Minecraft (BETA) Review

           

     
                Minecraft is a open sandbox game with no goal and no end.  The worlds of Minecraft are randomly generated and are endless (They generate as you go).  Each level has a unique "seed" which can be used to generate the same world twice (Or share with the community).   There is no goal for the game.  Nothing happens when you die; you just respawn.  The game is dictated by the never ending day/night cycle.  During the day the sun shines down on your world (Obviously) until the end of the day when the sun goes down and is replaced by the moon (Obviously).  In the darkness malevolent monsters spawn: Zombies, Spiders, Creepers and skeletons.  The closest resemblance of a 'goal' this game has is to survive the night and even then some people will get satisfaction out of watching themselves be brutally ravaged by spiders and skeletons.

Here is an example of a randomly generated world (In the rain).  The wooden platform I am on is my house, something I made (Not randomly generated).  

       You start the game with nothing.  Some people will spawn in the middle of a desert while others will spawn in the middle of the forest, some may even be in a cave.  Where you spawn can either increase difficulty or make the first few days a breeze.  Like I mentioned above, there is no real goal in the game.  When you first spawn you can wander off exploring or drown yourself, but let's assume you want to survive the night.  Your first goal will be to make a workbench.  To do that you need logs.  You punch a block in the tree to acquire wooden logs.  The logs are placed in the crafting square to create planks.  The wooden planks can be used in your crafting table to create a workbench.  (Shown just below)

    The crafting table is your key to the game.  It can be used to create everything you need to survive.  Now you can use this to create the tools you will need (or want): the pickax, the ax, the hoe, the shovel and the sword.  You'll want to gather coal to create torches (The light emitted from the torches prevents monsters ("Mobs") from spawning where they cover) and more wood or stone to create a shelter.  I won't ruin everything for you (That's YouTube's job).  This is what I constructed after a day's work (Actually it was two game days, but you get the idea).

    Now that you have a basic place to stay during the night, you can expand your house, search for resources in the caves (likely) found below, start a farm, build a monument, create a city, construct a death trap for mobs or just explore the world.


   Now Minecraft is still in 'Beta' mode (The full game isn't released yet).  Notch (The designer of the game) releases updates about every month or so.  The updates vary from entirely new worlds (The Nether, a fiery lava land) to new colors of wool that you'll find on your sheep to fixes for the bugs and glitches these updates create.  The game has a multi-player mode.  Multi-player in Minecraft is much like single player except there are more people.  Multiplayer allows you to build stuff or go on adventures with your friends. I find that multiplayer (Like in a lot of cases) is much more fun than single player.   Multiplayer has "Give codes" (/give x y).  You type these into the chat to receive items.  Some people consider this cheating while others consider it saving time (Who is really going to go and get 200 cobblestone just to patch up a hole in the wall?).

        This is a creeper.  He is your new worst enemy.  This is why you need a shelter at night.  This is why you don't go outside during the night until you have you're house secure (And even then it's dangerous).

Thankfully he didn't get anything important.

         Fire is your other worst enemy.  Be very careful when using lava near wood.  Someone (We still don't know who) made a mistake and ended up burning down our entire cave.

And below (here) is a cut-through of our house (After we repaired the damage).

     

        There are different animals: wolves (Which can be tamed), sheep (wool), cows (Leather), pigs (Meat), and chickens for feathers.  If you search deep enough you will find squids living under the ocean.  The squids provide ink sacs (For dying things).  Dirt, stone, cobblestone, sand, sandstone, gravel, the occasional clay block, ice-block, obsidian and the rare moss-stone are the major blocks for building with.  There are a few man-made blocks such as the "brick".  

     Redstone is basically the Minecraft-equivalent of wires or electricity.  Redstone can be used to make doors open by themselves or to make floors fall, dropping the victim into a fatal pit.  Redstone can be used to create things as complicated as clocks or working rail-systems that transport you through your mines.  Redstone is fairly complicated to use.

      The game's graphics are obviously very 'different'.  Most modern games have crystal clear shimmering graphics that want top pop out of the screen.  Minecraft looks like a game from 10 years ago.  The game is mainly made by one guy (Notch).  While the graphics aren't impressive at all they somehow manage to be fun to look at.   Taking a few steps back and looking at your creations is one of the most satisfying things I've ever done in a video game.  

   It should also be mentioned that the game is very light on the computer.  It has minimal system requirements and doesn't even require a full installation as the game runs from a Java platform. 

     Water and lava work in strange ways.  They use a source block which sends out lava/water in all possible directions.  Gardens are fun to make and maintain.  I still remember the very first tree-garden I ever made.  This, of course, was before I realized that trees don't need water to grow (In this game). 

This isn't mine but how I wish it was. 

        In the end, Minecraft's open world and sandbox-ness are its own downfall.  Like I said before, the world gets bigger as you go to knew areas.  After you have played the game for a few hours (Or days) this stops being "More new exciting places to explore" and becomes "Another cave to waste torches on and die in just trying to find supplies I need to make my hotel no one will use" or "Another mountain to cross before the ocean".   Notch has improved the game a lot in the last six months by adding new biomes to the game (New terrains).  The easily noticeable ones are "Ocean", "Island", "Desert", "Tundra/Snow", "Forest", "Swamp" and "grassy plains".  

       Once you've built a few nice mansions or a long cart track or a huge hotel you start to realize "No one's ever going to use this stuff" and the game quickly becomes much less entertaining.  If you can't make it with 4x4 blocks then (With the exception of Redstone) you can't make it.  Things like cart-tracks (rails) take large amounts of resources (Six iron bars for 16 rails).  Gathering resources can be very time consuming and fun-killing.  

       

      Much like in Garry's Mod there will always be people saying "The game is only limited by your own creativity" but let's be honest here; every game gets boring eventually.  Creating something as big as Rapture (From Bioshock) are possible but take literally hundreds of hours and large groups of people.  You can't just sit down and create a city, it takes tons of time.  Layer after layer of block being placed for only a few moments of satisfaction before realizing that it's just a video game.

Once again, this is not my creation.  I'm not that good of an architect.

   Replay-ability: 8.5/10

   Notch is constantly adding new things to the game and you will always want to come back and make something even if it isn't as big and shinny as the castle you made during the first few days of playing.  

    Gameplay: 8.5/10

    Surviving the first night on a new level is always an amazing experience.  Creating structures and exploring exciting new lands is very entertaining.  Cave exploration is entertaining.  The only thing keeping this from getting a higher score is the monotony of it all; the mining through 100s of blocks just to find diamond or iron.  Multiplayer is amazing.  

    Sound:  8/10

    C418 has created a very interesting ambient set of tracks for this game.  Music isn't always playing; it sort of randomly goes on and off; but when it is you can really appreciate the atmospheric beauty of it all.  The soundtracks make you feel very alone in the (Minecraft) world.  The other sounds; The first time you hear water after being in a cave for an hour, the sound of yourself burning in lava after opening the wrong tunnel; are all well done.  

      Features/Other: 7.5/10

      Multiplayer is always a blast.  Custom servers are even better (Because of mods that dramatically change the game).  The world "seed" is helpful but doesn't make any huge changes.  User made texture packs can give the game a whole new look, you can change the difficulty (To remove monsters) and there are tons of fan-made custom maps on fan-forums (Some of them are amazing).

    Graphics: 6/10

    The low point of the game.  I really don't know what to say.  Would the game be as amazing if the graphics were crystal clear?  Maybe not.  Maybe it is the dull graphics that keep you focused on the actual game rather than the shimmering water.  But really, they're not that bad.  When you stand right up next to something (Cobblestone) it is almost painful to look at, but when you take a step back everything looks nice.  

     Overall: 

     On one hand I feel like I'm overrating this; giving an indie-game made by one person a near-perfect score; while on the other hand I feel confident about this score.  Minecraft is available for about $20, a great price for any game and a ridiculous price for a game containing this many hours of entertainment.  A ticket to a Rush concert is $80-$160, a full priced video game is $60, a new album on iTunes is $10, a new album is $12 at a store, a hard back book is $10-$25.  I believe that this game is an amazing deal.  

    9/10

   I have mentioned this several times, but the game isn't in it's full release yet; more stuff will be added. I may come back and change my score for the better or the worse.