Minecraft.....Someone please explain what is so special.

Ok Minecraft the PC game gets released on the xbox live service today but im struggling as to why this game is getting brilliant reviews and looks like something from a spectrum 128k 25 years ago.

Dont get me wrong i have heard about this game many times over the years but when i am seeing all the news and hype regarding this game and watching the videos im kind of in the dark here.

Am i missing something or does this game really look this bad but plays like a dream and is highly addictive or something...........Why did they not give the graphics a major overhaul or something and what is it about this game that has most gaming sites drooling at the prospect of this finally getting on the xbox live service.

May be only a PC gamer can explain because i would not download this even if it was free ...........

MINECRAFT

CHECK OUT THE 360 VERSION..OH MY GOD

Edited by time2die (Wed 09-May-12 00:19:25)

I would suggest playing the game, its basically a giant sandbox that you can build what ever you want- hence the low graphics.

Should see the demand minecraft places on servers.

Build whatever you want ? and whats the point of that,the game has to have some sort of structure.

Basically i dont play games that look like there 25 years old when i have things like Uncharted 3 and look like a dogs dinner regardless of how much strain they put on servers........

If you get your kicks playing stuff like this then in my opinion your a retro gamer that is stuck in the past,why would anyone with a powerful pc,a playstation 3 or Xbox 360 be interested in playing a game that looks this bad regardless of addiction or not.

Seriously i have loaded games on a spectrum 128k that look better than this.........

Dont get me wrong everyone has there chosen choice but i just don't get it ?, are you telling me that you have played it then.........Whats your thoughts and why do you think its a good game and has this really got a place in todays gaming when the majority of us want to see outstanding graphics and gameplay with stunning visuals and amazing stories.

Edited by time2die (Wed 09-May-12 00:32:07)

The Minecraft tutorial might help a little but it still looks totally boring to me. And a multiplayer tutorial for those who wanna gain an insight into playing the game competively.

Graphics are a bit better than Speccy. Better than Megadrive maybe? Nintendo 64 level? Kinda [censored] but hey, it's all about the gameplay. Guess the developers are laughing all the way to the bank, again and again. At least they're brits. Hopefully they'll spend their megabucks over here.

People don't play it for the graphics, they play it purely for the addictive gameplay. It doesn't appeal to me at all, but I think what does appeal to most people is they can design absolutely anything. I have seen people who have created replica Disneyland's and famous landmarks from around the world. It allows people who are a lot more creative than me means to design something intricate that they can show off to friends and other likeminded individuals online.

I guess the other aspect is the creatures that come out at night and attack you, I don't know if people level up for killing them or get exp or some kind of points? Any kind of exp / levelling up system is always guaranteed to get people hooked!

I don't think just because they are playing a game with dated graphics means they are a retro gamer. I still play some games that don't have great graphics because I love the gameplay, classic example is Age of Empires, I still go back to it now! But I love my modern games as well. Being a gamer is about enjoying playing them, not how shiney they look. Though don't get me wrong it is nice to have all these gorgeous looking games, you just shouldn't ignore a game just because of the graphics otherwise you may miss out on some real treasures.

Nice explanation and i guess its horses for courses and its just something that i have not got the patience with.

No probs mate! Yea I am the same, it doesn't appeal to me at all. I tried the track editor on Trials Evolution over the weekend and after about an hour of messing around and not getting far I knew Minecraft wouldn't be for me either haha.

I have noticed in quite a lot of your posts that you seem to need a game to look good and will definitely mark it down if it doesn't. I like a game to look nice as much as the next guy (I spent £300 on a graphics card to get the most out of BF3!) but nice graphics and enjoying a game are not the same thing. It seems to me that you accept that a game should be either good graphics and bad gameplay or good graphics and good gameplay. If it is bad graphically then it automatically is a bad game.

You say that the majority of people want outstanding graphics and visuals and as I said above I love games to look nice but I don't think the majority of people require them as an integral part of a game being good. The good reviews and popularity of games like Minecraft give proof to this.

Onto the game itself - I don't think I can sell it as being good to anyone (certainly not T2D ) but it is a really good game. My clan mates spent months playing it and enjoying it and telling me to come and join them and I wouldn't because like I couldn't understand 'the point' to it. I can't even remember what made me eventually buy it - I guess it was either uber boredom or the fact it was about to leave beta and double in price. But either way, I did buy it and I love it - maybe every 3-4 months I of crazy with it for a month or so and then get bored again and leave it alone but when I start a project it is so much fun.

Yes it looks horrible - and I mean truly horrible - on the PC you can add skins (texture packs) that improve how it looks but I don't know if this will be possible for Xbox but that been said it still does not look great with them on! The phrase you can't polish a.... springs to mind.

As to what you do in the game - it is largely up to your imagination. You gather resources and do with them as you will. You have to do things like make tools and weapons and armor to deal with mobs that attack you. I always seem to end up making a castle but towers, nice bungalows and giant penises always seem popular. A lot of the resources you need are in caves (or at least underground - you can dig out a cave rather than find/explore one) and so you dig out/explore caves and build stuff with the things you find. You have to get food be it from animals or planting crops or making cake. You can make minecarts and various other things - as I say it really is up to your imagination. With the circuits you can build you can automate and make some really complex things. (see I told you I couldn't sell it!).

One thing I would say is that it is better playing with friends. I always tend to want my own space but you then can go and look at what each other is doing and you can all go together into the netherworld (basically hell) and stuff like that.

I think my clan's minecraft server is still running so I might login tonight and screenshot my the castle that was my most recent project (that I gave up on about 2 months ago when I found World of Tanks)

Edited by deleted (Wed 09-May-12 10:43:59)

You in for Max Payne 3 next week Jaxx or what,i have to say i am extremely hyped for this game and everytime i watch another video it excites me even more.

Not that often we get a game coming out that really gets me excited lately.

I downloaded the trials demo last week and again i can see why people rave about it but i found the controls of the bike not very good and found the game to be not to my liking even though it looked very nice graphically.

Edited by time2die (Wed 09-May-12 13:36:14)

It was created when voxel technology made a comeback a few years ago and rode of the wave of that. I must admit I dont see much point to the game either, but then I avoid sandboxed games too - just no point too them...

The graphics have a certain limited charm to them, especially from a distance... And with the monitor switched off...

Edited by deleted (Wed 09-May-12 13:27:21)

Im tempted just to download the demo on xbox live this morning just to confirm what i know already that i will end up deleting it within a few minutes.

Im not knocking people who enjoy this sort of thing but in the year 2012 and all the technology to produce really beautiful games i really struggle to understand why you would really want to waste hours with this when there are far better looking games of a similar strategic nature already on the market that do next generation consoles and PC some justice.

Its a bit like the majority of the downloads that come out on the xbox live and psn service,why would i want to play sonic the hedgehog and resident evil 1 when i did that 12 years ago on playstation 1 and mega drives.

Never understood why Microsoft and Sony release far superior consoles and give us retro games from the past [obviously money spinners] if i wanted retro i would have stuck with my Nintendo 64 Mega Drive and Snes and never have bought the latest consoles.

The other thing to mention is that it is...I forget the name... Randomly generated as you play. Each time you start the world it generates around you but then you could start walking in a direction and it would generate new areas as you walked. Procedural maybe?

In reply to a post by MrTAToad2:

It was created when voxel technology made a comeback a few years ago and rode of the wave of that. I must admit I dont see much point to the game either, but then I avoid sandboxed games too - just no point too them...

The graphics have a certain limited charm to them, especially from a distance... And with the monitor switched off...

Haha. From a distance. Yes.

I thought something looked familiar about that Minecraft video. Saw a good demo for voxel graphics some years ago, if I remember rightly, it had very high system requirements but would really have led the way for in-game physics and destructable environments had anyone been able to get more than 3FPS from a (then) supercomputer. In many ways, it's a shame it didn't take off though understandable how the industry came to favour polygons instead.

Even though the graphics ain't exactly pretty, I expect the processing requirements are pretty high if it's using voxel/volumetric pixels. Perhaps that's why Minecraft looks so pooey but also the reason it has such appeal as it's graphics are literally made up of building blocks?

Edited by deleted (Wed 09-May-12 15:14:03)

Well put and thanks for enlightening us a little more about the gameplay. I don't think T2D read your comment btw. He doesn't like too many long paragraphs.

I think I can see the appeal this game has and it'd be nice to be able to build and design something using your own creative and individual style, but it sounds like it takes absolutely ages to get anywhere in the game to me.

From all the mining of resources, I wonder if there are consequences? Like structural instability if you undermine your own buildings by digging underneath them? And, what about pollution and environmental degradation? Probably thinking too hard about this really but hey.

Not sure I'd want to go to hell personally, not unless there was something good down there, and I could bring it back up with me. But let's face it, what's down there anyhow? Just a lot of hot rocks no?

I think if we all played this together it could be good therapy, especially for T2D. We could each build our own tower and catapult stuff at one another to see whose stays up longest.

Retro gaming seems to be a big business for some reason...

I downloaded the demo Spook and as expected its not my cup of tea and deleted it 3 mins later.

Like i said each to there own and if people like it i see little reason to be critical just because it aint my bag,just surprised more than anything as why people would spend hours on this when in all honesty there are far better build this and create this games about.

Anyway spook if you did dig down to hell ........T2D would be waiting with a shiny new Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 beautifully gift wrapped just for Spooky .

I can just picture that, T2D holding a nice shiny Xbox 360 in one hand and PS3 in the other with a big grin on his face and then... nowhere to plug them in! And a million pounds an hour for leccy. Temptation and torture combined.

Yea I went to my friends last night and we downloaded the demo and he then bought it...for 1,600 Microsoft points might I add! Played it for about an hour and it didn't really do it for me. My friend seemed to really enjoy it, said he could see himself getting sucked into it and spending hours building a castle with a big tower lol

But it's not for me, I can see it being a lot easier on the PC with keyboard and mouse as the controls on the Xbox are shoddy to say the least. It seemed like a lot of effort for not much gain to be honest, my hour basically went like this: Attack some trees to mine some wood, turn that wood into planks, turn those planks into sticks, turn those into a wooden sword, kill some creature at night, start again but this time mine some gravel so turn into ore to turn into something else etc.

It's not for me! I would much rather play an RTS game like Tropico, now that is a game! Have you played that btw T2D? Tropico 4 is awesome.

No mate i have the patience of a gnat and i have been hooked on prototype 2 which i loved and have now completed,looking so forward to the next few weeks with Max Payne next week [really excited] and Ghost Future soldier the following week.

Max Payne 3 has me drooling and I'm hoping when the reviews hit the net next week I'm not thinking oh no here we go again,will be surprised as its Rockstar makers of GTA and the awesome Red Dead Redemption and there games usually have a massive dollop of quality .

Think the last time i was excited about a game as much was after playing the beta for MW1 in 2007.

1600 points is a bit of a joke for a game that looks like that in all honesty,Microsoft getting extremely greedy if you ask me and i would not buy this for 200 points,actually i would not bother if it was free.

Edited by time2die (Thu 10-May-12 09:35:32)

I finally put my screenshots up:

My castle!
The courtyard of my castle - I had planned on moving the wheat farm etc and making roads and buildings but I never got round to it.
The great library in my castle.
The stairs. This goes from the top of the main tower well underground to my mine.
The ravine of death! Water on 3 sides of the castle with the ravine covering the 4th - you can see the waterfall from where the sea falls into the ravine. Im stood on the bridge over the ravine which is the only way in - the fall from the bridge itself would kill you 3 times over but I filled the bottom with lava just to make sure
This is from the lower bridge you can see in the previous pic - you go over this lower bridge to enter my mine proper.
Looking down from the lower bridge.
The start of my minecart track - the yellow tracks are powered (speed you up) so you jump in the minecart and hit that button on the wall to the right of the track and off you go deep into the mine.
This is part of the huge mine I found - it is hard to explain just how big it is but you can see the hundreds of torches I put down during my exploration. Basically enemies spawn where it is dark (they can move into the light no problem but they can't spawn there) so when you are exploring you put torches down all over the place to stop them from appearing where you don't want them to! Exploring a cavern like this is hard work because it can take many trips down into the mine to even light it all up - and until you do you are living in fear of enemies landing on your head!

As for structural requirements - there are none! You don't need foundations or any of that [censored]. Some people build their... whatever in the air. If you look at the last screenshot there you can see the pillars on the bridge but you don't need them at all!

Hell has different mobs in it (so different types of enemies) and different rocks. The enemies can drop things that you can't find outside of it - but generally you would want to go down there with your mates otherwise you might be in a world of trouble.

I liked the look of your castle. The angularity of the towers (for want of a better word) reminded me of Saruman's place in the Lord of the Rings. Nice.

Not sure about those stairs though? I think Health & Safety would have a few things to say about that. So, would you actually get people attacking you in your castle then? Can you destroy the bridge if you had to? And would it be other players attacking you or the creatures in the game world itself?

The idea of building stuff from the ground up does appeal to me a lot. I guess your imagination's the limit or are there (optional) blueprints to follow? I can just see myself trying to build a really cool castle or something only for it to look more like a jagged lump of dinosaur poo or something. Never been much good at those sort of things.

Edited by deleted (Mon 14-May-12 13:50:39)

Fair play mate that castle is awesome! The ravine looks cool too I am going to give it another go with my 2 mates tonight as they have told me I am definitely missing out. They both spent the entire weekend on it and want to show me what they have done so I will give it an evening and see how I get on! Although I have just bought Lego Pirates of the Carribean as well so that may tempt me

Sure you would not like to spend your time with a little bullet time instead and something you actually like.

You could Build a Sandpit Spook and some magic roundabout and swings,imagine how much fun that will be

A sandpit? Yeah, I like it. I could do a Return of the Jedi re-enactment when they have that party over the Sarlacc pit. You'd be invited, of course.

I still got my plastic Bucket and spade from when i went to Butlins last year on my Holidays


Or was that in 1973.............Yeah Skegness with my mom and Dad ........What a Dump !!!!

You can't beat Skeggy! Gotta be better than being stuck on some golf course in Dubai with Joe Cole.

1973 was the year of my birth by the way. We should really reset the calendar to mark the occasion, but hey ho, I don't think the queen got the telegram. "There's a new king in town!" and he don't take no sheet from royalty. Lord Spooky be thy name. Alleluia!

There are issues with my castle:

Mainly, it is just too small
i) each turret has a flat side of 4 and this means the windows don't work so well. Having it at 5 so that it was wall window wall window wall (if that makes sense) would have made it look cooler.
ii) there wasn't really going to be enough space inside it for anything resembling a village because the ground space was too small - I was limited by finding this site by accident rather than starting solely from scratch. The penisular largely existed like it was with the ravine there - all i did was bring the sea to each end of the ravine which was a relatively small job. I did make the ravine deeper where the fiery pit of death is though.
iii) the latest version of minecraft has a height of 256 blocks. Ground level is at 64 and you can dig down to ~4-6. My main tower is about as high as you can go at about 115 if I remember. When I next have a play I will really be able to make some sort of Orthanc size tower The limitations of the ceiling had a real impact on the size of the walls etc but doubling the above ground height should fix that for me.

Throw in things like I hadn't fitted windows or made a gate tower or even a proper bridge entrance and you can see that there was lots to do. In future I would have extended my railway into the castle itself rather than just from the ravine but in the end when I really go the towers building and realised I hadn't thought things through enough at the start I was a little disillusioned. Still, next time I will have learnt from my mistakes and it will be awesome!

Enemies don't make concerted attacks - they just see you if you get too close - it is rare you are fighting more than 2-3 at once and you can make it so that people can attack each other but the problem with a castle is that they can just dig through the walls the same way you can dig so walls would be a bit useless

As for the stairs, they have resulted in my death a few times but you don't want to make things too easy

In reply to a post by ilh:

As for the stairs, they have resulted in my death a few times but you don't want to make things too easy

LOL. Whoops! Yeah, having your bedroom up there at least means you're likely to be safe at night when you're asleep.

I think, should I ever get round to playing Minecraft myself, I shall hopefully learn from your experience and try a 6 sided tower or something. With windows and everything! Are they glazed by the way or just traditional arrow slits I wonder?

Good job though. I particularly liked your description of how you adapted that spot to suit your needs. Especially deepening the ravine and making it practically bullet proof. 256 blocks high, eh? So, that's as far as you can go. I shall have to take another look on youtube to see what people are showing off.

So the big 40 on the horizon then hey Spooky

So I went round and checked out my friends world. It was pretty good to be honest they had done a lot of work on it their mines were very deep and they had built some skyscrapers and a castle. I was going to join in but I ended up going back home and playing Trials the gameplay seems addictive but seems like a big time sink and I don't have bags of time to be wasting on it really.

Yea graphics have nothing to do with game play.
I still play LOTR battle for middle earth II but not for the looks

Yeah but when they all come together its a wonderful thing and Decent Graphics make that particular game a little bit more appealing.

I have BFME 1 and 2 - love them both. Was thinking about them just the other day but don't seem to find time to actually install them...

In reply to a post by ilh:

I have BFME 1 and 2

You can get cream for that over the counter.

And phone National Health Direct for advice