Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition
Developed by: Mojang, 4J Studies (Xbox 360 version)
Reading Level/Interest Age: Rated E10+ for Everyone. Adopted by many teens for its freedom and multiplayer aspects.
Developer Biography
Mojang is a Swedish independent game developer that was created by Markus Persson, Jakob Porser, and Carl Manneh to develop Minecraft. The company quickly grew and also added several other video games to its resume. By March 2012, the company had earned over $80 million in income. Mojang has sold over 9 million copies of Minecraft on PC and over 4.48 million copies on the Xbox 360.
4J Studios is a private developer founded in 2005 and based in East Linton and Dundee, Scotland. The company has developed six unique games dating back to the Playstation 2 era, and has ported or remade six other games for various other consoles. 4J Studios’s most recent port is Minecraft for the Xbox 360. Information retrieved from Wikipedia.
Reader’s Annotation:
Minecraft is known as a “sandbox” game, meaning players enter a virtual world and are free to do as they please. For the 360 edition, there is no overarching goal, though there are two modes: survival and creative.
Plot Summary:
There is no actual plot to Minecraft other than running through a basic survival mode or creating objects and structures in creative mode. The game literally has no end, so it is up to the player to determine what goals – if any – he wants to set and to achieve.
Survival introduces a hunger and health bar, along with a finite amount of inventory space. Players must also trek out into a randomly generated world to harvest materials to build tools, weapons, and eventually shelters to rest and hide within. Structures are also much more difficult to construct since all the materials for them must be mined, gathered, and synthesized, but the feat of creating a mansion in Survival is much more impressive as a result.
Creative mode ditches the health and hunger bars as well as the inventory system. Players can fly around the world freely, may place any number of blocks or objects as he wishes, and destroy them all instantly with a single command. Creative mode is a sandbox-type game in the truest sense, giving the player absolute freedom. Many players have created different impressive structures from the Death Star of Star Wars to 8-Bit representations of popular gaming icons such as Mega Man.
Critical Evaluation:
The true value of this game lays in the imagination of the player. Creative mode effectively becomes an online canvas for players to design whatever they wish, from pop culture icons to famous world destinations. Amazingly, this game does have educational value in the form of survival mode. Players can chop down trees en masse, but will be forced to range further and further out into the virtual world for more materials if they do not practice proper conservation by replanting. Players will also find their overall goals of building impressive structures foiled if they do not preplan first. The game is also remarkably detailed with different pixilated weather conditions, leaking caverns, and impressive lighting effects. Anybody who has ever enjoyed playing with Legos – or simply scribbling on a piece of paper – will likely enjoy this game.
Curriculum Ties:
Challenge Issues:
None
Defensive Maneuvers:
n/a
Book Talking Ideas:
n/a
Why This Game?
Over 13 million copies of this game have been purchased amongst teens and adults, easily making this a game worth purchasing for the library. Teens can join each others’ worlds in multiplayer, or simply build whatever comes to mind in single-player mode.
Reading Level/Interest Age: Rated E10+ for Everyone. Adopted by many teens for its freedom and multiplayer aspects.
Developer Biography
Mojang is a Swedish independent game developer that was created by Markus Persson, Jakob Porser, and Carl Manneh to develop Minecraft. The company quickly grew and also added several other video games to its resume. By March 2012, the company had earned over $80 million in income. Mojang has sold over 9 million copies of Minecraft on PC and over 4.48 million copies on the Xbox 360.
4J Studios is a private developer founded in 2005 and based in East Linton and Dundee, Scotland. The company has developed six unique games dating back to the Playstation 2 era, and has ported or remade six other games for various other consoles. 4J Studios’s most recent port is Minecraft for the Xbox 360. Information retrieved from Wikipedia.
Reader’s Annotation:
Minecraft is known as a “sandbox” game, meaning players enter a virtual world and are free to do as they please. For the 360 edition, there is no overarching goal, though there are two modes: survival and creative.
Plot Summary:
There is no actual plot to Minecraft other than running through a basic survival mode or creating objects and structures in creative mode. The game literally has no end, so it is up to the player to determine what goals – if any – he wants to set and to achieve.
Survival introduces a hunger and health bar, along with a finite amount of inventory space. Players must also trek out into a randomly generated world to harvest materials to build tools, weapons, and eventually shelters to rest and hide within. Structures are also much more difficult to construct since all the materials for them must be mined, gathered, and synthesized, but the feat of creating a mansion in Survival is much more impressive as a result.
Creative mode ditches the health and hunger bars as well as the inventory system. Players can fly around the world freely, may place any number of blocks or objects as he wishes, and destroy them all instantly with a single command. Creative mode is a sandbox-type game in the truest sense, giving the player absolute freedom. Many players have created different impressive structures from the Death Star of Star Wars to 8-Bit representations of popular gaming icons such as Mega Man.
Critical Evaluation:
The true value of this game lays in the imagination of the player. Creative mode effectively becomes an online canvas for players to design whatever they wish, from pop culture icons to famous world destinations. Amazingly, this game does have educational value in the form of survival mode. Players can chop down trees en masse, but will be forced to range further and further out into the virtual world for more materials if they do not practice proper conservation by replanting. Players will also find their overall goals of building impressive structures foiled if they do not preplan first. The game is also remarkably detailed with different pixilated weather conditions, leaking caverns, and impressive lighting effects. Anybody who has ever enjoyed playing with Legos – or simply scribbling on a piece of paper – will likely enjoy this game.
Curriculum Ties:
- Conservation, city planning
- Challenge Issues:
Challenge Issues:
None
Defensive Maneuvers:
n/a
Book Talking Ideas:
n/a
Why This Game?
Over 13 million copies of this game have been purchased amongst teens and adults, easily making this a game worth purchasing for the library. Teens can join each others’ worlds in multiplayer, or simply build whatever comes to mind in single-player mode.