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 Found out that you needed to pay and with the classic outdated version not loading for me I gave up.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