With the chaos of the holidays slowly subsiding into the background, you’ve finally got a few moments to catch your breath and unwind a bit before getting back to the grind of your normal routine. We can’t think of a better time to kick up your feet, crack open the packaging on that fresh new iOS device you were luck enough to receive from a thoughtful friend or relation, and load that baby up with some heavy-duty games.
Check out the full article here at Macworld.
“It’s immediately apparent after digging into Minecraft on the Xbox 360 that the platform is well suited for Mojang’s first-person sandbox-style building adventure. From comfortable controls and the effortlessness of jumping into multiplayer co-op over Xbox Live, to detailed in-game tutorials and a more user-friendly crafting system, this updated yet scaled-down port of the indie hit is deliciously accessible. Total newcomers to the game will no doubt find themselves blissfully swept away by the many opportunities for open-ended creativity found throughout the Xbox 360 edition. While coming to this version after spending lots of time playing Minecraft on PC is a jarring and disappointing experience, the joy of free-form exploring, building, and adventuring in randomly generated blocky worlds is nicely reproduced here.”
Check out the full review here at GameSpot.
“Indie gaming sensation Minecraft lets you build, mine, explore, fight, and adventure your way across a vast blocky 3D unhindered by rigid rules or strict handholding. Without being shoehorned into any particular path or style of play, it’s possible to dabble in many pursuits at your leisure. As such, we’ve assembled a sampling of some of the most interesting and unusual roles players naturally gravitate towards. What kind of Minecraft player are you?”
Check out the full article here at Mac|Life.
“For a small indie studio, selling more than 4.7 million copies of your debut game is pretty incredible. Beginning in 2009, the blocky but absorbing sandbox fantasy realm within Minecraft grabbed a hold of gamers’ hearts (and eventually, their wallets) with surprising ferocity. Its runaway success on PC skyrocketed creator Markus “Notch” Persson and his development team, Mojang, into the mainstream public eye, generating some serious green in the process.
It’s no surprise that plenty of “me too” imitators have come pouring out of the woodwork to vie for a piece of the action, especially on platforms like the Xbox 360, where it has been unavailable. If you’re an Xbox 360 owner itching to get a taste of Minecraft’s RPG-survivalist building, crafting, and exploring adventure, that’s not such a bad thing. The Xbox Live Indie Games Channel is already packing a few crafty clones that offer a similar experience — and they’re pretty awesome for the few bucks you’ll spend on them. We still have a few months to wait before Minecraft hits Xbox Live this spring, so why not dig into these indies in the meantime?”
Check out the full article here at OXM.
“Minecraft is dangerous. You can sit down to a new randomly generated world for a quick session only to snap out of the creative haze many hours later to realize you’ve forgotten to eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom. There’s always just one more tunnel to carve, one more resource to harvest, one more tool to forge, or one more to-scale replica of the Star Trek Enterprise to re-create block by block. The ability to exercise limitless freedom and mold the game’s retro fantasy world to your liking is powerfully addictive, and this indie-developed sandbox phenomenon holds a staggering level of depth. Some of the game’s elements still feel rough and unfinished, but nevertheless, once Minecraft sinks its hooks into you, it won’t let go. “
Check out the full review here at GameSpot, and also be sure to scope out the very cool video review too.
“On its own, the ever-evolving world of Minecraft is already a wondrous place capable of consuming vast quantities of your attention with voracious abandon. But as anticipation builds leading up to the hotly-anticipated Adventure Update and the game’s official release, it’s tough to remain content with the limited scope found in the current Beta’s gameplay. Thankfully, Minecraft’s thriving fan community has taken things into their own hands, concocting an insane array of mods that change the game in mind-blowing ways. Riding a time-traveling pig to dino land, battling armed warriors, annihilating the blocky landscape in a Sherman tank, and taming a menagerie of beasts are just a few of the wild adventures awaiting you in this selection of killer Minecraft mods.”
Check out the full article here at GameSpy.
“Imagine what Minecraft might be like if it had been made with pixel art sprites and released in the SNES era. That sums up the overall vibe of Terraria pretty well. It also explains why I just can’t seem to tear myself away from the darned thing. This devious little indie sandbox title borrows so many ideas from Notch’s game that it essentially is Minecraft in 2D, but it also beefs up the familiar gameplay in exciting ways. There’s a lot more creepy crawly stuff to kill, and the staggering number of doodads you can MacGyver together into deadly weapons to slay them with is mouth-watering. Say what you will; there’s some gnarly fun to be had in these uncharted depths.”
Check out the full review here at IGN.
Once I started playing Minecraft I was totally hooked. It’s a very cool concept, and players are really taking the engine and running with it creativity-wise. I recently interviewed Notch and put together a massive feature on the game for GameSpy that you can check out over here. I’d blog about it more, but I spilled my guts on the subject pretty thoroughly in the article. Give it a read! Thanks.
