It's meta-commentary on the Minecraft experience.rofltehcat said:
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Minecraft Review
- Thread starter Slycne
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Oh yeah, this is a great, unbiased review. Not like he had a whole segment where he was criticizing creative mode by throwing Diamond blocks into lava pits and at chickens with a goofy voice... Oh wait, he did. He's a total biased jerk. I'll admit, he has plenty of good points. But he's totally biased against Notch, against Minecraft. Yes, Notch is a bit of a jerk. Yes, Minecraft is not the greatest game made. But it's fun, and people like it, and you can't deny that. And it does have it's value. It's not like Twilight that has zero redeeming qualities. Minecraft is fun. It's fun to build, it's fun to dig, it's fun to kill the whacky creatures even if they aren't the brightest.Zedar0 said:
I prefer the OP's Review to that guys.
Others have pointed this out already, but it bears repeating: this guy lists some facts about the game in the midst of a lot of his opinions on how fun they make the result.Zedar0 said:
I'm going to assume the points he brings up about promised features that aren't in the game are true; that sounds like Mojang's performance trend to me. Village NPCs are completely useless from a gameplay perspective, yes, that's not really debatable: they do absolutely nothing aside from 1) exist and 2) wander aimlessly (often ruining their own crops). They're no different from the various animals that have existed in the game for quite some time from a behavioral perspective without offering any of the animals' various useful products when killed.
He's also right about the monsters' AI being practically nonexistent and combat itself being very simple and easy. Unless I'm completely swarmed by enemies in an area that's difficult to move around or escape, or I run into a baddie early on before I have any armor or weapons, I'm pretty much not going to die in combat, end of story; once I've got a full set of iron armor and food, I pretty much only die from lava mishaps or unexpected falls. I would imagine this is true for most players who are at least passably combat-savvy.
However, when he says that because of these flaws the game can't be good and only "autistic" people will enjoy the construction for any prolonged period of time, that's an expression of how little he enjoys playing the game, not a factual description of how much everyone, or even a majority of players, will enjoy playing the game. I posit that the very existence of all the rabid Notch fans mentioned earlier in this thread suggests a good number of people do very much enjoy Minecraft's construction capacity (though I sincerely doubt many enjoy it for its combat or NPC interaction potential), which calls his judgement into question. Unless, of course, it was a joke...in which case it just wasn't funny. But that's okay - plenty of people who try to be funny fail at it. It happens.
I'd say trying to review Minecraft demonstrates the inherent problems of reviewing video games on the whole: it's a highly subjective thing to do, even more so than movie, music or book reviews. For the most part, you can anticipate a box office bomb by judging a movie's technical and genre content. You might come across an unexpected hit out of nowhere, but by and large you'll find some point of widespread agreement as to whether a movie's cinematography is excellent or sub-par, whether a given actor's performance makes a character come to life or comes across as flat and uninteresting, whether a writer's prose is gripping or overwrought, and so on.
But with games? There are folks who'll rate a game down hugely for crap graphics despite good gameplay and others who will ignore those graphics because they value the gameplay. There are folks who demand compelling story and others who are happy with "run to the right and shoot" as the extent of a character's motivation. There are players who will take nearly nonexistent objectives as an invitation to create their own with the tools available and players who think those tools are wasted without proper objectives to achieve with them. It's impossible to "accurately" review games for the majority because, well, there isn't a majority in gaming. There are too many different kinds of players who enjoy different kinds of games and qualities within games, overlapping and splitting apart over seemingly minor features or something as simple as differences in aesthetic preference.
Point being, given the popularity and community support surrounding Minecraft, it would be foolish to judge it a failure as a game simply because someone didn't like it, or even because it's incomplete. Do I find the game's obviously unfinished design disappointing? Yes, extremely. Do I find its graphical limitations unappealing? Yes, especially with regard to the living inhabitants (the block world, not so much). Would I call it a bad game because of those things? Considering I've put at least a hundred hours into it all told, no, I wouldn't. I wouldn't have kept playing if I wasn't enjoying the experience, however half-baked it may be.
To put it another way, the fact that it could be better than it is doesn't make its current incarnation bad.
*
On separate note, regarding its comparison to Terraria: combat in Terraria, though at times frustrating early on and entirely boring once you've hit the cap, particularly if you use intelligent strategy in addition to powerful equipment (seriously, you can solo the hardmode bosses without much trouble if you have at least an Adamantite repeater, a healthy supply of unholy arrows (vendor-sold) for it, Mythril or Adamantite armor, and a platform of hellstone to stand on; a cross necklace and starry cape make this method even easier), is far better than Minecraft's poor showing in that category. It's also more visually satisfying, though I think I'd give the nod to Minecraft on music; Terraria's tunes get on my nerves after a while (totally subjective quality there, of course).
However, in terms of world generation and construction, Terraria pales in comparison. Not only is construction more varied in its possibilities in Minecraft, it is also - and this is important - simpler and smoother. Big ugly blocks make for easy construction compared with Terraria's many tiny blocks you have to place just right with your cursor, then add background walls that can very easily end up looking silly if you stick them out a square too far so that they poke outside the blocks, teleporting and flying enemies can disrupt your construction projects in far more obnoxious fashion than creepers do, and so on. You can still be creative in Terraria, sure, no question, but it's a far more tedious method to do so with less reward in your end product. As for world generation, while both are fairly repetitive, Terraria is the more so, given any world will always have X flying islands, X corruption chasms, a dungeon and a jungle at opposite sides of the central spawn point, oceans at the extreme edges of the world, etc. Terraria's worlds lack much in the way of variety. Exploring the underground caves feels like a chore to get to the next goal: reaching the underworld, finding the last 20 adamantite I need, farming souls of night, etc. By contrast, Minecraft's worlds, though repetitious as well in terms of textures and the total range of possible finds, feel much less predictable. I've spent entire days exploring my way through a single lengthy interconnected series of caves-into-mineshafts-into-crevasses-into-more-caves, and the structures and spaces I came across always seemed at least somewhat unique (With the exception of crevasses which, I have to say, I think were the worst part of the "adventure" patch; they're just so...bland, these wide-open scars in the ground with nothing in them. I prefer the honeycombing caves and abandoned mineshafts with their more mysterious pathing and interweaving patterns. Crevasses are too static in their appearance. But I digress.). It may sound strange, but I have more fun exploring in Minecraft than I do in Terraria, despite the lack of a Dual Hook, Glowsticks or properly threatening enemies to spice up the experience.
They're two games that offer very different gameplay experiences. I've "finished" both - full Hallowed set with a Godly Excalibur, Megashark and more accessories than I have room to carry in Terraria; brick house on a high plateau overseeing an NPC village I guard from monster invasions, with a fully-shelf-stacked enchanting and alchemy alcove in my basement and, below that, an obsidian vault in which I've locked up the Ender Dragon's egg in an iron bar cage in Minecraft - and they were both satisfying and annoying in different ways. In the end, though, I think Minecraft is the one I'll be revisiting more often; there's just nothing to do in Terraria once you have all the gear and have conquered everything, at least nothing that I couldn't do better, easier, and with greater enjoyment in Minecraft.
This ends the wall of text for the evening.
So what game do you like then? Just wonder and that is your opinion. If someone likes to make their down house/castle/whatever then whats the problem?The Cool Kid said:
OT: Never really got into minecraft, would like to try out a better demo then the one they have now. Though whatever, I'll try the game out if my cousin gets it sometime in the future.
Eh. I dislike Minecraft.
I consider myself very creative (I'm a writer, after all) but the way Minecraft throws up its hands and says "you do something" makes me wonder why it even exists. I don't need the game to use my imagination and if the program itself doesn't actually offer anything on its part... what is it?
I consider myself very creative (I'm a writer, after all) but the way Minecraft throws up its hands and says "you do something" makes me wonder why it even exists. I don't need the game to use my imagination and if the program itself doesn't actually offer anything on its part... what is it?
I'm going to have to agree with the others here.Slycne said:
"If you're not the kind of person who can make their own fun, a lot of Minecraft's appeal is going to be lost on you" is a rather odd line; it can be used for anything.
Saying something is good if you can make it good isn't what I would call solid review writing.
I love this comment.Mypetmonkey said:
Pretty surprised to see that a game with a lot of hype which has been sustained for such a long time gets a quick one page review and a high score. I was expecting that when this day came I'd read at least a 2 page review consisting of not just the reviewers feelings and thoughts but also more facts and, er, based on the current build. This review could have at least touched on some of the new content, or even described some of the amazingly complex things you can apparently do.
As it stands this interview essentially went:
"Yah, freedom, exploration, freedom, freedom, don't play if you have the imagination of a brick."
I feel this review is pretty low in standard compared to the normal quality I expect from Escapist, and the whole thing feels like it was written several months ago and quickly rushed out the door today to fill daily news space.
I'm baffled to see someone compared Minecraft to Skyrim just because they're finished games with a lot of flaws that are still enjoyable.
Skyrim's bad flaws can be excused because
1. They aren't gamebreakers and usually briefly break the immersion at best (mandatory point to make)
2. (most importantly) the game is so vast and has so many things going, so many questlines and randomized encounters and NPCs and whatnot, that one has to realize a product with that much going on can't be bug-free. These are all the good things that overshadow the bad things.
Minecraft has even been called "more of a sandbox than a game", which should tell you why that excuse doesn't apply to it at all. I can understand the appeal of the game for some, but I personally stick to my imagination or drawings when I want to create a building or something, and when I want the feeling of building my house amidst the monsters of the world and then beating the crap out of them and decorate my chimney with their loot and faces, I stick to Terraria.
I mean, shit, look at what they shipped with 1.1. That's the kind of dedication I feel is absent from Minecraft.
Skyrim's bad flaws can be excused because
1. They aren't gamebreakers and usually briefly break the immersion at best (mandatory point to make)
2. (most importantly) the game is so vast and has so many things going, so many questlines and randomized encounters and NPCs and whatnot, that one has to realize a product with that much going on can't be bug-free. These are all the good things that overshadow the bad things.
Minecraft has even been called "more of a sandbox than a game", which should tell you why that excuse doesn't apply to it at all. I can understand the appeal of the game for some, but I personally stick to my imagination or drawings when I want to create a building or something, and when I want the feeling of building my house amidst the monsters of the world and then beating the crap out of them and decorate my chimney with their loot and faces, I stick to Terraria.
I mean, shit, look at what they shipped with 1.1. That's the kind of dedication I feel is absent from Minecraft.
Being a writer, isn't that pretty much the same relationship you have with your writing tool, be it pen or computer?Grey Day for Elcia said:
Which is something I could generally agree with, but that isn't precisely the point I am making here. Rather than making the game good, I'm pointing out that you have to enter it with a proper mindset. It's fairly akin to how someone might approach a challenging game like Ninja Gaiden or Dark Souls. If you're unable to find the fun in the challenge then you are not likely to enjoy the game.Grey Day for Elcia said:
...what does that even mean?Slycne said:
Minecraft has no challenges besides alpha combat and brick stacking. It is not like GTA where you can attack a convoy in a hundred ways. The games you listed are directly challenging so I'm not sure why you brought them up.
The storyline in Mincraft(if you can call it that) is generic, linear, and a huge grind, and the rest of the game is brick stacking.
Where is the challenge or entertainment in this game?
Do I really need to explain what a comparison is? The original poster misinterpreted my intention with the specific line, so I was trying to provide an example of the concept in different situation. You keep getting hung up on challenge when I'm not talking about it. I wasn't saying Minecraft is only good if you make it good for yourself, I was saying that Minecraft is good in a similar way that games like Dark Souls require you to enjoy them in a specific fashion. Minecraft requires you to enter with a mindset of making your own fun where as games like Dark Souls requires a mindset of enjoying the challenge. The point was simply in them both needing a specific connection not about challenge. Make sense?Jimbo1212 said: