Minecraft

The Good

• Inexpensive
• Building is fun and intuitive
• Build your own world from scratch
• Randomly generated games have never been this scary
• Most fun you'll ever have exploring a world
• Full of surprises
• Build inventive contraptions and rollercoasters using simple tools
• Charming visual style
• Dying in this game will hurt a lot. Especially when it involves lava and all your stuff gets melted. But that makes the game all the more exciting

**The Bad**

• Multiplayer not yet working properly at time of review
• Some grinds just take too long (stocking up on gunpowder, mining obsidian)
• The Nether's loot isn't valuable enough to make venturing there worthwhile
• Encountering certain resources is pure chance. It would be nice if it were possible to scan for the existence of certain resources within a certain proximity

**The Bottom Line**
When at first I saw a short video of Minecraft, I thought it looked quaint and slightly interesting but dismissed and forgot about it. Then I met an old acquaintance who mentioned he was playing it and was totally addicted. So I decided to check it out. So, first I booted up Minecraft Classic with some friends on our own private server. The game only lets you build but it proved rather addictive and for a couple days we were all hooked on the experience. I decided to make the big leap and make the investment of 10 Euros for the full version (in alpha state at the time). I'm glad I did, because this is hands-down the best game of 2010. So I started on the beach of a deserted island. Although? Not quite deserted. To my amazement I see pigs, chickens, sheep and cows roaming the land. After some initial experimentation I start to understand that to build something in this game the materials must first be harvested. After finding a suitable location at the shoreline on the foot of a mountain I build my first wooden shack out of planks I make from trees I cut down. Before it's properly finished night falls however and I'm surprised for the second time. Zombies and skeleton archers besiege my shack. Scared shit-less I block the doors and windows with mud and wait for dawn while the moans of zombies are heard through the walls. And this is where I got hooked on Minecraft Most of the time in Minecraft I spend exploring. Usually mapping huge subterranean cavern structures, on the lookout for Creepers while prospecting for precious ores, but also sailing in my little boat along the coasts of thousands of islands in search for clay deposits. It might not sound as much fun but I assure you it's awesome. Minecraft has no levels or experience points. Rewards in this game are purely in the form of resources and what resources allow the player to do. Some resources (such as clay) don't even serve a real purpose other than the ability to build buildings out of red bricks instead of wood, stone or mud. But you just have to have. I know I do! I love RPGs, but in this game I didn't miss levels and experience at all. It's already incredibly rewarding to find a new diamond vein, because it'll allow you to construct more durable tools or armor. Building things consists of placing blocks which happens instantly (unlike removing blocks which takes a variable amount of time depending on the tools and material hardness). You can basically build anything you can think of as long as it consists of square blocks; but it doesn't end there! Aside from static buildings, the player can also build contraptions and railway systems. using a material called redstone the player can place wiring between pressure plates, railway switches, levers, buttons, doors, lights, TNT. This can be used to build traps for monsters (how about a block of TNT hooked up to a pressure plate?) or create automated train systems. With the most recent major update it is now also possible to visit the Nether which is scary as hell. Huge monsters will continuously scream in tormented childish voices and there's lava and fire everywhere. Interesting about the Nether is that every step you take corresponds to many more steps in the real world, so that this alternate dimension can be used as a sort of means for fast-travel. But other than that I felt that the whole Nether-world added little to the game. Its sound effects are nerve-wrecking and thus I don't go there for my pleasure, and the spoils to be gained there are rather mediocre, although this will likely be fixed by the next update. The graphics are rather simple, but I find them very charming. There's unofficial "high-res" texture packs for download, but frankly I think they all make the game look uglier. Why would I want a photo of the actual moon to replace my perfectly square moon? The engine also runs surprisingly fast. Sound in the game is not very remarkable. Most of the effects don't get old, except the Ghast's sound effects in the Nether. But none of the effects stand out as good either. The sporadic music is nice and can be very haunting. It always sets in when you least expect it. What also happens when you least expect it is that creepers sneak up on you and explode in your face just after you found some invaluable diamonds. "Gosh, I didn't know that there was a lava stream just below the floor." You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll look at marvelous sunsets from the most exotic locations. You'll cower in fear and entomb yourself just to avoid the overwhelming odds. You'll sail the seven seas. Throw snowballs. Ride pigs. Journey to the centre of the world. All the while wondering how a game so simple in its premises can be that much fun. Honestly, I haven't had this much fun in a game in years. I had just started Mass Effect 2 when I found out about this game and that game has been collecting dust ever since.

The Good
The game is currently in its Beta, so it still receives constant updates which I, as a single-player fan, really like. I hear the people who play online have frequent problems with the updates, but personally I like it that a game I bought for less than fifteen euros has received at least thirty euros worth of content since. One recent update gave us pets and another one introduced a bed that allows you to skip the night, those two really changed the game a lot and made it fresh enough for me to play it again.

I prefer it when a game takes just a few mechanics and makes sure those have a lot of depth then when a game has many different mechanics that are very shallow. In Minecraft you are always either building, crafting or breaking stuff and it works fine. I especially like the crafting because it's fun to figure out the right combinations and create new an interesting items like paintings or ladders. Mining is also a lot of fun once you get deep enough to find the good stuff like gold and diamond.

The game has a lot of character thanks to the graphics it uses and the way they present everything, the most popular part of the game is probably the Creepers which became an internet meme thanks to their creative design. It actually reminds me a lot of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the world is very beautiful and calm (even more so now that we have rain and such) while everything beneath the ground is dark and filled with monsters, I like that balance a lot.

I have seen some beautiful things in this game that were built by humans like an on-scale copy of Minas Tirith that we created on our own server, complete with the rings and everything. I have also seen cathedrals, cities, skyscrapers and pyramids just to give you an idea of what is possible with this game. I will always support creativity and this game is a great tool to realize any ideas you might have and if you're not the creative type you can still use this game as a wonderful survival-simulation.

The Bad
The combat is probably the worst part of this game, if you're unarmed you have a much better chance at survival if you just run away and most weapons aren't really any better. The only weapon that was really useful was the bow because it was a ranged weapon, which meant I didn't have to worry about the awful hit detection. Another problem is that if one enemy is around that means there are more around because the bastards always spawn really close to each other, but always so that the second one will show up in your back.

I really hate this game when it's dark because it was incredibly boring, during the night you are pretty much stuck in your home with not much to do. You can craft a few items and put some stuff in your chests, but that won't last you the seven minutes you are required to stay in there. You can also go underground and mine for more materials, but that is rather boring if you're just going after stone, plus you won't know when it's day again. The new bed item fixes that, but you have a big chance that something will attack you while you're asleep.

It's very tempting to just look everything up on a Wikia site and ruin the idea, I fell for this myself and I haven't really liked this game that much since. You can pretty much go to the internet and look up a whole list of items you can craft and how to do that, you can also look up where to find the resources required to craft them and the best ways to reach those. It's not really the game's fault as much as it is the fault of the players, but it could be prevented by giving us some more directions and suggestions.

The Bottom Line
Minecraft is a very fun and addictive game which allows you to create some of the most amazing structures ever built by human hands or just mess around and throw snowballs at chickens. There are some flaws though and a smoother combat would fix the worst ones, but if you turn the zombies off, that could help as well (if you are willing to remove your only enemies).

There is no better way to say this: Just try Minecraft sometime and see for yourself. You do have to give it an hour or so to really kick in, but once you start to understand the basics of the game, you will be hooked for months to come.

The Good
I would choose Minecraft all the time. This game gives you the endless canvas for your creativity. You can do whatever you want there. It scratches this "creator" urge you have from time to time. This is why it has "Creative mode". Mods are godsend. With recently published Create: Aeronautics this game is eternal. Speaking of mods, if you really could play only one game until the end of time, with Minecraft and its mods you could play all of the games. It has souls like combat mods, Factorio-like automatizations, zombie-shooter guns and enemies, cozy-stardew-valley vibe farming, whatever your mind can imagine - exists in Minecraft mod form.

The Bad
Let's talk vanilla now, shall we? Horrendous optimization after 1.18. The world became 2 times larger, but not Java's garbage collector. To play this game, if you want to build big enormous structures, or mob farms, you either need to download an optimization mod like Optifine (pre-1.12) or Sodium (after 1.14), or learn what is java garbage collector, what are java arguments, and so on. It is not a requirement to play this game, but if you have not the very good PC or you play on laptop, it is definitely a plus if you know all of this.

The other thing is the vision of Minecraft Mojang has (as writing of writing in 2026). They for sure have one, but does it align with the player's? Of course, if you play modded, you do not care, but if you are purist, you would question some of the company's decisions lately.

The Bottom Line
Amazing game, buy it. If you like creativity, or just an adventure with your friends, you will have a great time.