Trent
Well-Known Member
Story
When you look towards Indie games, you generally aren’t looking for a story, but more about fun gameplay to keep you engaged for a chunk of your time. When Terraria, a Minecraft-like game released on the Vita, it was similar. Terraria didn’t have much of a story to it, and your biggest goals were to collect materials and build. Minecraft is the same way. There isn’t a huge tale to be told. At least, not one you are given mention of.
Behind the free-roam do-whatever-you-want aspect of Minecraft, there is a tale behind it, which will be given to you if you do the right tasks. In Minecraft, you are a blocky person who is out in a dangerous world and must find the tools to survive. Apart from that, though, is that your hidden goal is to not only survive in this world, but travel to another dimension altogether and to defeat an evil beast known as the Ender Dragon.
The story of Minecraft is not given to you, nor is it hinted on much. If you want to see the story, you need to do the right tasks to get to where the Ender Dragon lies. Only then will you see a story mode. Consider it like the original Doom, where you played through the game and got the story once you reached the end of each chapter. It’s an interesting story, but not what you play the game for.
Gameplay
Minecraft plays out like an open-world exploration game. No matter what game mode you are in, you are in a huge open 3D world that you can explore at your leisure. One of the unique things about Minecraft is that open-ness. You aren’t limited on where you can go by plot points. You can go anywhere and do anything you want and never in any specific order. It can be all decided on you, whether you want to fight enemies or just walk around and explore your world.
When you play Minecraft, you create a World. You can do this in the Tutorial World that is already preset, or you can create your own World in Survival or Creative Mode. When you create a world, you can set your own parameters on what is in the world or how certain things can be affected. You can set whether it’s an online game people can join, whether fire can spread, allow Strongholds and Villages to appear, among other things.
What’s unique about making a world is that every world is generated randomly. When you create two worlds, they will not be similar in the least bit. One could have a vast ocean, and one could have no ocean. One could have a huge desert village and another could have a village on a mountain-top. You also get World Seed codes that you can give to your friends if they would like to create a world just like yours, or vice-versa with getting codes from your friends. You can also use skin packs and textures to make things look different. Though, you cannot save your game with a game outside the default skins and textures unless you buy them from the PlayStation Store as DLC.
The biggest thing you will want to decide is if you wish to play in Survival Mode or Creative Mode. Survival Mode is the “main” mode of the game, though worlds can generate just the same in Creative Mode. Survival Mode is the only game mode where you are able to earn trophies for the game. In this mode, you start out with nothing but your bare hands and must fend for yourself by collecting materials and crafting a shelter, bed, tools, weapons, armor, and more.
The biggest portion of Survival is surviving. When night falls in your world, monsters will start spawning more often than during the day. To protect yourself from the likes of giant spiders, zombies, and self-destructing Creepers, you must craft a shelter to barricade yourself in and make a bed to sleep in during the night. You can also craft armor and weapons to fight them off if they see you and give chase. Crafting everything in the game, from shelter to a bed to weapons requires materials, and you must go out and gather those materials to make them.
Every part of Minecraft you can “mine”. If you see a tree, you can knock out blocks of it to get wood to be able to make a shelter or even a wooden axe to more easily cut down more wood. There are also animals around for other materials, such as sheep for wool on a bed or cows for leather for armor. Every block of mountain, dirt, animal, tree, and more can be mined into materials, though some cannot be mined without creating the proper equipment first.
The animals also brings about the other key to surviving: Eating. You have two bars on your HUD: Health and Hunger. When your Hunger bar is full, you will be able to naturally regenerate health as you lose it from falling or being attacked by enemies. To get the Hunger bar back up when it falls, you need to eat food. Food can be obtained by finding it in forests or by taking out animals like cows and pigs to gain food. How much of the bar you regain also depends on what food you eat and whether or not you cook it beforehand. Raw Beef won’t regenerate as much as a cooked Steak, for example.
The main point of survival is exploration and crafting. You will want to explore your world, where you can find materials you need for everything, as well as Strongholds in deep, underground caverns. Strongholds house portals, which are the key to finding and fighting the Final Boss of the game. As you go through your adventure, assuming you want to complete the story, you will need to find that Stronghold as well as what you need to activate the portal.
However, the game doesn’t force you to do this. If you want to just explore and craft and build whatever you want from the materials you gain, you can do that too. Many players don’t go to finish the story and instead build houses, villages, fortresses, or anything else that comes to mind. Though the building portion is more convenient outside of Survival Mode.
Creative Mode is where people can get creative. While you can make these worlds just like in Survival, this is more of a “Cheat” Mode. In this mode, monsters will not attack you and you have infinite Health and Hunger. You can fall from the very top of the world and will take no fall damage whatsoever. You also start each Creative world with infinite number of every type of material, armor, weapon, and more in the game.
When you dive into Creative Mode, it’s more for building whatever you want than surviving and finding the Ender Dragon, although you can find it in that mode, if you so wish. Creative Mode is where many of the big builders make their creations, so they don’t have to worry about enemies coming and destroying their creations or stopping their building to go eat food or sleep. In this mode, the only limitation is your imagination. You can create anything and everything, so long as you have a plan and use the right materials.
The final thing to mention is multiplayer. Minecraft is an Online Game. When you create a world, you can make one that players can willingly join or you can set to Invitation Only. With these features, you can bring up to 3 of your friends into a game with you, be it in Survival or Creative Mode. This is online over PSN. So, if you need help taking out some enemies or just want to collaborate and big a huge community world, just grab your friends and you can go at it.
All in all, this is the PS3 version but on-the-go. The question: is there a time limitation to Minecraft? No, there isn’t. It is a game where you play however long you want. However, if you want to go into Survival and collect the materials and build up to go fight the Ender Dragon, you can expect to be playing the game for at least 5-7 hours, depending on the world you make and whether you know where to go and what materials to grab. When your Creative side takes over, though, you can play for however long you wish.
When you look towards Indie games, you generally aren’t looking for a story, but more about fun gameplay to keep you engaged for a chunk of your time. When Terraria, a Minecraft-like game released on the Vita, it was similar. Terraria didn’t have much of a story to it, and your biggest goals were to collect materials and build. Minecraft is the same way. There isn’t a huge tale to be told. At least, not one you are given mention of.
Behind the free-roam do-whatever-you-want aspect of Minecraft, there is a tale behind it, which will be given to you if you do the right tasks. In Minecraft, you are a blocky person who is out in a dangerous world and must find the tools to survive. Apart from that, though, is that your hidden goal is to not only survive in this world, but travel to another dimension altogether and to defeat an evil beast known as the Ender Dragon.
The story of Minecraft is not given to you, nor is it hinted on much. If you want to see the story, you need to do the right tasks to get to where the Ender Dragon lies. Only then will you see a story mode. Consider it like the original Doom, where you played through the game and got the story once you reached the end of each chapter. It’s an interesting story, but not what you play the game for.
Gameplay
Minecraft plays out like an open-world exploration game. No matter what game mode you are in, you are in a huge open 3D world that you can explore at your leisure. One of the unique things about Minecraft is that open-ness. You aren’t limited on where you can go by plot points. You can go anywhere and do anything you want and never in any specific order. It can be all decided on you, whether you want to fight enemies or just walk around and explore your world.
When you play Minecraft, you create a World. You can do this in the Tutorial World that is already preset, or you can create your own World in Survival or Creative Mode. When you create a world, you can set your own parameters on what is in the world or how certain things can be affected. You can set whether it’s an online game people can join, whether fire can spread, allow Strongholds and Villages to appear, among other things.
What’s unique about making a world is that every world is generated randomly. When you create two worlds, they will not be similar in the least bit. One could have a vast ocean, and one could have no ocean. One could have a huge desert village and another could have a village on a mountain-top. You also get World Seed codes that you can give to your friends if they would like to create a world just like yours, or vice-versa with getting codes from your friends. You can also use skin packs and textures to make things look different. Though, you cannot save your game with a game outside the default skins and textures unless you buy them from the PlayStation Store as DLC.
The biggest thing you will want to decide is if you wish to play in Survival Mode or Creative Mode. Survival Mode is the “main” mode of the game, though worlds can generate just the same in Creative Mode. Survival Mode is the only game mode where you are able to earn trophies for the game. In this mode, you start out with nothing but your bare hands and must fend for yourself by collecting materials and crafting a shelter, bed, tools, weapons, armor, and more.
The biggest portion of Survival is surviving. When night falls in your world, monsters will start spawning more often than during the day. To protect yourself from the likes of giant spiders, zombies, and self-destructing Creepers, you must craft a shelter to barricade yourself in and make a bed to sleep in during the night. You can also craft armor and weapons to fight them off if they see you and give chase. Crafting everything in the game, from shelter to a bed to weapons requires materials, and you must go out and gather those materials to make them.
Every part of Minecraft you can “mine”. If you see a tree, you can knock out blocks of it to get wood to be able to make a shelter or even a wooden axe to more easily cut down more wood. There are also animals around for other materials, such as sheep for wool on a bed or cows for leather for armor. Every block of mountain, dirt, animal, tree, and more can be mined into materials, though some cannot be mined without creating the proper equipment first.
The animals also brings about the other key to surviving: Eating. You have two bars on your HUD: Health and Hunger. When your Hunger bar is full, you will be able to naturally regenerate health as you lose it from falling or being attacked by enemies. To get the Hunger bar back up when it falls, you need to eat food. Food can be obtained by finding it in forests or by taking out animals like cows and pigs to gain food. How much of the bar you regain also depends on what food you eat and whether or not you cook it beforehand. Raw Beef won’t regenerate as much as a cooked Steak, for example.
The main point of survival is exploration and crafting. You will want to explore your world, where you can find materials you need for everything, as well as Strongholds in deep, underground caverns. Strongholds house portals, which are the key to finding and fighting the Final Boss of the game. As you go through your adventure, assuming you want to complete the story, you will need to find that Stronghold as well as what you need to activate the portal.
However, the game doesn’t force you to do this. If you want to just explore and craft and build whatever you want from the materials you gain, you can do that too. Many players don’t go to finish the story and instead build houses, villages, fortresses, or anything else that comes to mind. Though the building portion is more convenient outside of Survival Mode.
Creative Mode is where people can get creative. While you can make these worlds just like in Survival, this is more of a “Cheat” Mode. In this mode, monsters will not attack you and you have infinite Health and Hunger. You can fall from the very top of the world and will take no fall damage whatsoever. You also start each Creative world with infinite number of every type of material, armor, weapon, and more in the game.
When you dive into Creative Mode, it’s more for building whatever you want than surviving and finding the Ender Dragon, although you can find it in that mode, if you so wish. Creative Mode is where many of the big builders make their creations, so they don’t have to worry about enemies coming and destroying their creations or stopping their building to go eat food or sleep. In this mode, the only limitation is your imagination. You can create anything and everything, so long as you have a plan and use the right materials.
The final thing to mention is multiplayer. Minecraft is an Online Game. When you create a world, you can make one that players can willingly join or you can set to Invitation Only. With these features, you can bring up to 3 of your friends into a game with you, be it in Survival or Creative Mode. This is online over PSN. So, if you need help taking out some enemies or just want to collaborate and big a huge community world, just grab your friends and you can go at it.
All in all, this is the PS3 version but on-the-go. The question: is there a time limitation to Minecraft? No, there isn’t. It is a game where you play however long you want. However, if you want to go into Survival and collect the materials and build up to go fight the Ender Dragon, you can expect to be playing the game for at least 5-7 hours, depending on the world you make and whether you know where to go and what materials to grab. When your Creative side takes over, though, you can play for however long you wish.
