Minecraft Beta Review [Mac OSX, Windows, Linux]

Minecraft may only be in beta but it is quickly becoming a huge phenomenon with over a million pre-release copies sold. It is currently selling for €14.95 which cost me $20.55 AUD and it will go up to €20 when it is fully released.

Minecraft is currently playable in two modes, creative where you have unlimited blocks as well as life which is available for free here and survival, what I consider to be the game proper.  In survival you begin with nothing but your hands your first order of business is to find the basics you need to build a shelter and survive the first night as it is at night time when all the monsters come out. You can waste hours in a mine searching for that elusive resource emerging only when you need a new tool or go off adventuring wielding a sword and wearing iron armour. What you do in the world is only limited by your imagination.

Or you can start a forest fire.

I have included pictures of the game but they really don't do it justice. Somehow it is one of the scariest games yet the monsters look like this,

and you are always happy with your handy work even if it looks like this,

the thing is you just get sucked into the world and you forget that these are just squares and blobs. As well as being scary the monsters can be quite devastating to your creations. I recommend watching Yahtzee's review which sums up the creepers perfectly.

It is hard not to get caught up in the excitement of what is yet to come in Minecraft. There are two new game modes planned, adventure which limits you to only using items no block destruction or creation and zombie siege of which little is known but I think the title gives away a lot. There is also a lot of potential for user created mods. A mod in the same vein as the upcoming adventure mode is available here. There are also heaps of skins and tilesets already available to change your character and world respectively.

More lava means more fun.

There is still a lot of work to be done on Minecraft however. Minecraft on Mac OSX doesn't let you paste IP addresses in multiplayer, nor can you quit using command q or even the drop down menu, only hitting the red circle will quit the game. You cannot enter the Nether world on any OS in multiplayer which is a weird thing to have missing.

The game is only in beta but the flesh of the game is already there and it is being sold so I think it is fair to review it. If you are the kind of person who loves open-ended games, where it is up to you what you do, there is no way you can go past this game. Ignoring the hype of what is yet to come for Minecraft I give it a 8/10.