Terraria

So recently I have been sinking a ton and a half of time into Terraria.
For those of you unenlightened about this game I'll explain.

Terraria is a little indie game by Re-Logic. People call it a Minecraft clone but it really isn't, this a little beast all in itself.

You play the game in a 2D side scrolling fashion, you can mine almost all the blocks you see and pick them up as an item and the place them back into the world. In this way you can fashion castles, houses and villages if you wish it. You can mine deep into the earth and uncover minerals and metals that will allow you to craft better weapons and armor. At night the world is invaded with zombies and flying eyeballs.

The graphics are deliberately retro but the aesthetics of the game are immensely pleasing, with diverse biodomes and more then a hand full of different enemies and npc's.

But that's probably where the similarities with Minecraft end. Terraria is a true RPG, the entire point of the game is to develop your own character. You can build all you want but that's not what the game truly revolves around.

Terraria has a early game, a mid game and an end game. During early game you are just trying to get by, build a house, get some potions and get a sword. Slowly you start expanding, making more houses and attracting NPC vendors to your little village or castle. Then as you expand more you can start to see the late game coming closer and closer.

During mid game you upgrade your gear further and further, you get better weapons and if your the adventurous type you can probably find a few hearts and stars to permanently upgrade your health and mana.

But as with all RPG's, end game is where it is at. Once you got yourself kitted out there are a couple of options, you can go down below the earth, farther then you should and you'll land yourself in a hellish underworld filled with demons and rare epic items. If you'd rather stay above ground you can go to the very edge of the world and find a dungeon with bosses and more loot.

Unlike Minecraft, Terraria has a clear ending the player can see, you know that once you've finished looting the dungeon and exploring the under world you're more or less done. It gives one a goal to work to, sure you can stay after you did all those things and create a bigger city, but that's in the same way you can continue playing Oblivion after you finished the main questline, there is little challenge in the whole endeavor.

Where Minecraft has no clear plot beyond mid game, Terraria has a more purposeful drive to it, a more action adventure then simple crafting, and that has made it all the more addicting to me.

Dead Space 2 Let's Play Status Update.

So I've been hard at work on my Let's Play of Dead Space 2 which you can still find over here.

I'm not going to post each set because that would get spammy. Especially since I'm not a youtube partner and I record 40-45 minute sessions every time.

But I do want to spew a bit, rant a little, get some bile out of the system.

Since it's my first let's play, I learn allot while doing them, and I feel the need to share. Whether you would like to read about it or not, is not one of my concerns.

First of all. Talking while playing, is hard. I'm a man, I can barely chew and walk at the same time, and now I'm trying to talk while playing, in a different language then my own no less.

Also, finding people is hard. I know it's my first Let's Play, and I'm not doing it for subscribers or money or all that nonsense but just because I like making them, but seeing 0 views for the first day and a half is slightly depressing, I'm perfectly cool with it mind, not like I need an audience, but still, I'd like it if people found some entertainment in them.

Isaac Clarke, 50% engineer, 25% psychotic, 25% mental patient, 100% a total boss.

Thirdly, I've played Dead Space 2 a few times and I always liked playing through the game, however. I am starting to see the cracks, I'm slowly falling out of love with the game as I play through it, this final time.

I'm also finding it absurdly easy to contradict myself. Dead Space 2 is not a scary game, but at the same time it puts me on edge. But it's not the kind of scary that you take to bed at night. The moment the game is off, the fear is off. Unlike say Silent Hill, which haunted me even after the Playstation was off, in fact sometimes I can still hear the other world sound ringing distantly in my ears. Meanwhile I've gone on record saying it's not scary, and still get scared by the game, to a certain degree. In my video's I call it irked. It's more irritated yet simultaneously tensed by the situation and the prospect of the upcoming inevitable jump-scare.

And finally, I've been watching Let's Players for a while. Guys, heroes in my opinion like Deatheven13, Helloween4545, ScottishDuck17 and last but in no means least AgentJR who kindled my love for Let's Plays and I found a new level of respect for these guys.

Let's Playing has 1 thing in coming with writing at least; to edit yourself is to crush yourself. If you look back at your own creation you will always nitpick because you see what could have been, not what has become, and those two rarely line up. To publish a piece of writing (genuine writing, not this blabbering) takes a bit of courage, and so does publishing a Let's Play, to a lesser degree. Secondly, before I first recorded the first set, I spent literally hours fussing over which game to play and doing test drives.

I think I might have more recording that's botched on my hard drive then on my channel to be honest. Sound to silent, sound to high, can't hear voice, voice overpowers everything, mic scratches, desyncs, screen tearing, odd resolutions (1920x1078??) making editing impossible.

Then there's the starting capital involved, legally you need FRAPS and at least some form of video editing, now iMovie might work, but my Mac doesn't like Dead Space 2 so I opted for Pinnacle. Those two alone would have set me back 140 ish euro, if I didn't work in retail.

Then there's the raw time involved into recording and knitting all the pieces fraps poops out together. As a side note; 45 minutes is close to 90 GB in hard drive space.

The above mentioned Let's Players have literally hours upon hours of videocontent on their Youtube accounts. And granted most of it isn't in HD, but all of it has had considerable amount of time required, not only to record but to polish and edit afterwards. And they do this all free of charge, for the enjoyment of others. And make no mistake, what I put out is garbage compared to them, who put out genuinely entertaining content.

Dead Space 2 Let's Play S3

The second set went much better considering my skill. At the end of it I was seriously considering upping the difficulty. Sadly my skill as a gamer wavers and changes on a daily basis. And at the end of this set I realized I better not touch it for a while.

I still love Dead Space 2, but this being the fourth play though I'm starting to see it's cracks.

Fast Travel in Bethesda Games.

I recently stumbled upon a topic on a forum that broke into heavy arguments about the fast travel system in Oblivion, Fallout and Fallout New Vegas.

There were two fronts, the pro and the anti.

First to explain the whole system, 'Fast Travel' lets you open your map at any point in the game your not in a dungeon or encircled by enemies and you get to click on a settlement/city/landmark on your map, and you'll be instantly teleported to that location.

Now the anti-fast travelers, or the RPG puritans as I'd like to call them, make a strong case; once you travel you skip allot of content. You miss out on adventures, and you miss out on exploring the wonderful world created for you. It's too easy to 'abuse' the fast travel system.

The pro-fast travelers make some interesting points as well. Firstly, fast travel is an option, you can choose to ignore it, which is entirely viable. Secondly it's not fun to travel, especially after you already seen all that the game has to offer. And after I spent roughly a year in Oblivion I can definitively see that point.

Now the fast travel system is not a bad system. I feel it has just been wrongfully implemented in all the games.

Now say theoretically I was to create a travel system for Skyrim. I would play it out something along these lines.

Remove it from the map screen entirely.

Create a teleport spell, and make it have a cooldown. A long one, maybe an hour at the start, but have it retain the function of the fast travel system. So you cast the spell, a map overlay appears and you click on a location previously discovered. And as long as you are not surrounded by bad guys and you are not in a dungeon the spell will teleport you, and the cooldown will start running.

The reasoning behind it; It's too easy to abuse, but it can be such a drudgery to travel, cutting it entirely from the game would be a loss too great. Both sides make strong points, so consider this a compromise of sorts.

But wait there is more!

Skyrim introduces perks for the player to choose at every set levels. Make teleportation one of the skills your able to invest these points in. For those who have seen all that the game has to offer cutting the cooldown by half might be more interesting then taking a perk in a combat related skill. But why stop there? Add a perk that makes it usable in combat situations, a long cooldown get out of jail free card. And add a perk to make it usable in a dungeon.

If the spell tree doesn't allow this sort of implementation then use it in Dragon Shouts and make rare stones that allow you to upgrade that shout.

They could have implemented this in Fallout as well, keeping intact any sense of immersion the player has. Add it as a function to the PIP-Boy. Have the player encounter a piece of long lost pre-war technology that allows him or her to teleport to cities they have visited, but the ability drains the battery on the PIP-boy and it requires time to recharge. Add specialty vendors that allow you to upgrade this aspect of your PIP-boy for caps/money. Now you have a great money dump, and a form of travel that doesn't break the game or impedes on the players sense of immersion.

Let's Play: Dead Space 2 S2

Well the second set is up for viewing. I did manage to fix the audio levels a bit but I'm thinking it's still too quiet, so the next set will have it's audio raised.

It did go better, sadly I forgot how much space FRAPS takes when recording in full HD, and my hard drive got full before the end, hence the abrupt stop. Not much footage was lost however, only a bit of me using the shop, buying a pulse rifle and forgetting to purchase medkits. I have a feeling the next set is going to be harder because of that, but I'll see how it works out.

Let's Play: Dead Space 2 S1

My very first Let's Play. I spent allot of time thinking about what game to play, I wanted it to be completely blind, but there aren't any interesting games I could think of, or Steam offered that I didn't already owned/played through. I was torn between Dead Space 2 and Alice: The Madness Returns.

I still haven't finished Alice, so it was my first choice, but I had a ton of trouble recording, and since I lack a HD capture card for the Xbox, and I'd hate to release crap resolution footage, it's been postponed.

Production wise it went pretty horrible, and I'm not satisfied with the end result at all, but the start is there I suppose. For the next set I'll be lowering the game audio ever so slightly so my voice doesn't get drowned out. I also need to stop mumbling to myself, but I'm finding it a real challenge to commentate in English, given Dutch is my primary language. I think it's reflected more heavily in my speech then in my writing tho I imagine it's noticeable in both.

Dead Space 2 is probably one of my favorite games of all time, it's full of cheap scares and the plot is sorta not really there, but I like the games setting and Isaac as a character actually displays some growth during the game. 

The next set should be uploaded tomorrow-ish, unless my internet craps out again.

For those interested, all video's will be found on http://www.youtube.com/user/RealityOnHold1

Let's Play: Fear 3 with Mathews. Chapter 1, Part 2.

And here's part 2. Chapter 2 will be done soon, we still need to find a time were both able to record.