Minecraft vs Terraria

In this blog, I will be comparing Minecraft to Terraria (a 2d game, where you craft, dig and explore.) I will be exploring all parts of the games, well, as many as I can cover. At the end I will give a clear conclusion on which is best.

Round 1 - Gameplay.
In both games, Minecraft and Terraria, gameplay is some of the best around in games available at this current time. The games are indie-simulation-sandbox-architecture games where exploring, building and digging is all encouraged. The best thing these games is the fact that you can't really 'complete' the games, although Minecraft recently released a way to 'beat the game', once you beat the game in Minecraft you can carry on playing which is a good factor in a game. The gameplay in Minecraft is more focused on actually building whereas in Terraria, being 2d and not as visually pleasing, the emphasis is on exploring.
In terms of gameplay, I can see myself playing Minecraft for continuous lengths of time whereas I can only play Terraria in chunks as I find it rather tedious.
Round Winner - Minecraft

Round 2 - Sound
In both games, the soundtracks used are brilliant. Simply brilliant.
Minecraft has it's music which plays at random times along with its spooky ambient tunes that play near dark areas. The sounds used in Minecraft match a 'real' version of the ingame item, such as the bow sound, the door sound and many more. However, I prefer the soundtrack in Terraria, simply according to my personal taste. It matches the game slightly more as it plays 'jungle themed' music when in the underground jungle and it plays spooky music at night and during the red moon. The actual game sounds sound more realistic such as the zombie moan, the mining sound and the slime noise.
Round Winner - Terraria

Round 3 - Graphics
Both games tried something different in terms of Graphics. Terraria went for the 'cartoon' approach to things for their sprites and graphics whereas Minecraft chose slightly realistic but at the same time a kind of blocky, pixely approach. Minecraft has 3D graphics whereas Terraria has 2D Graphics. Minecraft also has an actual  3D feature, so you can use 3D glasses to view images in 3D. Both games have extremely customisable graphics options but all in all Minecraft's graphics are slightly more appealing.
Round Winner - Minecraft

Round 4 - Cost.
When compared to games in the market at the moment with similar sales records, both games are Exceptional value for money. Terraria is only (as of 10:03 GMT 27/11/11) £3 (GBP) which is one of the cheapest games currently on the market. Minecraft is £20 (GBP) (as of 10:05 GMT 27/11/11), Although this is substantially more than Terraria, it is still great value for money. Therefore in terms of a Fun:Value ratio Terraria narrowly wins but only because of the cost.
Round Winner - Terraria

Round 5 - Community
A good community is what makes a good game great. Both of the games in question have strong communities with User submitted modifications and add-ons. Aswell as general friendliness. After all, it's no good having lots of User Submitted things if the community isn't actually friendly. Terraria's community is good and strong but it is nothing compared to the extremely strong and friendly Minecraft community.
Minecraft has more user-submitted things whereas Terraria does not have that many.
Round winner - Minecraft

Round 6 - MultiPlayer

The two games in question both took different approaches to MultiPlayer. Minecraft decided to go with basic multi-player (The game, with friends) whereas Terraria decided to implement the feature of carrying on the same character through multiplayer (keeping items and all). In Minecraft when you join a server for the first time, you have no items whereas in Terraria when you join a multiplayer server for the first time (if you pick the same character as in single-player) you can use all the items you have obtained via Single-Player. Minecraft MultiPlayer is largely more customisable with such programmes as Bukkit, which adds a whole new spectrum of plugins to make multiplayer a more complete experience however Minecraft multiplayer can be rather dodgy sometimes, with problems such as world generation failing, the Invalid Code Key error which has occured since the 1.0.0 Update. Terraria does not have this problem but it does not have as many features.
Round Winner - Minecraft

Round 7 - Media

When browsing any popular media sharing site like YouTube most of the gaming section is filled with Minecraft and First Person Shooters. As a Youtuber who uploads videos of Minecraft and who has previously made Terraria videos, I feel it is fairly safe to say that Minecraft videos are more popular as Terraria gameplay is not as exciting. All though, with all this hype comes problems too, for example, recently the Yogscast (a popular YouTube group, who make Minecraft videos which receive hundreds of thousands of views.) had received comments from Notch (the creator of Minecraft) saying that at Minecon, Yogscast had been swaring at children. This has not really been cleared up but it seems that Notch was tired and that the two parties involved are friends again. Although there can be a lot of problems with lots of hype, there are more positives and negatives. Terraria gameplay still get's views on YouTube but many people prefer to watch Minecraft gameplay.
Round Winner - Minecraft

Round 8 - Updates

Minecraft and Terraria are both regularly updated. Minecraft recently released the 'full version' of the game with the 1.0.0 update but Mojang claim they will keep releasing updates. Minecraft has had lots of updates since the early Survival Test, each gradually adding new features but apart from the last 2 updates 1.8 and 1.0 there has been no significant amount of new features in one update. On the 1st of December 2011, Terraria Update 1.1 will be released, with one of the most significant updates in recent game history with the addition of 222 New Items, 39 New Monsters, female characters, new ores and new armour. New combos and a new wiring system, a brand new lightning system and finally a new boss called the Wall Of Flesh. All in all, I think we can safely say that in terms of updates, although there has been more for Minecraft, in terms of new content...
Round Winner - Terraria

Conclusion
Round 1 - Minecraft
Round 2 - Terraria
Round 3 - Minecraft
Round 4 - Terraria
Round 5 - Minecraft
Round 6 - Minecraft
Round 7 - Minecraft
Round 8 - Terraria

Winner - Minecraft
Terraria fought a good fight, but all in all, Minecraft just beat Terraria 5-3. If you're looking to decide which of these 2 games you want to get. Although it costs slightly more, Minecraft is the game to get.

Adios.
Sam (TheRussianPigeon)