Recently Mojang, the producer behind Minecraft, has released their long awaited 1.8 update. This update, which will feature a new enemy is one of the biggest updates yet and the fans have been waiting for this one for quite some time. When I heard it was available, I instantly went online to check it out!
After finishing all my schoolwork I updated the game to the latest version and I arrived on the title screen, I noticed that the boring menu I had gotten used to was replaced by a camera hovering over the world and showing the scenery. It was interesting to watch but when I entered the actual game I only noticed two other updates that involve making the game look prettier: There was a new type of tree and the randomly generated world could now also spawn cliffs, ravines and the likes. Aside from those two updates nothing has really changed in the graphics and presentation department. Where 1.8 shines is in the changes it made to the gameplay, the first two changes that caught my attention are the experience bar and the new meter that shows how hungry your character is. While there aren’t any bonuses linked to the experience system, it is still a sign that something interesting may come from it or that PvP servers will become more popular. Now that your character also has to eat it adds more survival to the survival mode and that is a pretty good sign, in a way it proves to me yet again that Minecraft is the only survival horror game that has the “survival” part down (of course the Endermen will make sure the horror part functions properly).
Version 1.8 is not in any way flawless though, at the time of writing the game is very bugged, which may just be the reason that it “leaked”. “Notch”, the man behind the popular indie game already asked players if they wanted to report any bugs they find, which leads me to believe that Mojang’s QA department called in sick. I am also rather underwhelmed by the randomly generated ravines and other landmarks that I mentioned earlier because I found only a few and they weren’t really all that impressive. The music which I have always found rather boring and the lack of things to do with rare materials such as gold haven’t changed either. still, I can’t wait for the next few updates to be released though, we already started a new server to run it on and I am wearing my Creeper t-shirt again for the first time in weeks.
