Along with the triple A games this month comes a smaller title, one you may have heard about at some point. That game is Minecraft. Made by Markus Peterson, or as he is known by everyone Notch, and later with the help of his development studio Mojang Productions, Minecraft has gone from a small indie success to a massive gaming world phenomena that has resulted in one of the most interesting games of all time.

Minecraft has been available for a while now, I’ve been playing it since Alpha. The day I and many others got hooked was when Minecraft servers crashed and Notch let the game go free to play for a weekend. That was September 18th 2010, and since then i have played Minecraft for untold hours.

So why would I do a review now? I could have reviewed it at any point after all. Well today marks a very very special day for the Minecraft community, today 11/18/11 is Minecraft’s official release date.

For fans like myself it’s interesting that this game we got as “an indie hit” has in fact sold millions, it’s no longer the small project it once was. As I type this Notch and his team are in Las Vegas for Minecon, an event they started in 2010 with a bout 50 people has now sold out a massive convention center.

So lets get down to it, the review of the hit game that is Minecraft.

Gameplay

Minecraft is a sandbox in the most true sense of the word. There is no set story, no questing, no mandatory objectives. You are placed in  a world, one that is generated randomly in real time as you explore so that two worlds will never look the same, and you are let loose. You are guided by an achievement system that gives you tasks to do such as getting your first resources, and exploring the different areas of the world. But its all up to you, you do whatever you mind can imagine.

The mechanics of Minecraft are simple, you gather resources and build. Your first project will always be a shelter, because when night falls enemies come out to ruin your day. These enemies vary form zombies, slow moving and of little real threat, to the infamous creeper who moves fast and silent and explode when he gets close.

So how does one build their shelter? You go punch a tree. You break the bark and collect it, you then craft that into planks, and you then craft those planks into a workbench, and then you will craft some tools, and then you will mine, then you will upgrade, and then you will mine more, and so on and so forth.

There are TONS of things to craft in minecraft, beds, food, bows, redstone, minecarts and more, building everything will take you a good while. Once you have a grip on the games crafting its time to build something a bit better then your dirt hut. Maybe a huge castle? Maybe a skull fortress with lava coming from its eyes? Maybe an 8 bit computer made with redsonte? Maybe a 1 to 1 scale model of the enterprise? It is all possible and in fact it has been done.

There is also the brand new Enchantment system. Each time you kill enemies (or players should you be in multiplayer) you gain XP, and the only reason for that XP is for enchanting. You spend your XP on enchantments for your armor, sword, pic and other tools. Its a very cool system that results in a desire to hunt the enemies that can lead to your very death, and results in a nice risk vs reward system.

But the normal world is not all Minecraft has to offer, there is also a helish world known as The Nether. This world is full of far more danger and far more reward. In it you will find the materials to start potion brewing. Potions allow you to take on certain effects to aid you in your travels. The Nether also acts as a fast travel system, 8 steps in the real world correlate to 1 in the nether. So you can build 2 portals and travle between them quickly via the Nether.

The third dimension is The End. This dimension is occupied by only 2 enemies, Endermen and the epic Enderdragon. Getting to The End will require vast amounts of work to collect the materials needed to open a portal (only located in rare strongholds in the world) and the materials you will take with you. Once you enter The End you cannot go back until the dragon has been killed. I wont spoil anything about it, but your going to want your best gear for that fight.

 

I could go on and on about what there is to do in Minecraft, but in the end the simple fact of the matter is that i have played Minecraft at least once a week for more then a year since i got it back in Alpha. You want to kiss your free time goodbye and let your imagination run wild? This is the game for you

On top of that there are 2 special modes in Minecraft, Creative and Hardcore. In creative mode you are given unlimited access to all of the resources in the game, given flight, and made invincible. This mod is for building crazy things that might not be feasible if you had to gather the resources in normal gameplay.

Hardcore is just what it sounds like, its regular Minecraft with a devilish twist. The difficulty which can normally be changed from Peaceful (enemies don’t appear), easy, normal, and hard is locked to Hard, and should you die there is no respawn, and your world and all your all your work in it is deleted. Forever. It can result in epic rage fits, and it make every moment of danger super tense.

Multiplayer

Minecraft is hands down one of the best multiplayer experiences around, because all it means is that you are playing with friends. It is exactly the same as “normal” singleplayer, but with friends. As many friends as your server can handle.

Getting a server set up can be a bit tricky, but there are thousands of servers looking for players, the best place to find them is on the Minecraft Forums.

Modding

One of the greatest things about Notch is that he is completely honest about his opinions of DRM and piracy, and his belief is that once you own a game you own it body and soul. There is no DRM in Minecraft, there is no heavy handed measures to keep you playing the game as he wanted, and as a result of this and from Notch’s own encouragement a modding community has flourished around Minecraft. If you dont know what a Mod is, its simply a fan coded modification to the game. These can range from things like cheats to entire redesigns of the game itself. They are a very cool feature of Minecraft.

Expansions And Updates

Minecraft as of this post is in Beta Version 1.8, however later today it goes into Minecraft Version 1

That version number is something that will continue to rise, Notch and the team will continue to update the game not only with patches, bug fixes, new content, and more, but Notch has said that there may be entire expansions to the game much like The Nether dimension.

Closing Notes

Mineccraft is so different, so fresh, so damn fun, that I cant recommend it enough. It’s a rags to riches story of one guy creating a huge game, and its one of the coolest story’s in the history of the game industry.

Minecraft is 25% off during beta, BUT THAT BETA ENDS TODAY, so if you want to get it on the cheap you need to act fast. The games current price is $21.95 (its odd because its in euros)

Buy It!

The game runs in Java, a toaster can run it so don’t worry about your computer, on the same note if you have a high end machine you can use high res texture packs and special mods to make the game make use of your computers power.

But Minecraft for Mac or PC: http://www.minecraft.net/store

Minecraft Pocket edition is available for iOS and Android just keep in mind its not the same as the main version.

 

Minecraft Review , 10.0 out of 10 based on 1 rating