crafting has a library showing you exactly what ingredients you need to make something and at what station. This speeds the whole process up and cancels out the need to constantly check wiki’s or guides.
• Daytime you get slime’s and biome enemies to deal with while at night you will get zombies and flying eyeballs. On a blood moon you will get a LOT of zombies and they will be capable of opening doors!
• You get a map now, which is an absolute god send and will help you no end.

Cons:

• The music whilst charming at first can get a bit on your nerves, especially when your building and it never changes apart from at night time. 
• The menu structure for dealing with large amounts of loot is still horrible to both look at and deal with. Yes the give you an auto group feature, But in practice that only does half the job. With things like potions it will take the majority of them and put them in your chest leaving you with the lesser amount.
• Whilst online, if all players are grouped together then their names above their heads get in the way and reduces visibility. You can turn off the text pop up for pick ups but that’s it.
• First time players may struggle at first to get to grips with it all.
• The price is a bit high when you consider how cheap it is on the PC. Overall the price is high regardless of the PC version.

In summary, What you get here is a game that is so easy to lose yourself in. Building huge bases and fighting off zombie armies, digging to the bottom of the world, there’s more than enough to keep you happy. The updates coming from the PC version are huge and a nice step in the right direction. The online works really well and is where the most fun can be had. There is so much to find and bosses to fight its huge. People think of this as a Minecraft clone but truth be told its only the creation and exploration that bear resemblance, As this game stands out on its own with its huge array of weapons and the whole your never alone due to nasties feel. Its like a more immediate action rpg in a way. The game is brilliant and is well worth the time to play. Just make sure to clear your schedule….Its going to be a long one.