Why Minecraft is the Best and the Worst Thing to Ever Happen to Me

Posted on June 28, 2012 by Heather Hale

by Heather Hale

It all started with Sim Tower. I was in 4th grade and my uncle handed me a floppy disk that would change my life forever, possibly for the worse. Building my tower, floor by floor: adding emergency staircases, elevators, movie theaters, with all my little Sim people running around enacting the rat race I would one day become a part of. Back in the days of Sim Tower I didn’t have much to escape from, but by god, I lived in that tower.

I spent so much time there that I got my very first “D” grade and my mom had to take away my beloved floppy disk and hide it from me. Throughout my life, as technology advanced, I found similar games that sucked me into a virtual world of my own creation where I would have rather resided than the real one. Most of the ones that really got me had something to do with building. I typed in “rosebud” thousands of times to make the fortune that built me some of the most extravagant Sim’s houses I could have ever imagined. Keeping that in mind, you can probably understand why I put off trying Minecraft until it recently came to Xbox. With all of its glory right in my living room, it could no longer be avoided.

I live in New York City and every day I rush around, subway to subway, go to work in Time Square at a job where I don’t get enough hours to sustain a living, then go home to my cockroach infested apartment and sit in front of the TV to try to escape from it all. This is where a game like Minecraft becomes so dangerous. A world like Minecraft is an easy place to lose yourself. I started playing this past weekend, and by Sunday I had two castles, a wolf companion, and an absurd amount of resources.

The soothing music and simple, yet lovely, surroundings put me in such a state that hours flew by without my noticing at all. Playing on “peaceful mode” (where there are no enemies) reminded me of my favorite childhood pastime: exploring the woods in my back yard with my friends. Soon, I had uncovered the entire world map just from walking around – with no agenda whatsoever. There was no pressure to accomplish anything, fight any monsters, or level up in any way. Minecraft gives you the freedom to explore and create with only your own personal agenda to dictate what the game is. I want to tell everyone I know to play this game, but once you start exploring, it’s sincerely hard to stop.

One of the other reasons why I have enjoyed playing the Xbox version so much is couch co-op. If you can get a friend or family member to sit down and play this with you, wonderful collaborative things can happen. Since my boyfriend and I enjoy playing games together, once we started building our world together, it was difficult to come up for air. Lately we’ve been unhappy with our actual living situation, so spending time together building a “home” of sorts was refreshing and incredibly positive.

There is something truly gratifying about collecting resources with your own “hands” and using them to build something you can see. Especially in today’s world, where so many people are up to their ears in debt, having an experience where the work you do pays off is more gratifying than the thankless jobs we beg to get.

Although the regular game modes in Minecraft include monsters that can do a variety of terrible things to you and your beloved constructions, playing in “Peaceful mode” takes that all away, allowing you complete freedom and serenity. By removing all the monsters, you also remove the learning curve; it allows the freedom to create and explore without one player holding back another due to insufficient experience with gaming. The game is fairly simple and would be easy for anyone interested to pick up, especially with a little coaching from a friend.

I also think that playing Minecraft is a great introduction to a 3-D world for gamers unfamiliar with navigating new generation graphics. It is an incredibly low-pressure way to familiarize yourself with the mechanics of the Xbox and could be a great gateway into trying other, more conventional types of games. It is also advantageous that you can easily switch out of “Peaceful mode” to various other difficulties, which can include monsters and other trials and tribulations. This allows players to spice things up a bit, and could also be used to familiarize a new player with combat after they have become comfortable with the game.

Minecraft is a lovely cubic world of exploration and creation. The newly released Xbox version allows non-PC gamers to experience something truly unique to console gaming. It is a wonderful way to bond with friends, family, or even strangers, and come together in a positive way, outside of constantly shooting each other in the face. With settings that give you exact control over your experience, Minecraft is the kind of flexible ludic world which lends itself to any kind of player.

We need more approachable games like this to allow people to experience games within their comfort zone. It’s a game where you can define your own world and choose exactly how you want to interact with it. If you don’t have the resources for a real-life getaway, do yourself a favor and take a Minecraft vacation. Soon you’ll be mining squares of gold in your sleep and you’ll understand what I mean when I say it is the best and the worst thing that you can do with your time.

I’d tell you more, but I have some mining to do.

Further Reading

Minecraft: Development, Discovery, and the Final Frontier (Medium Difficulty)

Bad at What? The Question of Skill and Criticism (Medium Difficulty)

Life and Undeath in Chernarus: Why Day Z Is the Worst Best Zombie Game (Medium Difficulty)

About Heather Hale

Heather Hale is a graduate of the Masters in Cinema Studies at NYU.
This entry was posted in Reviews and tagged co-op , connecting with your boyfriend , family gaming , , maxis , , Minecraft XBLA , mojang , Notch , sim tower . Bookmark the permalink .
  • Steven Sukkau

    I never thought of minecraft as a great way to introduce people to 3D game spaces, but I agree with you, I think it could work really well. Now to try and get my mom to play it…

  • I’ve spent quite a long time playing minecraft and I have that strong feeling that something is missing in that game. It lacks end game content.
    First, you build a base, safe and efficient. You build a good source of food, you mine under your base for some time, you build a mob tower, get a cat and a dog. You kill the cat because he always tries to block you. You build a railroad. You don’t have iron anymore. You start building beautifull buildings just for fun: a tower, a lighthouse, 3 castles, a cathedral, the Bradburry building, a castle bigger than the 3 previous ones. You show ‘m to your friends, it’s beautifull. They come and play on your server. They stop playing. You realise your beautifull building are useless and will remain empty forever. You get to the nether, try the potions, not realy usefull. You get to the ender, beat the dragon, not very difficult. You enchant items. You play with redstone for a while: Jeb’s door, a lava bridge, a lift but it doesn’t work that well. What’s next?
    At that time, you lack a goal. Every usefull resource is renewable without exploring. Diamond? You just dig more under your base. It’s not exploring, it’s mining. Blaze powder? You just farm your favority blaze spot over and over again. Sand? You have a desert and there’s still plenty of sand there. Wood? Plant more trees. In an almost infinite word, the game mechanics make you completely autosufficient in a small area. You can look for a village, they’ll trade items you can already get another way. You can look for a pyramid or a temple, you may even find diamond there but it’ll be longer than just digging.

    Mods?
    I’ve tried buildcraft/industrialcraft in multiplayer. Not bad but you gets autosufficient faster.
    Better than wolves is pretty good but quite complicated.

    My feeling is that there should be a usefull non renewable ressource generated on the surface from place to place. Something you can’t get otherwise. Something that keeps being usefull even if you already have some. Something that give a reason to expand.

    • I think the great thing about games like this, especially playing in peaceful mode, is that there is no end game, no goal, nothing to achieve per say. In having a game space like that though, it takes away so much of the pressure associated with playing a game and makes it less of a game and more of a space for creation. I also think because there are many different ways to experience the game that even if it doesn’t let us finish one big goal, it lets us create many more goals for ourselves and makes it a more interesting space to experiment, in my mind at least. Although I’m sure we would all tire of it eventually, I don’t think that makes it any less successful.

  • My point is: if you keep on playing, there is an end. It occurs when you get the feeling that you are doing the same things in the same places over and over again.

  • http://r4icard-r4card.com/r4i-sdhc-3ds.html r4i sdhc 3ds

    Minecraft is a charming cubic world of discovery and development. The recently launched Console edition allows non-PC players to experience something truly unique to video game playing.

  • BitterAlmond

    Seriously, you played on the Xbox? Do yourself a favour and get the PC version.