Play Pals – Minecraft Special – Jamie: Born Survivor

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Minecraft: The Most Overrated Sandbox Game Ever

Hello my fellow fellows. How are you? Oh…

Today I’m going to tell you why I truly hate Minecraft and think it’s one of the worst games I’ve ever played. I expect fainting in the aisles but please give me an opportunity to quickly qualify my argument with two preliminary points.

1 – This opinion is based entirely on my friends and how they play Minecraft; if my argument doesn’t represent Minecraft nerds properly then maybe they just do it wrong.

2 – This argument will probably be easier to understand if I reveal to you that I didn’t much like Lego as a child. Well…at least the building part of it, that was the least important thing on my mind. Building was merely what I was forced to do before I could craft a brilliant story about the great decapitation of the Lego people or the shocking revelation that my main character was wearing a wig the whole time.

IT’S JUST DIGGING!

Most of this game is digging and don’t you dare deny it! From what I’ve seen this game is definitely 90% mining and 10% crafting – the balance is completely off. To top it all off, the pay out in this game for all your hard work is so limited. I literally feel like I’ve gone to work for a long day in the mines. Anyway, I boldly take my arsenal of wooden/stone/diamond armoured pickaxes and set to work.

Digging. Digging. Digging. Digging. Digging. Digging. Digging.

Days pass and I’ve done quite a lot at this point. I am sat in quite the cavern, if I’m lucky I may have discovered my own Cave of Wonders minus the talking Tiger head and actual treasure. But never fear! There’s plenty of iron ore to go around! Perhaps some cobblestone? It is even conceivable that I have come across a treasure trove of gold or diamond. Oh wondrous day! My luck’s in! There may be 10, 15, 20 blocks of each? That’s practically enough to make me the golden bidet I’ve been hankering for. However, the total amount of gold, diamond, cobblestone and iron ore does not compare to the amount of dirt I have accumulated. Hundreds upon thousands of blocks of dirt neatly organised into piles of 64.

DiggingDiggingDiggingDiggingDiggingDiggingDigging

Would you believe that this can become tiresome? Most people don’t. Most people get a kick out of the digging and they can go for days! Apparently zombified, it is difficult to discern whether the Minecraft obsessive is exhilarated or a dead husk of a human. However, reanimation soon occurs once the Minecraft junkie stumbles across a couple of block of coal or iron ore. Then the shit really hits the fan! They perform their happiest prospector dance then begin the mind-numbingly boring process of digging again. Now I agree that I hardly look a picture when I’m settling down scoring goals on FIFA or sneaking around various exotic military compounds in MGS but I at least get the sense that I’m winning something. It’s a feeling I truly cherish – progression. When I play Minecraft I do not get this sensation, instead I feel ready to clock-off but unfortunately there’s still work to be done. I build and build on my mountainous reserves of dirt and other interesting items and it takes fucking ages.

DIGGINGDIGGINGDIGGINGDIGGINGDIGGINGDIGGINGDIGGING

So what about when we get to the crafting? Your reward for your hours of toiling away at the unforgiving dirt manifests itself in the opportunity to build whatever you like…within reason. In terms of complexity it’s not quite got the scope of fantastic contraption but if you really loved the bit in The Sims where you build your house but wish you had to lay every brick yourself then this is the bit for you! 2 hours digging should see you through to about 20 minutes building, which personally I found to be a bit of a kick in the teeth.

I unequivocally, absolutely and unreservedly refuse to accept that most people are into Minecraft for the creativity. Am I misrepresenting you? Is that totally unfair? Or is it true that you prefer to spend most of your time NOT in creative mode, which would grant you all the powers of Minecraft heaven required to build your very own Eden. But this isn’t what you want, is it? Indeed, I am accusing you of enjoying the digging. It seems to be all consuming! There appears to be this insatiable desire among gamers to hold R2/RB for as long as possible. This obsession is completely foreign to me and I am keen for you all to stop it.

That’s why when I see the crazily awesome things that people build and share online I feel my awed appreciation snatched away from me like a breath in cold water. I look at these pictures and think: Jesus H. Christ, how long did these take to build?

Frankly, it’s barely even a game. It’s a semi-blank canvas. Some of you may be into that but I most certainly am not. There’s no goal to achieve, no plot, no challenge. Yeah, I said it!

You might tell me that the goal is to create.

That there is nothing more exhilirating than painting the blocky Minecraft Earth; cementing your position as a great of the age named among the immortals: Picasso, Da Vinci, Minecraft Steve. Well all I’ve seen my friends do is devote themselves for weeks to a vision, which often tends to be a bog standard mansion of varying shapes. They will work so hard just digging and digging and digging. Blood, sweat and toil all so they can admire their labour of love once it is finished. Then once the fricking thing is erected* they tell me about it (unable to wipe off the justifiably smug smile off their faces) and within a week they’ll have started a new map. They will even delete the save that holds their creation, they will not believe that the rest of the enormous map they inhabit is worthy of being populated by more than one creation, and they will once again begin the process of building another bog standard mansion.

You might even tell me that it is a challenge.

Well I find it hard to believe that a game is tough when on the hardest setting it is possible to survive the relentless horrors of the night by hiding in a box of dirt for 10 minutes. Your only real goal is to dig for as much crap as you can and as long as you have some form of light you’ll survive pretty much anything. At this point I will grant one concession, I do actually find it very difficult to maintain the will to dig and craft in this game. So well done you!

In many ways, Minecraft is a rubbish sandbox game but a perfectly serviceable sandbox in of itself. What I mean by that is that all the creativity is up to you. You can dare to create whatever springs to your imagination but you will tend to find yourself confined by the limited materials you have – much like the child that has the imagination to build a magnificent sand castle but ultimately is confined to using a finite number of materials to realise this vision. The actual game is not present for me. I understand the joy of creation as I have fleetingly felt it when playing Lego and The Sims, but I just can’t understand why it becomes an all-consuming devotion. Give me the ‘constrained’ sandbox games any day! Rockstar has consistently provided me with more fun within their own beautifully crafted sandboxes than any shitty amalgamation of dirt and stone that poor lonely Minecraft Steve can build (between villager stonings).

Well, I think that’s about it. What a load of shit.

*C======3