From a glance, Minecraft doesn’t look like a game that will give you much joy in playing. I know, I made this assumption when everyone else in my college class was playing it and still didn’t want to play it nevertheless, I started playing it and soon realised what the big deal was about. Straight off, anyone can see that no amazing graphics are being used in Minecraft, but who says good graphics means equally good gameplay? Minecraft really does prove your initial impressions wrong!

In Minecraft you can go one of two ways in the game, play in a survival mode or play in creative mode.  Each has been improved vastly in the latest updates.

In a survival map, the player is expected to well, survive and it delivers this in Minecraft. Start a new game and you’re spawned in the middle of this area filled with various blocks. What do you do? Well with the lack of tutorials here on how to go about it, I would suggest going to the likes of YouTube to gain some knowledge. Many people have uploaded videos such as ‘How to survive your first night on Minecraft’ and it wouldn’t be a bad idea to check them out before delving into the game. After punching a few tress (yes, this is about the only game I have played that your character is that strong, he /she can punch through trees!) , you can start creating a workbench and from that work bench to craft some tools to aid in your survival. Collect up enough wood to create a small house to survive the night in and you’re all ready to face the night, and believe me, I wouldn’t advice sleeping under the stars!

With mobs running around on the world, there is no reason that you would want to be going outside unless you’re a madman. Build a bed out of some wood and wool gathered from sheep (yes you’re punching them to!) and you can skip the night providing you’ve set up a secure home for yourself, unless like me, you feel as if you can take on anything. Zombies, skeletons with bow and arrows and a little green fella called Mr Creeper can crop up from anywhere, Mr Creeper being known for his ninja skills. Minecraft’s creepers were well known for their destructive nature. Get too close to them for too long and they have a tendency to be suicidal and explode, so just don’t be too close to any buildings or statues you’re making. People that have already played Minecraft will understand the devastation Mr Creeper can cause when he’s on a mission. After the 1.8 update that was released, a new mob has been included, Endermen so make some room for some new nightmares. The creator of Minecraft , Markus ‘Notch’ Persson has made these  guys have the ability to teleport towards you if you look directly at them.

Once you’ve gotten a half decent house built up for yourself, the only thing limiting your fun is your imagination. I know myself I love going into cave systems and finding what resources I can dig up although if you do plan doing this, bring a couple sign posts with you to save yourself getting too lost! The world on Minecraft seems endless and can in its own right be a beautiful, albeit blocky (no pun intended – honest!) game.

Experience points has been a new addition to Minecraft however, doesn’t have much use so far until new updates come out. It’s been proposed that it could enable the player to purchase more health hearts and increased jumping distance. It seems that this is going to be put to more use when the later updates come out that include the new adventure mode that is proposed. I know from experience of merely discussing Minecraft with friends and in class at college that some people don’t see the point of Minecraft and get bored of it easily. I think the Adventure mode could perhaps swing more people into having a second go of the game, not like Mojang have had any problems gaining fans of the game as it stands now even before a proper release of the game.

Minecraft also offers a creative mode where you’re also dropped in a world however this time you have every type of block offered to you with endless supply. This is an improvement from previous updates as it saved mining for the resources yourself or using a program to basically hack into the game and give you whatever blocks you desired. Not the best when you were constantly going in and out of your game just to get more blocks. Obviously in this mode, people have created such things as massive castles, others have perhaps tried creating a maze and the odd artistic person has made pixel art drawings in the sky.  Safe to say I myself have seen some extraordinary projects being done on Minecraft, one being a group of people recreating the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry out of the famous Harry Potter books/movies.  Honestly however far your imagination can take you, the better it will be. (See the picture for what I quickly put together!)

With a lot still to be implemented for this game, it’s no wonder that everyone is waiting for some more features to get their hands on. As a game that hasn’t even been officially released, it has become extremely popular and you can see why straight away. Even with the low graphics it soon becomes really addictive whichever mode you play on. With Notch coming up with more devious plans for the game (only recently noticed there is a hardcore mode being added into the game where when you die, that’s it – game over.) which is only making the final product looking as if it’s just going to blow everyone’s minds.

This review is up to date with the current 1.8 update that has been released for the beta version of Minecraft. Obviously with new updates being released, some of the information mentioned above will become redundant.