Minecraft 1.8 Review

Yesterday a preview of Minecrafte 1.8 update was released. This is just an update you may think... Oh how wrong you are... Minecraft 1.8 is the long awaited Adventure update... Well, at least half of it. The full update is to be finished in 1.9. However this isn't just a new update. This is a new game essentially.

Markus Persson, Jebs Bergensten and the rest of the Mojang crew have been hard at work over the last few weeks as they prepared for possibly the biggest Minecraft update to date. Ranging from the small items, gates for fences, to the huge, ravines and abandoned mineshafts.

I've restarted my Minecraft career because a lot of these changes can't take place in areas already explored which was bad for me seeing as I have the habbit of exploring all the areas near my main one so my map looks nice and full. Doesn't bother me too much but it can't be helped. These new changes include, Rivers, Seas, New biomes (Areas such as swamps and mountainous) Ravines, valleys, bayou like forests and more. I'm personally avid over the mountainous biomes. It reminds me of the levels I had back in Alpha version 1.2.12, back when there was no real restrictions and each level was pretty dam nice looking.

One of my new levels, I have an air city behind that cliff now...

There are various tweaks and twists to already implemented features, such as an improved bow which you can charge up before firing. Chest animations, and an entirely new system of combat. Gone are the days where you could just charge into the night with a sword and 8 Cooked pork chops. There is the addition of the hunger bar which changes the way we all will have to fight. When our hunger bar is up high, we have health regeneration but when it's down low, it's just a waste of pixels to you. Food no longer heals you. It boosts up your hunger which in turn heals you over time. I can already hear an outcry of rage from people for Mojang "wrecking" combat in Minecraft. I think it's a great addition and puts more faith into actual strategy in combat making you properly choose your attacks instead of it being a competition of who can click fastest. Another big thing is the addition of NPC villages however the come with the lack of npcs for the time being. I'm not sure if they'll come with the official release date or with 1.9.

An underground cavern I found within a few minutes of starting 1.8

The Mojang team have also improved Speed and stability of the game itself. I have a laptop. It's a fast-ish one. It can run modern-ish games like Borderlands and shit pretty well. It had trouble running Minecraft before in terms of me not being able to enjoy having the graphics on fancy. Now I can run it on full power with no problem. The graphics and light systems have been improved aswell. There's also a creative mode for you guys who insist on using inventory editors in your levels and insist it's for creative purposes. You have infinite supplies and can fly etc.

Pretty sunrise is prettier from my new Skycity.

One of my favourite additions is the New main mob (I say main because of the fact that there's a new cave spider who has the ability to poison) which is the Enderman/Farlander. This new mob is hilariously fun and scary. Odd combination but I have had real fun trying to fuck around with this new long limbed foe and it's truly a good bit of fun. It has the characteristics of the weeping angel from Doctor Who who is frozen in place if you're looking at it and as soon as you look away it can kill you in a matter of seconds. The Enderman is friendly at first HOWEVER as soon as your cross hair lands upon him, he looks at you with a terrifying gaze. The moment your cross hair moves... prepare yourself for a battle with a teleporting paedophile (They just seem like that to me what with their creepy zombie noises and long limbs).

Please prepare your anus for a raping.

I have probably left out a lot of important things mainly due to the fact there is just so much to talk about and for that, i'm sorry.

This trailer shows exactly what the update is like ^

So overall what did I think?

Showing the new bow and other items like food and XP bar.

This isn't an update. This is a new GAME. It's spectacular. It's changed what Minecraft is for the better. It's just brilliant. However it isn't without it's faults. This is only an early release. Places like npc villages and the mineshafts tend to be very buggy in the sense that they don't form properly for a variety of reasons. If you have yet to download it, here is the link from the official Minecraft Forums http://www.minecraftforum.net/news/214-want-to-play-18-early-heres-how/. Or you can wait 'till the 12th. Your call. Either way Mojang have just shot way up in my book.

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For this weekend only, Minecraft accounts 2 for the price of 1

Well if you have that special someone, or are a greedy bastard like myself, you get a free Minecraft account when you buy one. Essentially that's €7.50 per account. You can't buy them separate but it is definitly worth it especially for this game which is ranked as one my top 3 games of the year.

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We have a Minecraft server!

(That jumble of text on the left is only there for me because of one my own mods so you don't have to worry about that)

Well not really we as a blog, more so it's a server my friend got and made me an admin. All blargers are welcome to join us. We have various mods, a VERY strict set of rules against griefing etc. and such but it's easier for you to see rather than read (if that makes sense). Just type in this ip and you can join our server. My username, as is on this and my ps3 is Theusualtype.

46.20.119.44:27665

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Minecraft super PE project

Hey everyone, I recently did a review of Minecraft and in it I felt I never made anything BIG and anything that had a WOW factor. I don't count my Seatlle Space needle with Minecart coaster BIG because it just looks too simple so I decided to make something big. The PE in my PE project stands for Planet Express. I made a to scale model of the Planet Express space ship from Futurama with interior and thought i'd share it here on the blog.

High view of the ship itself, (Black notch on the top is enterance)

Wing at an early stage

Early side view W/ Foundations

ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNO-TOAD

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Minecraft Review

Minecraft, It's the Facebook of Indie games in terms of it's wildfire spread of popularity and it's huge profit for it's creator "Notch". Since I first was on the internet, I've been an avid fan of the site: Funnyjunk .After a while I began to notice something. A lot of the jokes on this site included these sad looking cactai. I wasn't sure what they were apart from their name and where they from. These were obviously the creepers from Minecraft. So being the curious chap I am, I googled Minecraft. Found out that you needed to pay and with the classic outdated version not loading for me I gave up. A few months later, A friend of mine told me all about it. He explained it in great detail and urged me to look up a torrent for it and Play it, I did and I did and this is what I have to say about the past month I played for it.

At first, I was confused, It was an 8 bit game with no form of real tutorial and only found help, while it was VERY good help on the Minecraft wiki and Youtube. I soon found myself building a grotty little cave with a small light. Then darkness enveloped the land. My friend told me to beware what comes out at night and the videos confirmed it. Then I met the internet meme I had known for a good while. I had sealed up my cave completely apart from a small window to know when it's morning, turns out it saw me. There was quiet, a hisssss then boom. My small cave was annihilated. Turns out the depressed Cactai were suicide bombers... well they are depressed. Then came Zombies, Skeletons and Spiders OH MY! I died of course but I still enjoyed it. I soon became accustomed to the short safety hours of daylight and the dangers of caves. I built a shack on a lake originally, expanded it to a house and after hours of watching Frasier, turned that into a Seattle Space Needle reaching the top of the map, and yesterday after enjoying many a day on Minecraft spent 15 euro and turned my crappy Alpha Torrent into a legit Beta game.

A Minas Tirrith castle, Credit goes to unknown owner

What is Minecraft? Many people have different definitions for it. Mine is that it's MS paint + Lego + Basic Rpg Survival game = Minecraft. You mine blocks and craft 'em, Into official items, make art, interesting sculptures, whatever you want it's up to you. I've made flaming KISS logos, A heartagram (from the finnish band HIM), Space invaders and so on. That was my alpha account, which is quite basic in comparison to the beta game. I've made a large castle now, complete with kitchen, crafting room, lava moat, Seattle tower with a minecart riding up and down for easy transport instead of climbing a lot of stairs + Many more. Minecraft does have things to stop you from making your dream world. A shady bunch of characters called Mobs which deliver pixelated terror into even the most hardened adventurer. These range from skeletons to Zombies to Ghosts and of course the Creepers and more. However if Combat isn't to your taste (Or if you just want a cheeky head start) you have the option to remove them by changing the difficulty.

The graphics in this game are infamous for the MS paint like appearance but people are forgetting that this was originally one guy working on his own. Sure he probably has a team of people under his belt now along with about 5 million dollars but personally, I wouldn't like a World of Warcraft graphics scheme. I like the Graphics in this game, it's part of it's charm. Now I know that I complained about the graphics of Pokémon in my first Rest in Peace post but Minecraft is the first in a series and has been around for 2 years with many improvements. Pokemon has been around for about 15 years with VERY little BIG improvements ( I do not call 150 new pokemon an improvement, I call that milking)

The music in Minecraft is very pleasant, it's a piano score however it, like the graphics are lowered in quality. I've actually downloaded the soundtrack and have played it while relaxing, reading or even playing a lite game with little action such as Little Big Planet. It creates a pleasant effect and is fitting for the theme of creating. There's also eerie ambient sound effects, which only add to the tone of fear when nearing the enemy mobs hideouts.

Minecraft is open source allowing for many updates, not only from Notch but the players. I got a few skins to dress up my plain dreary character. I've gone from a Blue clad plain man to Ezio to Bear Grylls to an 8 Bit Link from Zelda. Even if you don't like the 8 Bit MS paint graphics there are plenty of fan made texture packs to up the graphics. There are also plenty of fan made servers to suit your taste.

So what did I like/ Dislike in Minecraft,

Like:

1. Ingenuity behind the game
2. The amazing variety when it comes to crafting
3. Open Source-ness
4. The fun behind simply mining rocks and crafting them
5. The cheap price for a great game

Dislike

1. Music although pleasant sometimes it doesn't play
2. Bugs
3. The infrequency of updates despite the huge profits notch has received

So my overall review?

Minecraft is an amazing game that is well worth the €15/$20. Even though it's in the beta stage it's very enjoyable and i'm looking forward to the 11/11/11 release date. I urge you to at least give it a try because I have a strong feeling you'll enjoy it

Now THAT'S a treehouse

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