Minecraft

So I finally got around to playing this. I ended up starting in 1.3, and finishing in the 1.4.2 update. I would definitely recommend picking up a copy, even thought it's a $24. The amount of time I've sunk into this game more than makes up for the cost.

Minecraft is a single or multiplayer world building and exploring game. If you've played Terreria, it's the 3D predecessor to that, with more focus on building and less variety of weapons.

The story is as vague as they came make it. They start you off and you begin by punching a tree, and building wooden tools. Then working up to stone tools, then iron, then... and finally diamond. And lots of digging between tiers.

The controls are quite straight-forward, with the normal WASD for movement and mouse looking. Left click hits the object in front of you with what's in your hand, and the right click either activates an interact-able item, puts a block down, or uses a special action on your item.

The graphics are quite simplistic and extremely blocky, but it suits the game. You can set your render distance and a few other options, which is a nice choice to have. You can also load other texture packs, but I didn't try any of them out.

The sound affects are fine. The only annoying thing I will note is that zombie grunts/gargle sounds are audible through walls, so you will hear these often as you dig your tunnels to the center of the world.

The one thing I really liked is that when you craft items, you literally put together a picture of how you would put the item together. Thing about drawing a basic pick in a 3x3 grid, and that's exactly how you build a pick. So simple, I don't know why it took me so long to pick it up. I think it must be because most of the newer games just go with the approach of you can create a pick if you have the mats, with no interaction/assembly needed. Also, the amount of logic and mechanisms you can create in the game is really awesome. I spent a lot of time just tinkering with things and seeing how they work.

The few things I didn't like, made sense. Always dealing with hunger means you need to setup a means for feeding yourself, eg: making cookies from wheat and cocoa beans or feeding wheat to cows, and cooking beef. You could also combine mushrooms to make soup. See

Minecraft_Wiki for any crafting questions; this site is invaluable.

The "last boss fight" was complete BS, and I have no idea how anyone does this without abusing the system (tiny incremental progress -> save and quit, backup save -> continue -> dies instantly -> restore backup save, load game -> try again).

Now I must admit that I did cheat a bit. I never cheated to bypass content or get a tech advancement I didn't deserve. I cheated in the following ways:

1. I spawned two cows with INVedit, because I mistakingly slaughtered all cows within a 100m radius of my base. This was before I realized you could raise cows with wheat.
2. I gave my tools some enchantments with INVedit when I couldn't figure out how the darn enchantment system worked. I built 12 bookshelves near my enchanting table, but couldn't get anything above a level 8 enchantment. BTW, here's a great YouTube video for explaining how it works. So yes, I did figure it out eventually.
3. I gave myself some items for traversing the map quicker, to get a quick view of my surrounding with INVedit
4. After spending an hour looking for my second diamond vein, I just gave up and tool a peak at the world map with Minutor.