I wanna start the review by saying I will only be talking about vanilla Minecraft without multiplayer, if I talked about multiplayer I would be here for weeks.
Gameplay 9/10 -
The game is played how you wanna play it what I mean is that you could spend all your time fighting mobs and mining or building whatever your heart desires. I'm not much of a builder but I'll try to cover how much the game offers to build with later, for now I wanna talk about how the combat works. The combat update introduced in 1.9 really changed how the game is played, it added weapon cool down which for fighting mobs is a lot more balanced then the spam clicking we use to have for the game. They also re-balanced the sword and axe to have different uses in combat the sword is faster and can hit more than one enemy at a time while the axe is slower does more damage and can disable shields. It also added many arrow effects you could choose to use but aren't very useful for mobs. Crossbows were also added in the past year and while looking and feeling cool to use they aren't very useful to play with because of the fact power is impossible to get on the said weapon. Even with some of the weapons not having much a point in combat the fact the game gives you options is fun to play with and makes it exciting to try new things while fighting the many mobs you will encounter.
Graphics 7/10 -
The graphics are far from impressive even for a game released in 2011, however the game's animations can shine with items such as the totem of undying or the elder guardian jump scare.
Sound 8/10 -
Many of the sounds in the game are iconic, it could be the terrifying sound of a creeper hiss behind you or the villager hmmmm noises the sounds are all very unique and fitting to the creatures. The soundtrack is very ambient and relaxing with it's nice calming piano tracks. The game can play random noises sometimes that when it's late at night and you have no idea what you heard that are capable of making you jump which can add to the atmosphere of exploring a cave.
Addictive 10/10 -
There's a reason that all this time later people all over the world are still playing Minecraft, the game only ends when you want it to. You can endlessly build, in creative or survival as much as you want to. You could play it for an hour, ten hours, 100 hours, or even a thousand hours.
Depth 10/10 -
The game has so many things you can go for achievement wise, so many blocks to build the idea of your dreams, items to collect, and several dimensions to explore to your heart's dreams. On top of all that the world can be practically infinite, while it does have a limit in the form of a world border you'd never find it on accident and I don't know of anyone who could seriously claim they have explored an entire world in Minecraft nor do I even know how possible it would be with all 3 dimensions being the same size as well as all the caves in the over world. Speaking of the over world there is a few dozen biomes to find and explore in the world and they can all feel very unique.
Difficulty 6/10 -
The game even on hard is pretty easily as long as you plan how you go about things but a newcomer can have a very hard time. For the people seeking a real challenge there is a hardcore mode where if you die you have to delete the world you can't re-spawn, however to my knowledge it has no other differences to the normal hard difficulty.
Overall 9/10 -
Minecraft is the best selling game of all time and it's not hard to see why even without talking about multiplayer which I would consider the best part of the game it still has endless possibilities.
I wanna start the review by saying I will only be talking about vanilla Minecraft without multiplayer, if I talked about multiplayer I would be here for weeks.
Gameplay 9/10 -
The game is played how you wanna play it what I mean is that you could spend all your time fighting mobs and mining or building whatever your heart desires. I'm not much of a builder but I'll try to cover how much the game offers to build with later, for now I wanna talk about how the combat works. The combat update introduced in 1.9 really changed how the game is played, it added weapon cool down which for fighting mobs is a lot more balanced then the spam clicking we use to have for the game. They also re-balanced the sword and axe to have different uses in combat the sword is faster and can hit more than one enemy at a time while the axe is slower does more damage and can disable shields. It also added many arrow effects you could choose to use but aren't very useful for mobs. Crossbows were also added in the past year and while looking and feeling cool to use they aren't very useful to play with because of the fact power is impossible to get on the said weapon. Even with some of the weapons not having much a point in combat the fact the game gives you options is fun to play with and makes it exciting to try new things while fighting the many mobs you will encounter.
Graphics 7/10 -
The graphics are far from impressive even for a game released in 2011, however the game's animations can shine with items such as the totem of undying or the elder guardian jump scare.
Sound 8/10 -
Many of the sounds in the game are iconic, it could be the terrifying sound of a creeper hiss behind you or the villager hmmmm noises the sounds are all very unique and fitting to the creatures. The soundtrack is very ambient and relaxing with it's nice calming piano tracks. The game can play random noises sometimes that when it's late at night and you have no idea what you heard that are capable of making you jump which can add to the atmosphere of exploring a cave.
Addictive 10/10 -
There's a reason that all this time later people all over the world are still playing Minecraft, the game only ends when you want it to. You can endlessly build, in creative or survival as much as you want to. You could play it for an hour, ten hours, 100 hours, or even a thousand hours.
Depth 10/10 -
The game has so many things you can go for achievement wise, so many blocks to build the idea of your dreams, items to collect, and several dimensions to explore to your heart's dreams. On top of all that the world can be practically infinite, while it does have a limit in the form of a world border you'd never find it on accident and I don't know of anyone who could seriously claim they have explored an entire world in Minecraft nor do I even know how possible it would be with all 3 dimensions being the same size as well as all the caves in the over world. Speaking of the over world there is a few dozen biomes to find and explore in the world and they can all feel very unique.
Difficulty 6/10 -
The game even on hard is pretty easily as long as you plan how you go about things but a newcomer can have a very hard time. For the people seeking a real challenge there is a hardcore mode where if you die you have to delete the world you can't re-spawn, however to my knowledge it has no other differences to the normal hard difficulty.
Overall 9/10 -
Minecraft is the best selling game of all time and it's not hard to see why even without talking about multiplayer which I would consider the best part of the game it still has endless possibilities.