Brightside Review 2: Minecraft

Minecraft Review

So James is in Denmark, and I have no idea of the schedules for Brightside Reviews, though I have a feeling we do them on Saturdays and Sundays. I would be on my way to Siesta Key then, so I'm just going to do it now before I leave. This Brightside Review will be reviewing the game, Minecraft.

So this game is pretty much as James said, Legos for adults. Though I don't like that description, which makes the game sound childish. One of my favorite reviews of the games is, and I quote, "This is a Sandbox game where you can build a giant sandbox, build a life size pyramid in that sandbox, tear the pyramid down with TNT, melt the sand into glass, rebuild the pyramid out of glass, blow it up with TNT, all while riding a pig." That pretty much sums up the game.

So I like to play this game in my free time, as it is fun, and it never gets old. It has two versions, Classic and Survival. The creator of minecraft, dubbed "Notch", states that he and his developing company, Mojang Specifications, may remove Classic Minecraft all together. The Classic version, which is completely free, is a freebuild type of game, where the player has unlimited types of blocks, such as dirt, sand, gravel, wood, all that basic stuff.

(Keep in mind, this game is a retro style First Person game, though the world is made out of blocks, though the graphics are pretty vivid still, despite the game being made up of squares, though 3D. If you want to try out the free version, go here.)

The survival version is much more fun, and is in its Beta testing phase. As of now, it is about 20$, and can only be purchased over the internet with a paypal, as there is no physical version of the game currently. This version is a randomly generated map, roughly 8 times the surface of the earth. It isn't all loaded at once, the farther the player goes, the larger the save file becomes of the game. In survival, you start with no resources, and have to gather wood, dirt, and any other resources from the blocks around you. You create tools from these resources, lowest class of tools being constructed of wood, and the highest of diamond. The game has day and night cycles, and at night, at hell breaks loose. Zombies, skeletons, giant spiders, and a nasty enemy called Creepers spawn in the dark. Creepers are particularly nasty, as they are completely silent, and explode if they get close enought to you. In the day, when the zombies and skeletons burn, the spiders are passive, and the creepers despawn eventually. If you want to see gameplay and tutorials of the game, I strongly suggest searching Minecraft Let's Play on Youtube. The game has really exploded lately, with over a million accounts in the last 6 months. THere is a wide range of tutorials and gameplay, from singleplayer to multiplayer.

The game is still in its testing phases, so the multiplayer is in a buggy stage, though it does exist. You have to know the specific IP address of the server your connecting too, in order to get on the server. Some server administrators create reservation list, known as whitelists. They only allow people on the list into the server.

Some players have created beautiful structures, other homely survival caves, and some have created renditions of Music, namely, Portal:Still Alive, one of the greatest songs of all time. The game has a block, called a noteblock, which depending on the surface it is placed on, can be tuned to play certain notes. There is a circuitry/electricity system, called redstone, which players use to power complicated machinery, or a music playing instrument. some players have set up a pressure pad system, where the pressure pads correspond with certain notes, to make a giant walk-along piano.

All in all, i suggest buying this game, as I haven't even gotten close to explaining the whole game, and it holds endless possibilites. When you think you have plenty of supplies to survive, you can move out of your house and start building decorational stuff, for example, right now I am working on building a castle. When your done building all of these things, you can start from scratch, and generate a new world. The game is very Mod-friendly, and has its own mod forum. I recently discovered a mod which adds new animals in the game, such as horses, that even including breeding to create new horses, like pegasus and unicorns. Sometimes, even a Pegasus/unicorn/packhorse! Once I got bored of that, I found another mod that added humans to the game, including factions, and even an AI, that once in a while yells something on the chat, such as "Taste my blade, Samurai!" or, "You are very unfortunate, Skeleton!" Pay the measly 20$, it's worth it.

-D