Review

Written and Edited by: Matt and Lomies Voiced by: Matt, Lomies , Hayden and Chris = Introduction = Minecraft is the insanely addictive phenomenon that took the world by storm. As of 17/8/11, about 12 million people have registered for testing. In a nutshell Minecraft is like a double-edged sword. It excels in //peaceful// creativity and when night falls upon the beautiful pixels, it turns into a fictional //nightmare// filled with undead, giant spiders, and other incredibly dangerous unknown entities. = Sound = Music adds to the experience and atmosphere. When you hear the //lovely// music you feel safe: even in the Nether. Silence increases your awareness and keeps you on your toes. The peaceful music contrasts the horror element. When the sun goes down the scary creatures roam the land and whilst in your safe house you can hear the scary noses of the feared creatures just outside the walls: except creepers that are almost silent. Ambiance is also known as “//supernatural//” cave noises. They are heard when there is an area 3x3x3 at light level 0 at about 10 or 20 blocks away. They sound like demonic shrieks and roars. = Replay ability = Minecraft can be continuously played for months on end (unless you hate fun). Minecraft’s inbuilt random world generator ensures that every new world is different (unless you use a specific seed). Every time you spawn in a different biome, you face different challenges. For example, spawning in a desert makes it hard to find wood for your pickaxe, or if you spawn in a forest you start to hate creepers a lot. Updates are always a reason to be :D because there is thrilling new stuff! For example, the 1.7 and 1.8 updates where the most anticipated and very well received because of pistons and the adventure mode updates! The adventure update generates ravines, rivers, towns and abandoned mining shafts. This will encourage you to explore these cool new things. Playing online is a lot more fun than playing by yourself, due to of themed maps that people have created. For example, the UK server and Minecrafts edge are maps built by other people! The first night is the hardest one because once you survive the first night and get a sword or something, the game becomes easier. Notch is planning to make difficulty consistent in the future. The statistics feature allows you to view how many times you have died. This can create competition amongst you and your friends... maybe. E.g. ‘he rode further by pig than me so I need to ride the pig again to beat him.’ Another of minecrafts features is the ability to ‘publish’ adventure maps. Possibilities Examples Trading

= Mobs = Mobs are the animals and monsters that roam the randomly generated worlds of Minecraft. They can provide food and clothing, and at the same time there are some mobs that only have blood on their mind. Only 15 peaceful mobs can spawn near you, and 200 hostile mobs spawn to kill. Some mobs like wolfs and Endermen are passive or neutral, until attacked or looked upon. This makes the world a lot more dangerous. Evil Mobs spawn in low light. Mob spawners or dungeons are small caverns with a cage in the centre, inside the cage is a miniature Mob. This determines the kind of mob that is spawned in that room. Mobs can also spawn 20 blocks from the spawner as long as it is dark (for the hostile mobs). = Graphics = Minecraft uses a different choice of graphical resolution, 16 x 16, or 16 bits: an interesting choice for a modern game. However Notch made the graphics look aesthetically good. The simple resolution somehow appears good and is incredibly immersive. If you feel like the graphics aren’t to your specifications you can design or download a texture pack. This allows for Minecraft to look however you want, including higher resolutions (160bits, 240bits). = Freedom = Minecraft can generate worlds up to 8 times the size of the Earth, limited only by your computer’s RAM and memory. This gives you loads of freedom. There seems to be no ‘invisible wall’, because when you reach that point as far as you can see, there is always more to see. The vertical height limit of 256, allows you to build unseemly high objects and structures. You can construct houses, castles or anything else you want, out of anything you want. This is called your personal building style. My personal building style is creating the floor out of wooden planks, brick walls, cobblestone rooves with a sunroof and cobblestone half-blocks for the rim of the roof, making a very comfortable house. You can craft your choice of tools, such as a diamond pickaxe or loads of weaker pickaxes. And now you’re not limited to the normal world. You can now visit the Nether (Hell) or the Aether (Heaven) with a mod. = Drives = In Minecraft there is no reason to do things any further than making stone tools and a stone or dirt house. So why do we go on to making diamond tools and incredible towers, castles or mansions? The answer to that question is why not! We build these mega structures because we can! Why explore that huge cave? Because I want to find diamonds! And we desire diamond because it is rare! The Achievement system is another reason to do stuff. A new feature is’ The End’. The end is a dimension that is considered the end of the game. It involves killing a dragon and you want to kill the dragon to unlock the final achievement. = Limits = Unfortunately there are some limits in Minecraft. For example there is no skin coloured dye. Therefore you can’t make large pictures of people without it looking pink or yellow. Another example is that you can’t craft saddles. This does restrict you from accomplishing some building purposes; however the freedom far outweighs the limits. = Software Modification = Mods can be very evil and also very good. Each mod has its own risks and advantages. They can be used to cheat or be used for construction. For example flying mods are good in creative servers for constructive means, and for films or Machinimas. However they can be seen as cheating in survival game modes. It all depends on what server you are in and your intentions. Another well known mod called “The Aether” this mod is more like an expansion, including its own mobs, blocks, items and dungeons. So mods can be fun if used correctly, however there is a possibility that it might contain viruses that can potentially crash your computer. So I **strongly** recommend that you only get mods from your friends or from Minecraft forums that have good reviews. ** The Future ** Minecraft does not stop here. The game is still being expanded upon. More and more features are planned for the eventful future. We’re just getting started. = Conclusion = Minecraft is definitely worth buying. It is an amazing creativity tool and a great Survival game! You can have hours and hours and hours of fun! It has incredible replay ability, and despite the simple graphics, everything looks good somehow! And one last word, please properly purchase Minecraft. I think that donating a small fee for Minecraft is the least we can do to thank the team at Mojang and most importantly Notch for all the hard work they put into this great game.