However you choose to spend your time in Minecraft is fine with Minecraft - It doesn't judge



The core of Minecraft's gameplay has remained intact: you mine and then you craft.

You begin empty-handed and literally construct everything you use, even every tool with which to make it. Tools will break over time, and stronger materials make stronger tools, so the more you craft, the more you must mine, and you will quickly fall into a steady rhythm of work, then play.

The relentless day/night cycle will also enforce a sort of loose order on how and what you do. During the daytime you are free to roam around the block-shaped countryside, mingling with block-shaped sheep, pigs, cows and chickens and mining various block-shaped natural materials. Once the night comes, the inky blackness fills with block-shaped things that want you dead, so you must retreat inside a shelter (after you build one) or find some way to illuminate the darkness.

Various difficulty levels will allow you to set how many and how deadly the night terrors will be. On the "peaceful" setting, they won't show up at all. Your health regenerates if you should fall from a great height or burn yourself with lava, but the dangers are few. On the "hard" setting, zombies, skeletons, spiders and the silent-but-deadly Creepers swarm like flies and hurt you plenty.

There are no levels, no missions and no cutscenes or voices telling you what to do. There is, in fact, nothing you are supposed to do but survive. And even that is a choice. If you die, you will simply respawn and you can go collect all of your lost items if you can find them. No harm, no foul.

The game is what you make of it, and however you choose to spend your time in Minecraft is fine with Minecraft. It doesn't judge.

Often for better and occasionally for worse, Minecraft XBLA is PC Minecraft with very little added and very little taken away. A few craftable items didn't make the leap, but by-and-large, it is the exact same game ported, with all that entails. The same materials are used to craft the same items and you will still find them in the usual places.

In lieu of creating online servers, you can invite a friend to mine and craft with you via Xbox Live, or have a better friend connect a controller and play with you via split-screen co-op. Graphically, while never astonishing on PC, Minecraft XBLA is still pretty in its simple way and runs smoothly.