From the same people that brought us Game of Thrones and Tales From the Borderlands comes their newest decision based game, Minecraft: Story Mode. Telltale Games is notorious for their rigorous storytelling and memorable characters and this time is no different. You play as Jesse, regardless of which gender you choose at the beginning, who is on a mission to create the greatest build at EnderCon, (Enderman Convention if you didn't catch on). The winner gets to meet the great Gabriel of the Order of the Stone, a group of people who slayed the Ender Dragon years ago but have disbanded since. Of course, the episode would be nothing without some kind of story of revenge that spirals the characters into an adventure that they would have never seen themselves in. Someone sets out to create a Wither, a huge monster that sets out to consume everything, leaving you and your friends to seek out the Order of the Stone. You are accompanied by your friends Olivia, confidant and trusty, Axel, large and loyal, and Reuben, a pig. Telltale hit the nail on the head this time with a different, family-friendly take on one of their main installments. No prior knowledge of the original building game is needed, but it would help if you had some basic terminology.
The episode relies prettily on QTE (Quick Time Events) and gives you something next to decision making to worry about. While a lot of the QTE are really to avoid taking damage, some are just used for the sake of being there, like to build things, but they also add to your situation and count as something else to watch out for. You are given a set of ten hearts to have throughout the episode (and most likely throughout the series) and damage gets taken away every time you are either attacked by an enemy or fail to do a QTE. The QTE also acts as its own decision as some events can change how a person sees you. It isn't as effective as a regular decision, but something like which group of people you want to run with or how long it takes you to do something might have a much more of an impact in the future.
It’s easy for gamers to forget that, at its core, Minecraft is a survival game with horror elements. Underneath the bright-colored blocks, cute pigs, and nameable horses are undead creatures, monstrosities from the depths of the Nether, and what was once a pig that has horribly mutated and stalks the player with a hiss on its lips. When put like that, it's sometimes easy to forget that this game is predominantly played by child
Over the past few weeks I’ve spent a frankly irresponsible amount of time on my 3DS, a great deal of it with A Link Between Worlds . But when I wasn’t busy rescuing princesses from other princesses (or, uh, doing actual work for the site) I was delving into Bravely Default . Not just the full game, but the demo. Most of us have, at one point or another, obsessively played a demo for a game that had us hyped, but what may surprise you is that I’ve sunk over 10 hours into a single playthrough of this one. Any way you slice it, that’s a lot of content for free software. Well, I say "any way," but it comes pre-sliced, sources vertically.
Each path differs in gameplay as Magnus’s path is a lot more action-oriented with the introduction of Boom Town and 'griefers.' Of course, we all know 'griefers' from the original game as annoying players who would blow stuff up. Because of this, QTEs (Quick Time Events) are utilized that were so popular in the previous episode to dodge TNT. Ellegaard’s path isn’t as action oriented and focuses more on puzzles and the character focus from the very first episode. There is a lot more dialogue in this path and a lot of it makes up the funnier aspects of this episode. This episode capitalizes on the voice actors that Telltale has gotten together like Corey Feldman (Magnus), who played Mouth in The Goonies, and Grey Griffin (Ellegaard), famous for playing Daphne Blake in the Scooby-Doo cartoon movies that bring the characters to life.
Giving life to a game that is notorious for not having any real plot or development within the story, Telltale did an incredible job capturing the world of Minecraft . They gave insight into the inhabitants of whatever world Minecraft takes place in and what they do when they aren't building or crafting. Inhabitants don't go around killing every zombie and spider in sight and in fact aren't actually set on mining for the greatest minerals to build the biggest buildings and the greatest weapons, which makes sense. With the decision-based mechanics of the episode, you give Jesse the opportunity to make his,(or her) own decisions that will essentially shape his personality as well as the way that others perceive him. Though a good majority of the decisions only result in "She/He will remember that," some are detrimental decisions that can make or break your situation. Regardless of how you play the episode, it offers a lot more than just being a TV show that you play and allows players the chance to create the story that they couldn't play before. For being only the first episode in this five episode series, the series gets off to an incredible start.
