Minecraft Review
- Thread starter Slycne
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Good to see a proper review, though the inherent difficulty of reviewing Minecraft is that everyone already owns it. Still, one of the best games I've played in ages.
"if you're able to lose yourself in finding your own fun, there isn't a better game than Minecraft." except Terraria.
inb4 the haters
I love Minecraft for what it is, a time sink. Whether it's 20 minutes to waste or a week and a half the game can meet your needs.
I love Minecraft for what it is, a time sink. Whether it's 20 minutes to waste or a week and a half the game can meet your needs.
I think I've only just begun to appreciate Minecraft for what it is - a creation medium with role-playing elements.
I've had the game since early beta, and for some reason, never got into it like my friends did - never felt the need to build giant monstrosities, never had the patience to keep at it long enough. But I fired it up the other day, and I literally cannot stop playing. Even now, I need to go to work, and I wanna play. That hasn't happened to me since I was a kid.
Gotta add on to my fortress - which started as a wooden shack in the middle of nowhere, now has a moat, farm and three different stories. Gotta find more resources - have to walk an age just to find chickens. Gotta keep digging - coz thats where you get the best goodies.
Yeah, it throws you in the deep end - I've had to look up the wiki multiple times for various reasons - but is that really a bad thing? I think it exemplifies the multi-user aspect of the game - remember when you were a kid playing something, and you found something out, and went and told your friends, and they had never heard of it or even thought of trying it out? Remember that well of pride for finding that out the first time?
Brilliant game. Be interesting to see what comes out next. Minecraft 2?
I've had the game since early beta, and for some reason, never got into it like my friends did - never felt the need to build giant monstrosities, never had the patience to keep at it long enough. But I fired it up the other day, and I literally cannot stop playing. Even now, I need to go to work, and I wanna play. That hasn't happened to me since I was a kid.
Gotta add on to my fortress - which started as a wooden shack in the middle of nowhere, now has a moat, farm and three different stories. Gotta find more resources - have to walk an age just to find chickens. Gotta keep digging - coz thats where you get the best goodies.
Yeah, it throws you in the deep end - I've had to look up the wiki multiple times for various reasons - but is that really a bad thing? I think it exemplifies the multi-user aspect of the game - remember when you were a kid playing something, and you found something out, and went and told your friends, and they had never heard of it or even thought of trying it out? Remember that well of pride for finding that out the first time?
Brilliant game. Be interesting to see what comes out next. Minecraft 2?
I'm sorry, but you're out of your mind if you think it deserves that score. I mean, if you like it, fine, but if we're being objective here, Minecraft is terrible in just about every category you could name, and is far surpassed by similar titles such as Terraria, as someone already mentioned.
You want a good review? Here:
Notice that this guy basically lists nothing but FACTS about the game. No opinions here, minus the occasional comment, such as his views on the music.
Again, if you like it, that's your opinion and such and I'm about not to tell you that you CAN'T like it, and indeed there are a few aspects of it I like myself. But don't give it a great score and tell me that it isn't an objectively awful game.
You want a good review? Here:
Notice that this guy basically lists nothing but FACTS about the game. No opinions here, minus the occasional comment, such as his views on the music.
Again, if you like it, that's your opinion and such and I'm about not to tell you that you CAN'T like it, and indeed there are a few aspects of it I like myself. But don't give it a great score and tell me that it isn't an objectively awful game.
IMHO, Minecraft is the only game that can let a song speak for it.
The song and the builds are enough to show what Minecraft is capable (and the player).
@Zedar0
Minecraft has indeed MANY bad sides, but that only speaks about the game.
If the enjoyment you get from playing minecraft is enough to overshadow all those bad things, than it obviously deserves that score.
Also... Terraria? Really?
The 3rd dimension is enough to make Terraria uncomparable. (not in a bad way, just not comparable because they are different games).
One shines in one aspect, the other in another. One is a sandbox game with adventure and RPG elements, the other is an adventure game with sandbox and RPG elements.
Terraria's adventure aspect is far superior than any game I've every played. The randomness and number if different features is what makes the adventure side of the game excellent.
But on the other hand, the building side of Terraria is nothing compared to the wast possibilities in Minecraft. The 3rd dimension that Minecraft has and Terraria doesn't is just a to big advantage for Minecraft.
Add in all that redstone and redstone related blocks... Minecraft has endless possibilities in the building department.
Minecraft has also the adventage that it can always improve the adventure aspect of the game (which Jeb and the new guy are doing), while Terraria will always be limited by being only 2D (not saying it's a bad thing, just saying it's a limit to how good Terraria's building aspect can be).
On a related note, I never understood who people say either one or the other.
I have both and I enjoy both from time to time. Both game are excellent examples that you don't need millions of dollars and the latest shiny graphics to make a good game.
Even if nothing else, Minecraft started as a garage game and ended up as a great game that sells more than most AAA titles.
IMHO, a game that had several million dollar invested must reach higher standards for 4 stars than an Indie game. Especially if that indie game stolen several hundred hours of my life.
The song and the builds are enough to show what Minecraft is capable (and the player).
@Zedar0
Minecraft has indeed MANY bad sides, but that only speaks about the game.
If the enjoyment you get from playing minecraft is enough to overshadow all those bad things, than it obviously deserves that score.
Also... Terraria? Really?
The 3rd dimension is enough to make Terraria uncomparable. (not in a bad way, just not comparable because they are different games).
One shines in one aspect, the other in another. One is a sandbox game with adventure and RPG elements, the other is an adventure game with sandbox and RPG elements.
Terraria's adventure aspect is far superior than any game I've every played. The randomness and number if different features is what makes the adventure side of the game excellent.
But on the other hand, the building side of Terraria is nothing compared to the wast possibilities in Minecraft. The 3rd dimension that Minecraft has and Terraria doesn't is just a to big advantage for Minecraft.
Add in all that redstone and redstone related blocks... Minecraft has endless possibilities in the building department.
Minecraft has also the adventage that it can always improve the adventure aspect of the game (which Jeb and the new guy are doing), while Terraria will always be limited by being only 2D (not saying it's a bad thing, just saying it's a limit to how good Terraria's building aspect can be).
On a related note, I never understood who people say either one or the other.
I have both and I enjoy both from time to time. Both game are excellent examples that you don't need millions of dollars and the latest shiny graphics to make a good game.
Even if nothing else, Minecraft started as a garage game and ended up as a great game that sells more than most AAA titles.
IMHO, a game that had several million dollar invested must reach higher standards for 4 stars than an Indie game. Especially if that indie game stolen several hundred hours of my life.
I disagree. I mean, I've been playing Minecraft for a very long time, but the fact that I was unable to do what that quote said is why I ended up playing Terraria far more. I had originally played Minecraft for survival and exploration, which is what Terraria does better, but that's almost peripheral to the actual fun of Minecraft as far as most people go.Chairman Miaow said:
There is one big problem with Minecraft that isn't mentioned at all in the review:
Minecraft is schizophrenic.
The game doesn't know what it wants to be. An open world survival game? A construction game? An RPG? There is no clear vision for the game. The Minecraft developers may be excellent programmers, but they are not very good game designers. In their attempt to be everything to everyone, Minecraft has become a confused mix of half-implemented features. Now, instead of having a solid technical foundation, the game has a dragon most people will never see, a semi-functional, buggy multiplayer mode, weird looking NPC's that do nothing, a completely random, obscure enchanting system, and a ton of confusing, weird looking items, some of which have no use or are incomplete.
Minecraft had alot of potential, but the lack of direction and leadership in it's development make it seem more and more like a convoluted mess. Every new version seems to add new stuff while existing features are being neglected. It seems like a lot of stuff was put in because it was fun at the moment, then the developer lost interest and dropped it in its unfinished state.
I think it would have been wiser to "finish" Minecraft by polishing the core features that make it great. Then publish a modding API and let the mod community create the perfect game for themselves. This is what version 1.0 should have been, but instead someone decided Minecraft needs an ending and a dragon, both of which have nothing to do with the heart of what made Minecraft so appealing to millions of people.
I have alot of respect for Mojang, but I think they need to stop with their "This could be fun" - driven development and instead sit at the drawing board and develop a clear vision for the game. But it may be too late for that.
Minecraft is schizophrenic.
The game doesn't know what it wants to be. An open world survival game? A construction game? An RPG? There is no clear vision for the game. The Minecraft developers may be excellent programmers, but they are not very good game designers. In their attempt to be everything to everyone, Minecraft has become a confused mix of half-implemented features. Now, instead of having a solid technical foundation, the game has a dragon most people will never see, a semi-functional, buggy multiplayer mode, weird looking NPC's that do nothing, a completely random, obscure enchanting system, and a ton of confusing, weird looking items, some of which have no use or are incomplete.
Minecraft had alot of potential, but the lack of direction and leadership in it's development make it seem more and more like a convoluted mess. Every new version seems to add new stuff while existing features are being neglected. It seems like a lot of stuff was put in because it was fun at the moment, then the developer lost interest and dropped it in its unfinished state.
I think it would have been wiser to "finish" Minecraft by polishing the core features that make it great. Then publish a modding API and let the mod community create the perfect game for themselves. This is what version 1.0 should have been, but instead someone decided Minecraft needs an ending and a dragon, both of which have nothing to do with the heart of what made Minecraft so appealing to millions of people.
I have alot of respect for Mojang, but I think they need to stop with their "This could be fun" - driven development and instead sit at the drawing board and develop a clear vision for the game. But it may be too late for that.
Here's the thing. Regardless of the third dimension issue, Terraria does just about everything Minecraft does...only better. For every feature and content (what little there is) Minecraft has, Terraria most likely has the same thing, but in a way that's actually been designed properly, so it works so much better. And yes, even redstone, because Terraria has that as well. Unlike Minecraft's, it can actually be hidden, and traps are generated in the world for unsuspecting players. Furthermore, it can be used for many more things, all of which have an actual use (such as pumping lava or water to the surface, base defenses, etc.), as opposed to Minecraft redstone which is more for showing off than anything else, really (yes I realize that there are SOME fairly useful applications of it, but most of it is largely inconsequential at best).BiH-Kira said:
I'll admit that Minecraft building has more potential than Terraria's, but it doesn't really take advantage of it. Instead it tries to go in all these different directions, and does poorly in every one, whereas Terraria focuses its direction, and succeeds.
Yeah, they're meant to be two different games. I only compare them because they share a LOT of features, and it's very clear that one of the two handles them all far better than the other.
That's not fair though. Terraria and minecraft are two completely different games.Chairman Miaow said:
Terraria isn't ABOUT just going out and building whatever. Terraria is about exploring, it's about beating bosses, it's about upgrading your gear to take on whatever the game has to throw at you.
The only similarities I can make between Terraria and Minecraft is that they both allow you to move and place blocks. That's it. Other than that, Terraria is more akin to a 2d side-scroller RPG, and Minecraft is a 3d open world sandbox where the only thing that limits you is your imagination.
OT: Great review and nice re-vamp to MoS's original video.
There's no such thing as objectively awful because while the video lists facts, the values we assign to those facts are subjective. You can say that npc villages aren't as promised and offer no inherent gameplay, but the idea that that's a bad thing isZedar0 said:
Even if the opinion is shared by basically everyone. I agree that Minecraft is currently a big bucket of wasted potential (I enjoy it anyway, though), but true objectivity is more or less inherently impossible.
You do know that a review, by it's very nature, is subjective. I have never, ever had a similar experience as when I started playing Minecraft, and I had a blast, hence, in my book, its a 5 star. If you hate it, maybe it's a 1 for you, but when you try and say that objectively, a game is not deserving of a score, you have no idea what a review is,Zedar0 said:
I wasn't being really being serious, and they are two completely different games, but both are about finding your own fun.BloodyThoughts said:
I love the minecraft sandbox type of gaminess, but i think the main thing that makes Minecraft incredible, is the communty behind it, with Modders, and what-not!!!
For me Minecraft comes off as little more than a stripped down utility. It has the base for something grand here, but lacks the tools to make it.
But I guess that's what the third-party is for.
But I guess that's what the third-party is for.
Wow. The first twenty seconds of the video has already ruined anything they would hope to say to me, and that's not even past the introduction.Zedar0 said:
So it's a fact that I'm autistic, that the status effect called "hunger" in-game is really "poison", and that Notch burps when he eats wallets, amongst other things. Good to know!Zedar0 said:
I'm sure there have been lists of facts about Minecraft. I'm sure there have been high-quality videos criticizing or negatively reviewing Minecraft. I'm damn sure this video is neither.