Game Review: Minecraft

Minecraft was a game released in May of 2009. It was a huge success as millions of gamers started playing. Even today, ten years later, Minecraft still has millions of players and numerous big YouTube channels still upload many videos on it. The game has received many good reviews and keeps updating and growing, for example, the recent “Village and Pillage” 1.14 update. Even though rival games such as Fortnite and other “battle royale” type games threaten its popularity, it still manages to maintain a steady amount of active daily players worldwide.

The main aspect of the game is survival mode. There are different difficulty settings you could use to make your game experience better such as easy, normal, and hard mode. There is a peaceful mode for people that just want to enjoy the fun of building, without the challenges of monsters. Hardcore mode is for those who like to live life dangerously. Once you die in hardcore mode you must delete the world you created and it is lost forever.

A main part of the game is the online multiplayer as there are an abundance of servers that make the game better. There is online free for all games like Hunger Games, which became a very big part of Minecraft. You can get into build battles, play Turf Wars and have a good time. You can invite your friends to play in survival servers with you and create something cool or just see how long you can survive with teammates. Overall, it improves the Minecraft experience a lot.

Creative mode is a mode where you are basically God. You can fly, are invincible, and can use whatever blocks you want. You can summon mobs, kill mobs, and blow stuff up. People have built some pretty wild things in creative mode like castles and mansions. Whatever you want to do is up to you in this mode.

The first thing that should come to your mind when you spawn in a world, whether it be Singleplayer or Multi-player, should be “WOOD!”. Train yourself to think about wood the moment you spawn. It’s the most important resource of all (in my opinion). If you spawn in a desert, look around, and walk around in all directions; maintain a reasonable perimeter. Then, decide which direction is the most promising and keep walking there. Water is a great sign. Follow it! Collect at least 16 raw wood, which will give you a stack (64) of fine wood. The next important thing to do is make a pickaxe, which requires a crafting table.

Now, we hunt for stone, an important aspect of starting off. Using the wooden pickaxe, mine at least 10 cobblestone blocks. Then use the cobble to make a stone pickaxe and a stone sword. When that’s done, find some food. Take ALL the food you can find. The steps are shown in the gallery above. The last part of a successful and promising start is to find coal and shelter. While it isn’t paramount to starting off (you can spend your first few nights without it), it will soon be the most important resource that helps you with everything from cooking food to smelting iron. Find enough coal to help you survive the night; since it’s your first, gather as much as you see. I usually dig a small opening where I find the coal, and if it gets dark, that becomes my shelter for the night.