Minecraft vs. Terraria: MMO Showdown

MMO Showdown 2015 opens with two of the most popular sandbox games in the world.

The Match-Up

The first match of the first round pits two different approaches to the same basic genre: sandbox.  Minecraft is more mainstream with its beautiful yet blocky 3D graphics where as Terraria sports very colorful cartoonish 2D graphics.

Tale of the Tape

Minecraft

About $26 to buy.
3D graphics
Not on Steam
Players have made endless creations of structures using blocks.
Focuses more on the sandbox aspect.
Has been played by ogres for Ogre Game Time many times.

Versus

Terraria

$10 regular price but can buy on sale.
2D graphics
On Steam
Terraria is more about gameplay than building ala Minecraft.
Has been played by ogres for Ogre Game Time many times.

Select Comments For Minecraft

Rating: 9
Author: Aaddron
Comment: Minecraft is an odd game, it basically breaks every single industry “key to success” and still succeeds. Photo realistic graphics? Nope, this game could be passed off as a Ps1 game. Deep and engaging storyline? haha no… actually the game doesn’t have one. Epic combat system? Nope, swing sword hit target… that’s about it. Ok so how about a detailed environment and setting? Wellll… not really, lets just say it has it’s moments. One epic NPC that guides you with witty lines and is always trying to kill you? … … nope, in fact NPC’s weren’t added until late in development and at this point still do nothing. Sooo I give up, what makes this game so great? Exactly!

Minecraft is a game that if brought to a publisher probably would of been rejected. Thankfully it wasn’t, Minecraft is developed by Mojang which started as one man band. Notch is his internets name and he defied all odds, produced a winner and now has his own game development studio. It’s really a great story but we are here for the game so lets just leave it at. Notch made a game, it’s sold through the roof and now he has more money than he knows what to do with… all without the help of the tradition “publisher”.

So back to the original question, what makes Minecraft so great? There are millions of answers but since this is my review I’m gonna go with its openness. When I say open, I really mean open, sure it has the “see it, walk to it” aspect of all the top sandbox games but that;s where it ends, no only can you walk to anything you see, you can blow it up too. Sick of that mountain… well just take it out… ever want to dig a super big hole but can’t because of zoning laws… no problem! Dig to your hearts content, no annoying city workers here… although you should still watch out for the locals… except them little green fellas. Friendly little buggers, might even help you dig if you let them close enough to you. *trollface* O and the best part? Sick of your world… simply start a new one, everything is randomly generated so no two worlds are the same.

To know what Minecraft is all about, you simply need to read the title of the game. Minecraft is a game of mining and crafting. Your sole purpose is to survive, gather ores and build. You see you start the game with nothing… not even a hint as to what you should do. Then night falls and it quickly becomes apparently something isn’t right, monsters start spawning and 9 out of 10 times you’ll find yourself dead before dawn. So you died… you respawn, nothings changed, still no objectives, still no instructions but this time you know nightfall equals bad news. With a little help from the internets what was once confusion is now a race against time to find or build a shelter. You survive your first night, congrats!

Minecraft is a game of blocks, everything is a block and every block can be broken and placed. You use these block to build and craft, you use wood from a tree to make planks, you use the planks to make sticks… you use 2 sticks and 3 planks in the shape of a pickaxe to make a wood pickaxe. Minecraft is a game of upgrades. Your fist can’t break everyblock and is really slow… so you’ll want to upgrade to wood tools which are faster but that have limited durability so then you want to use the wood tools to get materials to upgrade to stone ones, these are slightly faster and last longer… then stone to iron etc.

Crafting a major part of the game not only for making and upgrading tools but also to get access to tons and tons of items that can only be crafted. Items like chests, pressure plates, trip wires, furnaces, minecarts, rails etc. Minecraft doesn’t hand anything to you… if you want to build it you have to make it first. This kinda sucks as elaborate contraptions take forever to build as you need to get all the materials by hand, it can be extremely time consuming but at the same time it’s extremely rewarding when your done. For those that might not have the time they’ve added a creative mode where you can get any block in the game in infinite amounts and break everything in one hit without tools. It’s a great place to experiment.

Multiplayer in Minecraft is unique. Usually a good Multiplayer takes away from the a good Singleplayer and vice versa but in Minecraft that isn’t true. Minecraft’s multiplayer is Minecraft’s singleplayer with multiple people. If you don’t like Multiplayer or can’t get anyone to play with you that’s absolutely fine, your not missing anything minus player generated stuff. However if you choose to play Multiplayer your experience can change dramatically. Instead of adventuring on your own you can adventure with many other players. Instead of one little house, players get together and build full cities. Communities have formed and full RPG style severs with real players as NPC style characters have spawned… some truly awe inspiring stuff has come out of the multiplayer side of Minecraft.

It’s not all roses though, for every way Minecraft’s multiplayer is great, it also has an equal amount of issues. Minecraft multiplayer is like the wild west, not many rules and people don’t always follow them. Griefing (players raiding your server and destroying everything) is a common occurrence, same with hackers, spammers and pretty much any other annoying thing you can think of. Mojang has taken some steps to help but it’s been mostly up to the Mod community to devise methods of warding off these troublemakers, they’ve been successful in some respects but it’s a never ending war. The only way to prevent this is making your own server and only allowing friends on it… still make sure to take protective measures though as even then you’re not safe if you leave the door open.

Minecraft is in many ways a throwback to the old days of gaming, featuring little to no hand holding, like losing all inventory items on death (5 minutes to get back to them) and no mini map or objectives to guide you. You don’t have a whole lot of health and even on easy monsters due quite a lot of damage. It’s a throwback but a whole new world at the same time. The sheer aspect of being able to do anything… and I mean anything is simply unmatched… fancy a game of minesweeper? Yup you can do that. Wanna make your own Adventure Game… go for it, thousands of people already have and surprisingly a lot of them are really good. Mods? Yup have them too.

Minecraft is the game that “shouldn’t” work with today’s gamers but it does, o it does. Well it’s about that time, I’ll leave you with the sole rule of Minecraft, always dig straight down*.

*This reviewer is not responsible for any harm and/or death/item loss that may come to anyone following the advice in this review.

Rating: 4
Author: Supernatural
Comment: Minecraft Classic is a free to play browser based online game.
At the first sight it reminded me at my childhood and famous LEGO cubes 🙂
But after a few minutes playing it gets kinda repetitive and doesn’t keep ur atencion for long. I guess i had more patience as a kid 🙂
It doesn’t offer much challenge, it’s basic building game with some extra features.
I won’t be playing this game anymore, but it may appeal to younger audience.
Newer games have much better graphic which is also something i had in mind while playing this game, it just doesn’t feel real, or at least fun…
I will rate it with 4.

Select Comments for Terraria

Rating: 9
Author: Thedarkboy
Comment: Most of you have probably heard of Minecraft. A game where you can do about everything that have something with blocks to do. And then there are ”special” building games like Terraria. Instead of running around in a 3D world, you are running like Mario and Sonic did in their old age around in 2D. When I first played the game, it did not feel like it was special, especially when you only build and run around on a 2D plane and you miss a whole dimension of exploration and construction. For me, the game is very fun and entertaining but in a different way than Minecraft. In this game, you can chop down everything and build something with it. The game however focuses more on finding for example, coppar, gold and silver to get better protection to fight against larger and stronger enemies that are around the game world. The game might not look like it’s fun but it is.

Rating: 9
Author: Ichigohollowfied
Comment: Terraria may seem like a 2D minecraft to some….however, this game is cheaper, there are updates every 2 weeks give or take, and the game has bosses for the adventurous type. The game provides a building element, however, from experience many people do not spend all of their time on houses in this game. The majority of the game is finding ways to outsmart enemies and kill them for their items. As you gain more hitpoints (yes, that is right! you don’t start out with max HP.) and mana (magic), fight all of the enemies you can and even invite a friend in multiplayer to help you. The game is great if you have the 10 dollars to buy it off steam and I recommend you buy it. The only down-side of this game for me is the size of the blocks, they need to be a little bit bigger (instead of 8 pixels by 8 pixels…what about 16 :P)

The Showdown

Cheaper to Play = Terraria

Better Multiplayer = Terraria

More Popular = Minecraft

Better User Created Content = Minecraft

Better for Livestreams/Videos = Minecraft

Minecraft received a total score of 3
Terraria received a total score of 2

The Result

Minecraft Wins!