Minecraft: A Critique

Just because I don't like Minecraft, know this: I am not a hater, OK? From what I've seen, a lot of the Minecraft community is awful and that's a reason why I don't like this game. It's taken too seriously, despite being nothing more than a generic sandbox game with RP/Survival elements. Again, I'm not spreading hatred, but I am criticizing the game.

I didn't know that people actually payed monthly for this, when you could get just as much enjoyment out of the BETA (OK, so there's no multiplayer). In terms of entertainment, I see very little besides building fortresses which only get blown up by green genitals hissing at you, and other childrens' drawings. Yes, this is a thing that I'd only play if I had nothing else to do. Don't get me wrong, I have played it and occassionaly enjoyed it, but that was when I didn't have the internet to play Team Fortress 2, or my Playstation 2 with the games that were good until the year 2000 came along. It's enjoyable because you can do almost anything you want on it - only recently have we been given the ability to fly (NOCLIP, to all the Source gamers out there), so now we have total domination of our little pixilated world.

In Minecraft, there really is no objective if you were expecting one. If you were, then it's only to survive against hordes of enemies which attack at night. It sounds epic, doesn't it? But given the lack of weapons and armor, not to mention the time you have to craft them, you're not going to see it like that for very long. I play for the architectual side of the game - I like to flood caves, discover lava pools and make my own fortress of beauty, or castle of death. I'm not the huge Indiana Jones type with this game - exploring dark and dingy mines to find ore of all types - as long as I have an iron pickaxe and shovel, I'm ready to build, build, build!

If you hoped to create a 24,000 foot long statue of yourself, then your dreams will ultimately shattered like a gold breastplate. Unless you've done this kind of construction before (I doubt it's possible on Halo due to the lack of materials, and Garry's Mod for its awkwardness), you're going to experience many troubles trying to create an eyesore. It looks easy, to make a Death Star wholly out of cubes, but it's rock-hard and takes months of practice. I'm not saying this is negative, but if you're paying for something and have high hopes, then you've wasted a lot of money. My advice? Practice in BETA mode before you practice swiping your credit card.

Special isn't the word I'd use commonly with Minecraft, as we've done this before in Indie games (XBOX 360), on flash games, in Garry's Mod and in Halo Forge mode. What with Terraria being Minecraft's main competitor, it's becoming hard to say if Terrerria is generic, or are they both? I wouldn't say there's much special about Minecraft as it's mainly overrated - breaking blocks and stacking blocks, killing the odd zombie and making the odd stream isn't a TL;DR of this game. That's the whole thing.

It's not unique, but it's the first game that comes to your head when you're on the subject of sandbox building games. It's nice and simple, but it takes a lot of time investment if you'e planning on making big things or getting the highest tier inventions and gear.

In Roleplay terms, this game offers little other than explorer, hunter, demon hunter, survivor and tinkerer. While there's few flaws in the roles you have, there's just few RP oppurtunities all together. At least they have the basic grasp of what a Fantasy MMORPG is.

From mine-carts to weapons, or doors to wall-torches - the list is near-endless. Not to mention the fact that people make their own ideas, submit them or (if they have the experience or just want to experiment) make their own mods. There's a lot of wacky ideas, and the crafting can be awkward, especially at the beginning. Oh, not the beginning.

Once you make your world, you start of somewhere randomly. First, you've got to punch down some trees for their wood. You turn the wood into planks. You then turn the planks into a workbench. Now, get some more wood, turn that into planks and (using the workbench) create an axe, a shovel and a pickaxe - these're the three tools you're going to need. Next to gold, wood is the weakest material for equipment so it's durability will be low. Mine the stone so you can make your first stone pickaxe, so you can move onto the next material. It is like this through the rest of the game until the final ore, Obidium.

It makes you wonder, just by looking at that, how this game can possibly be addictive and worth paying for. But as you go through the game, sticking pigs and building homes, you begin to get a feel for it. You become immersed in the game and see at as your home away from home. It's your world, you can do whatever you like. If you go wrong, you can start from scratch elsewhere, or make amendments.

Fight or die trying - that is the Minecraft Combat Code (MCCC). There's several difficulties, and depending on which one you have, you will either die bravely or die in a puddle of humiliation and guilt. There's no holding out until the chopper arrives, there's no boat to escape on - the moment it turns to night, you'd better hope that your underground lair is full of light and there's no Creepers about, otherwise you've got a long and busy night.

Throughout Minecraft, there'll be several threats or procedures to be carried out. Be this for holding off swarms of the undead, or merely killing for food, chances are you'll need to fight. Your pickaxe is quite the weapon, if you're hitting pigs and cows, but a better choice would be the sword or the bow and arrows. No matter how much health you have, it's always best to have some armor too so be sure to get that and equip it. It's also pretty fancy stuff to wear, but don't get too cocky - remember that, just like real life, Gold is a very weak metal and breaks easily. I think despite all the unrealistic attributes and sometimes imaginative concepts, this one has to be one that the developers thought would work. No, it doesn't work. It just annoys me.

I say this is a critique and the game's horrible, but looking through this, it summoned mental images of how much fun I had making my dark castle of doom and destruction. I won't say it's the worst game of all time, but I won't say it's the best thing that's ever happened to me. Let's be honest, ladies and gentlemen - it has a great deal of things we don't like, and like Team Fortress 2, it's being filled with more crap than Vanilla. It doesn't need major overhauls or stuff adding. It's like buying a burger, and telling the guy behind the counter, "say, this is real good". At that moment, he snatches it off you, defecates on it and hands it back to you saying, "no complaint - it's a free update".

Minecraft is overrated and not enough people are honest about how mind-numbingly boring it can become at times. It has little reward other than when you've finished the building of something great, or if you're glad you've survived 730 days of zombie killing. It's not all that it's hyped up to be, but it still deserves some of the spotlight it's been given. Would I recommend it? Certainly.... if you're playing the BETA, and you don't ever mention it to me again. The less I have to do with Minecraft, the better it is for me. Though I do like to criticize it every now and then....