Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition – Oh Hell Yes

Published on May 13, 2012, by Austin Griffith - Posted in 12

boxartlg
10 Overall Score
Gameplay: 10/10
Fun Factor: 10/10
Replayability: 10/10

Fun Limited Only By Your Imagination | Seamless Co-op

Very Addictive

Game Info

GAME NAME: Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition

DEVELOPER(S): Mojang, 4J Studios

PUBLISHER(S): Microsoft Studios

PLATFORM(S): Xbox 360

GENRE(S): Action & Adventure, Platforming

RELEASE DATE(S): 5/9/12

Minecraft, is, at first glance a very simple and rudimentary game. Your goal is to build things. There is no end-game, there is no objective, there is basically no reason for you to play – and that’s what makes it amazing.

Minecraft is the overnight success of Swedish developer Mojang. Having sold millions of copies and now being available on Android, iOS, PC, Mac, and now Xbox Live Arcade, it’s basically available to everyone. In Minecraft you’re goal is to have fun. You’re dropped into a randomly generated world full of blocky trees, piles of dirt, and pools of water and lava. You’re given no instructions, told nothing, and given only the directions you can gather from your previous experience. You’ll normally start out by punching wood, and then building a table, and then building a house. The rest is up to you.


Minecraft has four different difficulties that all play basically the same and fall into two categories. The first is Peaceful mode. In this mode there are no enemies and your health recharges quickly. The other three modes, Easy, Normal, and Hard, live up to their names. Every night enemies will come out from caves and the darkness to try and kill you. You’ll face exploding creepers, skeletons with bow-and-arrows, and giant spiders looking to destroy you.

The fun in Minecraft comes from the scope of what you can do. You can build absolutely anything, anywhere, if you put the time in. When I started my game at first I dug into the side of a sand dune and built a house for my first night, I then set out and build a sprawling cobblestone and glass house a top of mountain. About an hour later the mountain was gone and my house was floating in the air. By the end of the week I’d had five friends join in at random times, build houses near mine, and I had constructed a town complete with houses, a Jacuzzi, a dog house, a farm, a store, and a public mine. The reason building in Minecraft is so fun is because it isn’t overly simple – all your resources must be mined out of the ground, you must build the tools to get better minerals for making better equipment, and everything must be crafted. This sounds like a horribly boring experience, and it sure does read like that, but it’s not.

Minecraft is the ultimate example of gaming. It’s limited only by your imagination and you’ll find yourself playing it for hours. I could take your time writing more paragraphs as to why you should play it, but that would be wasting more time that you could be using to play Minecraft. With 4 Player Split-Screen Co-Op, 8 Player Xbox Live Co-Op and tons of free updates coming soon, this game is sure to keep you occupied longer than some full retail games. Oh, and the fact that this game broke all XBLA Day-one download records to date doesn’t hurt either.

Seriously, go get this game – or at least play the demo – right this instant.

Related Posts

SHARE THIS POST

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Myspace
  • Google Buzz
  • Reddit
  • Stumnleupon
  • Delicious
  • Digg
  • Technorati
Author: Austin Griffith View all posts by
Austin Griffith is LevelSave.com's Reviews Editor. He began gaming young with Pokemon Silver and Banjo-Tooie and hasn't stopped since. You can find him on Twitter @AustinG909 and on Xbox Live at iKarmakazi. You can email him directly at AustinGriffith@LevelSave.com
  • David Mitchell

    Anyone have a code so I can download it? I dont have money to buy it and I have never played it before. Everyone tells me its fun and sick but, I want to see how it lives up. Please anyone.

  • http://twitter.com/YourEscape Timothy Wedel

    I have been having a blast with this game. Everyone has their own way of playing and it has been awesome to go around to all my friends games and get news ideas of what I should build in my world.

  • Mayoradeath420

    MC is too simple of a game with blah graphics and a slow moving cube head who takes like 10 hits to break a simple block, i am sure it has it’s good points also but I will just stick With FortressCraft, The graphics, game modes, support & community are all better in my opinion :)

    • Austin Griffith

      To each his own. I just prefer Minecraft.

  • http://twitter.com/Fortress_Craft DjArcas

    And how does it compare to the other products on the market?

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1838540652 Austin Griffith

      To other games or to other games like Minecraft? (FortressCraft, Etc.)?

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1838540652 Austin Griffith

      If you mean to other games on XBLA, it’s one of the best. Few games have held my attention like this one did. If you mean to the indie collection of Craft-games, i’d say much better. I’ve only ever played FortressCraft, and, from what I played I did not like it too much. I only played the trial, but it still felt somewhat unfinished.

      • Mayoradeath420

        a good game is Never Finished. New content and game modes are being added with regular content patches every month or two :)

        • http://twitter.com/YourEscape Timothy Wedel

          I have played all of the ‘Craft’ games (FortressCraft, CastleMiner, Red Tie Miner, ZDayMiner) on XBLIG and they all fail in the same way; by removing the simplicity.

          Minecraft is so successful because of how simple it is to just jump in and start building whatever you want. The resource gathering, the tool building and the structure building are all simple. If you want to you can get into the more complicated features like armor, enemies, weapons and carts but people who just want a game to build whatever they please have that game.

          All of the other games available on Xbox Live Indie Games are all too complicated. They take the simplicity, throw it out the door, and give you complicated features like energy chargers, ray guns, vehicles that mine for you and mutators (jetpacks, speed shoes, etc.) then try and pass it off as something better than a cheap knockoff. People who just want to build can do that in those games too but there is usually no resource management which makes it a lot more boring.

          • Austin Griffith

            Precisely. Minecraft keeps it simple and fun and free of “Gimmicks” to draw people in. The games that feel incomplete may receive patches, but so does Minecraft and that always feels complete.

          • http://twitter.com/Ufgood Raven Poplar

            You guys have never built an diamond factory with the technic pack. Minecraft can be way more complicated than any of the XBLA sandbox games, including Minecraft 360 Edition. But that’s just it, Minecraft is scalable in every way, you can do absolutely anything you want to do.

            I really like the local multiplayer for the 360 though, that’s something that I’ve thought was missing with the PC version.

          • Cold Comfort

            Seems like that would be difficult with a PC version though. “Ok, you’re mouse, and I’m keyboard.”

            Also, DIAMOND FACTORY!? WHAAAAAT. I need to go find this…

            The beauty of MineCraft, IMO, is that it gives you simple building blocks which are capable of creating extremely complex things. (They’ve made working Rubix cubes and graphing calculators with pistons and redstone.) Best comparison is virtual Lego. And no one wants MegaBlox.