Owain Reed2015 is the year that I found a new love. In all honesty, I’ve been searching for something for a while. Probably ever since Joel and Ellie left a huge hole in my life.
This came as somewhat of a surprise but I suppose that’s the way all the great love stories start.
Make a move, man!
It’s your typical scenario. You know about the other party for a while. You see them around but don’t really make contact. You see them in shop windows, in magazines and on Youtube. They seem to have infested your very being, but still you wonder – “What’s all the fuss about”. Then you see someone you know showing an interest. At that point you decide that you should probably answer your own question and make some genuine enquiries.
An alternative beast.
I am of course talking about Minecraft. It’s not something that fits my normal gaming profile but I didn’t realise how much I needed it until I had it. I know I’m really late to the party too so as a review, this might seem quite dated. However, if it inspires one person to buy it or one person to pick up their old copy, I’ve done my job.
When I speak to someone that hasn’t played it, I struggle to explain what you do. It’s hard to make it sound fun and you can’t convince someone of it’s worth. They just have to play it.
I suppose the best description I’ve heard was that it’s basically Lego on the TV screen. As a starting point, that’s pretty apt, but there’s so much more than that. Among other things, and I’m being quite bold here, it’s actually a really fun zombie game, just not in the conventional sense. You could also describe it as an open world, blocky Tomb Raider style game. The last comparison I’d make is that the indie game Don’t Starve clearly took a lot of inspiration from it. I don’t know that for a fact but it must have.
Come on, you know you want to.
Does that make it sound any more interesting? It should. I’m going to bullet point a few things that excite me, make me nervous and genuinely upset me whilst playing the game. I’m not going to explain them either. I want you to play it and learn for yourself.
- Finally finishing your house.
- Creepers coming into the vicinity, exploding and blowing up the moat you’ve been building for the last hour.
- The hissing noise spiders make.
- The jolt of your character as a skeleton archer smashes an arrow into your torso.
- Falling into lava and setting yourself on fire.
- Mining into a cave and having zero idea how to get out.
- Running out of torches in said cave.
- Actually finding home when you’ve walked a thousand miles in a different direction.
- When night ends and day arrives.
- Watching someone build a giant penis (with a functioning waterfall) on top of another person’s house.
Those points will mean something to a lot of people and to others, it’ll sound like gibberish. It’s just one of those things you need to experience for yourself and each experience will be different. For instance, I’m very much the stay at home husband. I’ll build the house with the materials my girlfriend has spent hours mining and I’ll decorate it with paintings and bookshelves. Others, like my girlfriend, love mining and finding new areas and rare materials. Essentially, she’s Indiana Jones and I’m Marge Simpson.
Everyone has their own kinks.
The other main difference I’ve found is that some people like to play survival mode, whereas I prefer creative. I just want to build my stuff and not have Creepers come and destroy it every five minutes. I also don’t want to go to bed to avoid the risk of being attacked by a spider – I want to build through the night, thanks.
Anyway, that’s enough rambling from me. If you’re one of the few that hasn’t played it, I urge you to.
Finally, I have one more announcement. I’m getting married to Minecraft next year. I proposed the other day and it said yes. No, you’re not invited.