Minecraft

Explore, gather and fight your way through a massive, cubey world

Release: November 18, 2011 (Linux, Mac and PC)
                May 9, 2012 (Xbox 360)

                October 7, 2011 (Android)

                November 17, 2011 (iOS)

                TBA (Xbox One)

By Ian Coppock

In case it hasn't yet become apparent, I love narratives. I love strong characters, I love interesting locations and I love a beginning, climax and ending. Every so often, though, I'm willing to completely throw all of that out the window if the alternative is enticing enough. Games with weak narratives are in no way enticing, but some games have such remarkable strength in other areas of game development as to cause me to forsake narrative entirely. Minecraft, perhaps the most popular indie game ever made, is one such title.

The Gameplay

Wait, what the hell did you just do, Ian? Where's the "Story" header? Well, truth be told, Minecraft has no story. It has no spoken dialogue, no written narrative, nothing. And yet, each Minecraft experience is one-of-a-kind. Players assume the role of a blocky, nameless man, and are immediately dropped into one of thousands of massive worlds in which every object, animal and even the sun are rendered as cubes. 

The 8-bit-ness of Minecraft's worlds adds a retro element to the whole thing, but they are quite beautiful.

From here, the player is free to do whatever the hell he or she desires. "Primary objective" becomes "primary subjective". The idea behind Minecraft is the freedom to build a dwelling or just be a nomad. Most materials can be gathered when the player strikes them, allowing the player to pick up blocks of dirt, oak wood, and other substances. Some stuff, like stone, can only be gathered using tools. 

Once you have your materials, you can stack them atop each other to make a structure. You can also use a workbench to build everything from swords to armor to pickaxes.Your character has a bar of hearts and hunger to manage, meaning that you must hunt animals or gather plants. Most worlds have various regions from which resources are more or less available, such as forests, mountains and deserts. A few newer maps feature jungles.

Even if you take a tree down bottom-up, the rest will float in mid-air. Minecraft  ignores gravity.

I imagine that my first experience with Minecraft is pretty typical of most everyone's. I was dumped into a friendly-looking forest, minus a lava pit off to my left, and immediately set out to build myself a home and life. My brother Grayson, a Minecraft master, gawked when I found a cluster of stone-and-wood houses, an apparently rare find. With no one home, I saw fit to building passageways between all the houses to make myself a super-fortress.

After hunting a few pigs to subside my hunger meter, and cooking the pork chops in my furnace, I decided to go to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night to find a giant spider attacking me! AAAAAAAH!!!

OH GOD KILL IT KILL IT!!!!!

"Ian, you two-faced bastard!" I can hear some of you cry out. "You enticed us with a nice-looking game and it's actually another one of your disgusting horror fests! Ew!"

That was the same line of thought I was about to assault my brother with, but don't worry. Creepies and nasties only come out at night, after the sunset. My brother even told me beforehand to be careful, so I guess that makes me a dumbass. In either case, as long as you close your doors and put down some torches, you're fine. The only enemy you have to watch out for all the time is the Creeper, a totally silent zombie thing that will explode if it gets close enough, taking out your internal organs and a chunk of the landscape. They're pretty rare in the daytime, though.

Creepers have become one of the most notorious foes in all of gamedom.

If your character has a bed, you can sleep 'till dawn. From there, I spent my time gathering resources and building my superhouse. Minecraft steals the hearts of the creative. You can build weapons and tools, but you can also bake cakes, make candles and paint paintings. You can construct furniture and plant crops. I soon had a sprawling compound complete with a private library, banqueting hall, greenhouse and kickass writer's tower.

If you're feeling like creating a true colossus, Minecraft features Creative Mode, in which your character is invincible, can fly, and has access to unlimited amounts of every resource in the game. It's fun to build gigantic citadels and palaces in this mode, but part of the satisfaction I get out of constructing things is putting time and effort into gathering the materials for them. You also can't get achievements in Creative Mode, which... sorry, I forgot why that's a bad thing.

Minecraft's creative mode has allowed for some of the most breathtaking creations in all of game art, including this castle town.

So yeah, Minecraft kicks ass. It provides an acutely personal experience, being alone in this gigantic world of resources, free to do what you wish and fend off monsters. You can adventure across the land or even underground, traverse the oceans in a ship or tunnels in a mine cart. You can build a lakeside shack or have your own private forest. To sum up, Minecraft is only limited by your imagination.

The Artwork

Some people have called Minecraft's artwork boring and simplistic, but I think it's quite vibrant. The 8-bit style hearkens back to older games, but it also gives the world an immersive feel.

You can get lost in this picture if you stare at it long enough.

The artwork also reflects the game's creative possibilities. You can explore dozens of randomly assorted environments in questing for your character's livelihood. Your weapons and items are similarly 8-bit in appearance.

My first weapon, a sword! Let's go hit some dirt with it :D

The game has quiet, contemplative music that makes for quite nice background noise when you're building your home or exploring the terrain. I'm told that the PC version has more music and environments, as is often the case with games in general.

You can't look at that and not be at least a little excited.

Should I get it?

Absolutely. I cannot recommend this game highly enough. It has no skill or experience requirements and is extremely user-friendly, so those of you out there who just want to make a neat house are just as welcome as the veteran CoD boys. If you do get this game, I recommend getting it over the Xbox version for the same reason I recommend PC games over console games in general: mods. People have modded Minecraft to include new weapons and features, and many of these downloads are free. One person even made a mod featuring Weeping Angels from BBC's Doctor Who sci-fi series.

Don't blink!

Most of these mods are free. The game itself is like $15. No narrative? No problem. Minecraft excels so much in what it attempts to accomplish that I waive its narrativeless-ness entirely. GET THIS GAME :D

This Friday we're going back into heavy narratives with an interesting take on history, and in locations not usually visited by games. Friday's game features a war within a war, and what you're willing to do to bring peace to all.