Minecraft is truly a remarkable creation, focusing on unique game play elements that you rarely, if ever, see in other games. There are few games out there that focus on survival, and Minecraft was the first of it’s kind to feature survival and true creativity. You can literally do whatever you want in this game, the sky is the limit. Want to build castles with your friends? Want to add a lovely cannon to the top of that illustrious castle and blow the smithereens out of the other castles? You can do it! In fact, I HAVE done it!
What makes Minecraft even more incredible is the community. The game is great, but Minecraft has the healthiest community I have ever seen. It is complete with thousands of modders and millions of players. With a (hopefully) upcoming Mod API, we’ll see even better mods that expand Minecraft eternally. I am truly excited to see the future of this game.
As great as Minecraft is, it has its downfalls. The biggest thing that turns away new users is the graphics. Minecraft has a retro feel, and each meter by meter cube has an allotted 16 pixels per face. Some people enjoy the feel it gives, others don’t. There are also issues with efficiency. Although not as bad as before, Minecraft is a RAM eater. Don’t expect to play Minecraft if you have an older computer. Currently, multi-player servers have to have a lot of RAM to support a healthy community of players.
I expect great things from a game that has over 17 million registered users and over 4 million purchasers, and look forward to it’s future. Currently the game features dozens of materials and several potions. You can also enchant weapons and armor with skill points you gain from killing mobs in the randomly generated world, but the real shining start of Minecraft is the crafting system. You gather materials from the world around you and use them to build different items such as pick axes and shovels, helmets and boots, bread, torches, and other various items. Minecraft definitely has a bright future ahead of it.