Minecraft

Minecraft: It’s Lego with zombies and explosions.

If you haven’t at least heard the word Minecraft yet, then you’ve probably been living on another planet, or at least under a moss covered rock in some sort of dank ancient cave. This simple little open world game is one of the few games to truly boast the fact that you can well and truly do whatever you want. The controls are simple; hold down the left trigger (left mouse button on a desktop) to destroy a block, you then pick up said block automatically by walking next to it, allowing you to place it anywhere of your choosing by pressing the right trigger (right click on a desktop). Congratulations, you’ve just learned the tools you need in order to survive - that’s right, survive!

The fantastic thing about everything you do in Minecraft is that it all starts in a simple form, and then very quickly evolves to something a little more complex. The games controls allow you to build anything you can imagine, but if you’re not ready by nightfall you’ll have to face the various monsters that spawn – yep, we said monsters. This means you need to defend yourself, you need to make yourself a wooden sword by cutting down trees, but to cut down trees quickly you need an axe, but look behind you because there’s a creeper getting ready to explode and you need to sprint back into the dirt house you built during the day, and oh no, there’s the undead in your house!

You really need to keep your wits about you in this game.

I can’t tell you how many creepers have waddled up behind and exploded my house and I in one go! But hey, don’t worry if you are more of the creative type than, say the survival kind, then Minecraft has an answer for you too. Whilst in ‘creative mode’ you’re given the powers of flight and the ability to place any block you want, making it a world of grown up digital Lego, at your finger tips. Needless to say, some of the creations that people online have come up with using this tool have been incredible! Some have recreated the first level of Super Mario, others have made giant floating castles in the sky. My personal favourite was one player who created a giant walking robot that could propel TNT out of its hands and chest – boom!

There’s nothing more satisfying than putting down that final block, taking a step back and looking at everything you’ve created. Maybe there’s something in the knowledge that everything you’ve made has been earned and that you know that there’s nothing else like it, that the house that you have envisioned for yourself is completely different to someone else’s, everything you build is unique, the possibilities are endless! Who says you need to build it out of dirt? It can be made of stone, brick even solid gold if you wanted! The choice is yours.

Build. Craft. Create.

Minecraft is available across Windows,

Windows Phone, OS, iOS, Xbox 360,

Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita.

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