Monday, November 15, 2010

Minecraft, epic game



Minecraft is a new sensation to hit the indie gaming scene. It’s not a very high-end graphics game, but that isn’t a necessary ingredient to make a game so endlessly entertaining, or crack-like. The amazing person behind Minecraft, yes person, is just one guy. Markus Persson or Notch as he goes by online – developed the whole game by himself. Now sitting at over 100,000 users who have actually purchased the game for 10 euros a pop, he’s made a pretty penny – which is an accomplishment in itself. There’s a reason why, too.

There’s currently a few different “versions” of Minecraft. There’s a Classic and Alpha version and two different modes of play:

True nightmares, trust me. You will hate them.

free-building or “Creative” and Survival. Currently the Alpha only has Survival available, and that’s what I played and will be referring to through-out.

Minecraft is a sandbox-like game where you control one little guy thrown in a huge world where basically everything in your environment is destructible. You can cut down trees, dig a huge cavern into a mountain, divert a river – whatever. You have to use different tools to best interact with the environment around you, and everything you use or make is created through harvesting the raw materials of the land. So if you need an Iron pick-axe, you’re going to have to mine some iron out of a mountain first. So being free to create whatever you want, you can make elaborate mine-shafts, a roller coaster, a huge tower, a castle, whatever you want. But keep in mind, you’re only going to want to be outside during the day-time, as when the night falls – horrible things are out to get you.

Once the sun sets, you have to survive. Building a shelter inside a mountain, a house, or a tower of some sort is the best way to ensure you remain safe. At night Skeletons, Zombies, giant Spiders, all kinds of horrible things are out for your pixelated blood. Each enemy has unique attacks as well: the Skeletons shoot arrows, Zombies are creepy, spiders jump at you, etc. Also, another enemy you will quickly grow accustom to is the Creeper, a green looking weirdo that makes a lit fuse noise when he’s near you. If you don’t keep him at a distance, he’ll go kaboom and destroy large amounts of your home or wherever he was standing, and these fun little buddies will come at you during the sun as well. When the sun raises, the undead burn up (literally) and spiders become docile unless you smack them. It’s all quite fun, as you get an intense sense of urgency as the sun begins to fall behind the horizon line and you know things are out to get you.

"Look Mom, I built a dungeon!"

Whether building is your thing or not, there’s plenty to do. Besides harvesting resources to conquer the land and build yourself some nice things, you can explore to your hearts desire. The world is roughly larger then our own actual Earth, so there’s plenty of things out there to find. Digging into caves, mountains, or even just the ground can yield you stumbling across dungeons with treasure to be found, as well as terrible spawning points breeding out monsters lusting for your death. On top of that – it’s EXTREMELY easy to get lost. Which brings me to my next point…

You WILL get lost. Getting lost is inevitable. As there is no map, you can only use land-masses as visual markers for so long before you either get lost in your own mineshaft or in the wilderness exploring. I’ve tended to build huge towers with torches on large landmasses so if worse comes to worse, I can attempt to catch a glimpse of their light at night-time from another high point. But alas, even with these types of precautions, if you aren’t extremely careful you will get lost. A few things I’ve learned is that when digging caves, just make sure to use torches on side of the wall as you progress and then you can easily just follow them back up on you’re way out. Also, the towers I mentioned early, or leaving torches or other land-marks does help to a certain degree when you’re just exploring a certain area, but as soon as you start to trek out – beware. Getting lost is also part of the fun, because it doesn’t take long to find a vast new and uncharted territory to explore.

Unfortunately death is a bummer in the world of Minecraft, but of course that just all adds to the survivalist nature of the game. When you die, you drop all your goods and they will vanish if you don’t retrieve them quick enough. If you don’t remember where you were or you were lost, you can probably forget about it. This can be bad, but you can build storage – so if you have back up goods in your safe haven, it might not be too terrible a loss. It seems you spawn back at your original spawn-point each time, so that is a nice perk if your home is near your spawn-point.

I picked up this baby a few days ago, and I haven’t been able to put it down since. There are some moments where my gamer rage is boiling inside of me after I die miles and miles away from home and curse words are bound to fly, or when I come across an underground lava vent when digging a cave, or being blown away by a creeper – but these joys are a welcome hardship in a game that gives you a true feeling of being involved in an immerse and large world where you can truly build whatever you want, if you can stay alive that is. A talented guy in the Reddit community already re-created the Pirate Bay Minecraft style. Oh, and did I mention there’s Multiplayer as well? Yeah, I haven’t even touched that yet.

The possibilities truly are endless, especially as Notch continues to update the game vigorously. On top of that, the community is great – There’s so many youtube videos out there already, and their forums are already bursting with community. You can pick it up at their official site, for 10 Euros or roughly $13 USD. Or hell – you don’t even have to buy it, you can try the free version online in your browser using Java, so give it a shot! Also, if you do dive in, this Wiki is a GREAT resource. The game is available for PC, Mac, or Linux even. Amazing! Happy hunting, and remember – Creepers are bastards.

Review taken from :
http://www.coolorama.com



this is a short video tutorial on how to start your game of minecraft

10 comments:

  1. Minecraft... Now that's a great game! ;)

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  2. I HAVE to try it! it looks not so good, but lokks FUN, thats the difference to, for example, crysis 2

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  3. This is so tempting, sigh I wish i have that much time to play it!!!

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  4. And another blogger will soon be lost to the digital-crack known as Minecraft! Nice knowing you, Mitopir!

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  5. This game proves that graphics are just optional..if the gameplay is just epic ;D

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