Retro Game Review: Minecraft 2009

 Minecraft was a idea created by a man named Markus Persson who is more commonly known as 'Notch', the father of Minecraft. The game is a 3D sandbox game developed by Mojang Studios where players can travel the world, fight monsters and face bosses in different dimensions. It was made to the public in May 2009 before being fully released in November 2011 with 'Notch' stepping down and letting Jens 'Jeb' Bergensten taking over development. It has become the best selling video game in history with over 238 million copies being sold nationally, and with over 140 million monthly players.

Gameplay:

The game requires little to no instructions on how to play and with no goals to accomplish, players are granted freedom to what they wish. Some players choose to march through and focus their efforts on getting all the achievements known as 'advancements'. Since this assignment was for 'retro' games I decided to play on the older version on Minecraft to not lose its authenticity when writing this. Upon entering the game I was greeted with a simple and plain menu screen which had no noticeable details, but was still satisficing to look at. When I generated into my world I was spawned on an island with a couple of cows. I gathered many supplies and waited a night before going down into a cave but was ambushed by a skeleton. My first experience was not so pleasant as many others before me who venture and conquer.

 The game is from first-person perspective by default but have the option for third-person. It is mainly composed of cubes and fluids ,for water and lava, called blocks. Players have the option of moving and placing these blocks where they like on a 3D-based grid. Players can 'mine' these blocks and place them elsewhere giving them the option for building. The most interesting part about the games placing of blocks is that they added an object called Redstone which allows the player to make mechanical devices such as logic gates and electrical circuits, some users take the to the extreme and build many complex systems allowing much more to be done. Due to recent updates, the world it virtually infinite and gets continuously generated as you progress throughout the entire map. However, there were technical difficulties when loading in massive amounts of data at once so the developers limited the world size to 30 million blocks from the center. When starting a new world players have the option to choose from 4 difficulties, Peaceful, which allows no enemy spawns; Easy, which is for people who want to play a 'easy' game with little to no difficulty; Hard, this increases enemy spawn rate and damage they give and you lose hunger quicker; Hardcore, this is a 1-life only run through of hard mode.

Game Modes:

Survival - Survival gives the user the perspective of a hunter. You have to gather materials and build a shelter in order to survive the night where enemies also known as 'mobs' spawn. Mobs can vairy between a whole catalog of things that deal different damage values. Players have taken building up many levels by building whole cities. There is a project where a handful of users are determined to make the whole world in Minecraft which has been going on for 3 whole years and they still haven't made it past America.

Creative - When it comes to creative, it can go 4 different ways. One is where you alone or with a friend decide they want to build anything they want. Two is that you are bored and want to build a base or treehouse. Three is that you are testing new building ideas and when to try implement them into your world. Four is that you are testing Redstone. It can, in my opinion, vairy between those but it is mainly used for building structures.

Hardcore - Hardcore is for those who want a challenge and love the trill on being on edge. This game mode was made for people who have gotten used to the hard mode mechanics and want something else to do. Many creators such as Dandy, Ph1lza, PewDiePie and Jackspecticeye have all made Hardcore worlds and surviving a ridiculous amount of days and have built amazing things. This gamemode has brought the Minecraft community much closer than before. 

The Challenges:

Minecraft offers different sets of challenges to complete as you progress through the game. At the beginning you must face your first night without much preparation. Mid way through, you must defeat a dragon in a different dimension with hundreds of health. At the end, you must get every single achievement your current version of the game offers. Doing all of these will take up months of your time, potentially less depending on how you play.

Graphics:

The graphics are very simple but because of the simplicity, it has captivated the hearts of many and some people choose to add shaders to the game to give it a warm feeling for a more cozy style of gameplay.

The resolution can vairy depending on which you choose, but the basic and most used is 1920x1080. The game offers a set of settings which can be used to change the rendering distance and the entity spawn distance to make sure you computer can handle what it is outputting. This gives more options on how your experience may look which may be bad or good.

Range:

Minecraft gives a range of options to choose from when deciding on what type of world you want to be constructing in your time. Going off your choice, it could be a very easy playthrough with no difficulty but sometimes you could run into problems which hinder your progression. If you go for a more challenging playthrough you could have it easy and be given a great spawn point with a near by village with lots of loot to start your journey.

Overall, I'd give it a max 10/10 as a perfect game to sit back and relax to play on with you and your friends when they come over to your house to chill. It is the all in one sandbox game.