Minecraft - PlayStation 4

"Minecraft" is the type of game that can be played and enjoyed in a number of different ways, depending on what you're wanting to get out of it. There's local and online co-op, allowing you to adventure and craft with friends. You can start a game in "creative mode" where you have an infinite amount of crafting materials available to you from the start, enabling the more creative-minded to go wild with their imaginations and build whatever they can think of. The way that I approached "Minecraft" was in its "survival mode," playing alone and without having dabbled in "creative mode" first, so I learned as I went, and in this way it almost feels like a survival horror game, or at least a survival game where the horror comes when the sun sets. The world itself is huge (36 times bigger than on PS3), with a day and night cycle, weather (rain, snow), and various types of terrain (desert, jungle). Once you're past the tutorial, which goes over only the basics, jumping into "survival mode" has you waking up in the middle of nowhere and learning to fend for yourself. This involves mining wood and cobblestone to build pickaxes and hatchets, building a workbench to make more complex items like doors, ladders, and windows, building a furnace to smelt ore or cook food, etc. When you first start out, nighttime feels terrifying and each day is like a race against the clock to finish mining what you need before dusk hits and insidious monsters start roaming the lands. Shelter becomes your first priority in order to stay safe. Eventually you'll build weapons and armor and venture further and further out. Spelunking in abandoned mines offers rewards, but there's always the threat of lurking monsters in the shadows and getting lost in the maze of tunnels deep underground. In the way that I played it, like I would a survival horror game, I found it to be completely enthralling and very often thrilling.--- 5 STARS ---

Great Product!!

At first I thought the idea of Minecraft was stupid. I love round & realistic shapes, so seeing so many blocks & even square-shaped pixels drove me nuts & gave me a headache. However, as time when on I found that I needed a game that I could be creative in. This was it, & to top it all of it even has its Survival Mode where you can learn how to survive on your own or with friends in a pretty open world. I've gotten super far on Hard mode on Vita version. I've built pretty decent farms, & improved on them with the help of YouTube videos. Right now I've done a little bit of playing on PS4. What I want to do someday is to import my different worlds on my Vita, PS3, & PS4 & try them out on the different systems.I hope to find dungeons & more on PS4 as I had on PS Vita. In fact, I think one of my worlds had some how led me to the End Portal already. I had intended for that map/world to be a farming one, but after that I decided to save it for when I want to try that PS4 map/world.

Prior to purchasing this game I had never actually played minecraft, I had heard of it and always figured it would be boring for someone like myself who doesn't have internet service for my console. While I imagine it is more fun to be able to play with other people online I still find it incredibly enjoyable to just play by myself and let my creative mind go crazy! I have mostly played on creative mode because I have enjoyed just wandering around and building whatever comes to mind, but survival mode is also very fun, I feel it plays kind of like a survival horror, you have to quickly build a shelter before dark and cautiously use your time and materials to improve your base and to expand and get more powerful weapons and armor. So this game is really perfect for all types of gamers as well as all ages, I am currently in a competition of sorts with my 2 younger cousins who are 10 and 16 and I am 22, so don't make the same mistake as I did and hesitate to buy this game its very fun and well worth the money.

My kids love it, but the game lags on the tutorial until it "warms up". I don't really know what it's doing but the tutorial is laggy as heck. The game doesn't do that anywhere else, but be aware tutorial performance doesn't indicate overall experience.The game is fun, up to four people can play locally. We only have two controllers so both kids can play but we'll have to get more soon. Each controller must be signed into a playstation account, which is annoying when friends come to play and they just want to play the game. There's no "guest" notion.The texture packs are neat but the kids only get a demo world and can't really do much with them without buying them.What really grinds my gears: Online multiplay requires a PlayStation Plus account. I don't want my kids having all the PlayStation Plus features with interactions with strangers, and I don't want them to have access to my credit card, but there's no middle ground here - either everyone is playing on the same screen, or the kids have the full online experience and all the features and access. Also PlayStation Plus costs some money, so make sure your kids are really interested in this game if you choose to buy it.