Minecraft Review

MINECRAFT REVIEW

Minecraft is a PEGI 7 rated game published by the Swedish company Mojang. It is a game about building stuff with cubes. It’s also a game about survival, discovery, community, loneliness, creativity, and despair. When you first start the game, you are dropped straight into the wilderness. But it won’t be a wilderness quite like anyone else’s - the game’s environments are randomly generated from the word go, and will continue to expand until you’ve travelled enough to make the game generate a world three times the size of Earth. Which, of course, you never will.

Your starting point could be a forest, a desert island, or the peak of a snow-covered mountain. And to begin with, it’s all very peaceful. But what most players don’t initially realise is that monsters can appear from any unlit area in the game. During the day, this generally just means that caves and tunnels are unsafe. But after your first 15 minutes with the game, the sun begins to set.

Speak to anyone who’s played Minecraft, and they’ll be able to vividly recall their ‘first night’. Some spend it running across grassy plains, chased by skeletons and zombies. Some panic and dig a hole in the ground with their bare hands, and proceed to sit at its bottom all night, watching the stars passing overhead and praying for daylight. Some, like myself, dash into a nearby cave, seal up the entrance with blocks of dirt and think themselves safe, until a venomous spider materialises out of the darkness and bites them in the back of the head.

But you soon learn that it doesn’t need to be this way. The next day, you gather wood, build some basic tools, mine some coal, and hey presto - you’ve built a hut with some torches on it. Being permanent sources of light, the torches keep the monsters at bay. It’s not much, but it represents safety. And as each new day comes, you gather more materials. Your hut becomes a house. You add another floor. You attempt to install a fireplace, but a hilarious accident convinces you to switch from wood-based construction to stone. You build a ladder up to the roof, and every night you sit up there, watching the world turn hostile as monsters roam the land.

One night, you catch yourself sitting on that roof, gazing at the moon. Suddenly, the game’s soundtrack decides to make its debut. It is minimalist, and plaintive. For reasons you can’t really explain, you feel incredibly sad and alone. And you realise that, for better or worse, Minecraft has got its hooks into you.

Once you start exploring further away, you’ll catch yourself spotting certain geological formations, and getting ideas for new buildings. The environments actually begin to feed and inform your creativity, with every empty space prompting visions of how best to fill it.

There’s something oddly primal about it. In gameplay terms, there’s really very little reason to expand beyond a very basic hut. But the desire to experiment, create and tame the surrounding wilderness constantly propels the player towards new experiences and challenges. See that huge, gaping cave near your house? Terrifying. But if you gather a load of resources and kit yourself out for some cave-diving, you can clear the monsters out and line the walls with torches, illuminating it and making it safe. As an added bonus, there’s a good chance you’ll find some rare crafting materials while you’re down there - natural caves are more likely to yield rare ores than man-made mines, and some even contain treasure chests. The grim inevitability of your next cave-dive is something that punctuates most people’s Minecraft experience, but the sense of achievement and relief is largely unparalleled.

Still, let’s say you’re not the biggest fan of terror, isolation or impromptu moments of introspection. That’s where the game’s multiplayer capabilities come in.

The simple fact of having other people around to talk to and collaborate with obviously changes a lot of the fundamentals of the single-player Minecraft experience, but it manages to be an equally valuable and compelling experience nonetheless.

Minecraft servers - each one a unique, persistent online world that players can join - are incredibly varied. Some exist in perpetual daylight, and allow players to create and place any blocks they like without having to build tools or gather materials first. These are the servers where you’ll find accurately-recreated football stadiums, giant statues or cathedrals. Many, however, choose to retain the game’s survival aspects, although obviously the danger is lessened greatly by having a group of players working together. Instead of having your own little hut to protect, you’re often surrounded by an entire town.