trineroks
Chief Administrator
Joined: 16 Oct 2009
Posts: 1770
Location: Southern Cali (UCLA)
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 Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2011 8:16 pm Post subject: Minecraft: Pocket Edition |
Bring Minecraft with you wherever you go with Mojang AB's Minecraft: Pocket Edition!
Originally released on the Sony Xperia PLAY on August 16, 2011, Minecraft: Pocket Edition is now available on the iOS App Store for $6.99. The game is in Alpha, which means it's technically not the full app yet.
Minecraft: Pocket Edition looks and feels like the version of PC Minecraft, albeit with a few major differences. The player has access to all the blocks with a few exceptions (no gravel, clay, birch/pine wood, ores, bedrock, water, lava, and cactus). Although these blocks may appear in the world, they are unobtainable as of now. Lava and water, however, may be obtained by SSHing the iPhone to the computer. The pocket edition also has its own exclusive blocks, such as the cyan flower. Items are limited only to ladders and torches, both of which function just the same as in PC Minecraft. Liquids, such as water and lava, are finite, mimicking their PC properties.
When you start up the game, there are three buttons to choose from: "Join Game", "Start Game", and "Options". In "Options", you may change your username, graphics, controls, and vibration feedback. "Start Game" brings you to a world generation screen, where you can enter in the world name and a world seed. World seeds are much like how they work in PC Minecraft and are not required to create a world. "Join Game" allows you to play with your friends via local wifi. Multiplayer worlds are saved onto the host's device. World generation functions similarily to the Alpha build of PC Minecraft - randomized with little variety in biomes. The world, unlike PC Minecraft, is also very limited; unlike the "infinitely generating" maps Minecraft players are accustomed to, Pocket Edition worlds are significantly smaller and have a fixed size.
Controls are simple for the touch versions of Minecraft (I say touch to encompass both the iPhone and Android phones other than the Xperia PLAY). There is a virtual D-pad on the left for movement and a jump button in the center of the arrow keys. You can swipe the screen to look around. Tap the ground to place a block, and tap & hold to destroy blocks (blocks take time to break). All the blocks available to the player are in the in-game menu, which can be accessed by tapping the "..." box in the inventory bar. Players may also switch from first to third person mode and vice versa by tapping the view button on the top left corner in the in-game menu. Autojump is also enabled by default and cannot be turned off. The controls can feel a bit clunky at times because the jump button is awkwardly placed in the center, making it a hassle to try and jump manually. Autojump, although helpful most of the time, makes it difficult to build underwater as the game basically prevents players from walking underwater - it will make you come up out of the water if you tap any direction on the D-pad while underwater. The only way to curb this problem is to continuously tap the D-pad in the direction where you want to go, so that you can move underwater without being pushed up too much.
Mobs, mining, and crafting are absent in the Pocket Edition. Currently, the only thing players can do is build and destroy. This is still only the Alpha build of the game, however, and the folks at Mojang AB will be releasing updates for the game.
+ Feels and looks like Minecraft
+ 36 blocks at your disposal
+ Random world generation
+ Local Multiplayer
- The D-pad should be replaced with virtual joysticks, with the jump button on the right side of the screen
- There should be an option to turn autojump off
- There should also be global multiplayer
- Lack of mobs, mining, and crafting
I rate the current build of this app a 8.8/10
Last edited by trineroks on Tue Dec 06, 2011 1:31 am; edited 1 time in total
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trineroks
Chief Administrator
Joined: 16 Oct 2009
Posts: 1770
Location: Southern Cali (UCLA)
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| Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2011 10:10 am |
wanderer wrote: What the hell is this mine craft? Is it a game a program or is it like "sims city"
What's the point in the game?
Is their a bad guy?
Are you a good guy?
Does someone go around trying to destory your buildings and you have to make it strong enough?
Why is it muiltiplayer what does the other person do your review acts like you both are just building a city and that's it.
I know doom wants to delete my post but I'm still lost on what minecraft is about. Minecraft is a sandbox survival game. Sandbox, because there is no objective, no "winning", etc. You go around mining, building your base, farming, defending yourself from the monsters that appear at night, etc. There's not really a bad guy or a good guy.
Multiplayer is so that you can build along with other people. There are servers that play differently as well; the server i'm in is a RP (role playing) server set in the middle ages. |
ok sounds nice you should added that in the review