I just recently purchased the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft. My wife and I are always looking for games to play cooperatively and I had some fun with the free version on the PC. At first I thought I had wasted $20 as my wife and I struggled to build during our first night, watching with fear as the monsters crept ever closer to the island we had chosen for our home. The second night was slightly better. We had walls and a roof; enough to keep us relatively safe. By the time we got our first door, torches and tools, I was hooked. I think the strength of the game is it's feeling of accomplishment, whether it's crafting new tools and weapons, or building a crazy castle that's impossible in the real world. I was worried that the game wouldn't appeal to me because it doesn't have a story and no primary objective outside of survive the night, but after having played it more thoroughly, I can say that I really enjoy it and I look forward to building all the crazy ideas I have in my head. As for the graphics, with games like this, and the ones we see on cell phones, I feel like graphics are less important than they used to be. Granted, there is still an appeal to those really pretty games, but there is a threshold where they all start to look the same. It's the games that survive on their gameplay merits and break convention that are really worth your time and money. I believe minecraft is one of those games.
