Minecraft XBLA

oasismark

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When you first start in Minecraft, you’ll find yourself standing in the middle of the world. There isn’t much guidance, as the game is entirely in your hands. It’s a lot like playing with Legos, except you need to break down the pieces before you can build it up.

Starting off you need to find the nearest tree to break it down. After you have some wood, you can build your first crafting table. Once you have a crafting table in place, build some tools and get to work building a home. Right now, you don’t need an ornate mansion; you really just need to focus on having something you can use to sleep at night. Make sure that you have four walls and a roof to keep the monsters away.

Once you have a house, you need to place a bed. Even if you are playing on peaceful, this is key, as Beds act as a spawn point should you die. There is nothing more frustrating early game than dying and being unable to find your way back to your home. To make a bed, you need sheep, which can typically be found in grassy areas. Going to sleep will skip the night and allow you to wake back up in the day time.

Stone is the next level of tool beyond wood and will be a huge help when mining deeper into the earth. You also need stone to build a furnace, which is key to breaking down ores. You can also cook porkchops from killing pigs, which will increase the healing effect of the pork.

Ideally, you’ll be able to find some coal near the surface. As you begin to dig into the ground you will need torches to be able to see and to be able to keep the monsters away. The game will periodically spawn enemies anywhere there is no light so make sure to keep your early tunnels lit.




By now, you should be ready to begin your mineshaft. Try to keep it inside, or very near to your house so that you can quickly get in and out of it while avoiding monsters. One of the most important things in Minecraft is to not dig straight down. Best case scenario, you’ll get stuck and have to jump your way up burying everything you just dug. Worst case scenario, you’ll fall feet first into lava.

Until you have torches ready don’t dig too deeply. Torches prevent enemies from spawning nearby. If you can’t light your mine, you’ll be stuck in a dark room with skeletons and the like.
Don’t forget about tool progression. At this point you’ll be approaching iron, which means you will need stone tools. Wood can mine stone, stone can mine iron, and iron can mine anything but obsidian, which requires diamond.
Be on the watch for Lava as you dig deep. Falling into a pit will not only kill you, but instantly burn all your items.
By now, you can take some time to expand your house. Make chests, multiple furnaces, and any other luxury items you might like. A proper door and alternate exit are also helpful.
It would be great to start a farm. You can get seeds by chopping down the tall grass. Use a hoe to prepare the dirt and plant the seeds. They will over time grow into Wheat. You can use this to make bread that will refill your health. Farming wheat takes only a few seconds, and can save you lots of time that you would have spent hunting pigs.
Place torches everywhere. Put them outside your house, inside your caves and on your roofs. The more light you have, the less bad guys will be near you. Most bad guys make noise so even if you can’t see them; you know when they are nearby. Creepers however are silent killers. Having torches lighting up your world will help you spot them before they spot you.



You need to continue to work toward diamond tools. It won’t take you long to get a healthy supply of Iron. Use this to suit yourself up in armor and equip yourself with iron tools. This will let you go deeper into caves and mine for longer periods of time without worrying about health.

Diamond is what you are after in the end, and it is often times in some pretty hostile areas. Having an Iron suit of armor on can really help to alleviate some of your worries about dying. Diamond is precious and rare. If you find some, bring it back to the surface before something bad happens.

Don’t use up too much of your diamond on tools. Make a pickaxe and sword out of it, but hold off on the others until you have a very large supply of it. The same goes for armor. It takes a ton of diamond to make a full suit, and that can be better used on pickaxes for mining and swords for your defense.

Once you have diamond, mine up some obsidian using a diamond pickaxe. It is typically found deep underground where water and lava have collided. You can build a portal out of it, and using a flint and steel, you can light this portal up and take it to The Nether.

The Nether is like the underworld and is extremely dangerous. It is recommended you leave your valuables at home. Don’t bring in Diamond items, because it is likely you will die, and this place is filled will lava.

The Nether is filled with Netherrack and Soul Sand. Neither of which are too useful. However you can also find Glowstone here. Glowstone when turned into a block is one of the brightest lights in game and can light up an area similar to 2-3 torches. Netherrack when lit will burn forever.

After obtaining diamonds and reaching The Nether, the rest is up to you. You have all the major items now at your disposal, so go ahead and build a crazy world. Build houses, sky mansions, crazy mine systems, and underwater tunnels. Connect it all with elaborate mine cart systems and have lots of fun. Remember to light it up with torches though, because Creepers would love to come knock it all down.



Minecraft for XBLA gives you just about every recipe that is currently available in the game. However, there are a few furnace recipes that are a little unclear to newcomers.

Sand when placed into a heated furnace will turn into glass. Glass cannot be broken down as it will shatter.
When cobblestone is placed into a furnace, it will turn back into smooth stone; however, when broken down it will return to cobblestone.
Lava can be used to heat a furnace. To do this, you need an iron bucket to capture the lava from the source. When placed into a furnace, it will head the furnace for a much, much longer time than a single piece of coal.
If you can’t find coal, you can create it using wood. Wood when burned will turn into charcoal. This is great for early game when you need torches.
Also, don’t forget that you can cook porkchops to increase the healing power of them!
 
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How is no-one excited about this?

One of my big excited game releases of 2012!

I play it on pc at work during lunch, so i never get really involved in it, but to have it at home on big tv with X41's on!

I cannot wait!

Plus there loads of new updates happened since i played it, it'll be like a new game.

And online worlds building with mates!

AVF world is a must

Really people if you havnt played Minecraft, look out for it on XBLA
 
Its certainly a game you must play to 'get'

With no instructions, tutorial or even a goal to aim for, it's not for everyone.

The new improved crafting menu will help that slightly, once it grabs you it does drag you in, its got massive depth to it, and nothing is given to you for free, you got to go mine it or find it. Its not very forgiving either, many a time I've been down a mine far from home, with low health, and lost.
Knowing that if you die, all that ore and glowstone you mined could all be gone!

Its quite tense, and given me more tense moments that many 360 AAA titles.
 
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Not really a PC gamer so just never really paid much attention to this, reminds me of miner dig deep with the way you've described it Mark, just not sure if it would hold miy attention for long though.
 
Not really a PC gamer so just never really paid much attention to this, reminds me of miner dig deep with the way you've described it Mark, just not sure if it would hold miy attention for long though.


I just hope its priced right, as its a high profile game, it could be stuck with a huge price point, which just wont work, it needs to be 1200 max, hopefully 800 tho.
 
If there's a huge following of this, and given the amount of indie game clones out there I'd assume there was, then they will likely go for the 1200 point... Or even test the water with 1600 point as I fear quite a few games will be this year (Trials Evo looking likely too in my eyes)
 
Chatting in this thread has got me back into it, just started a new world, and the addiction comes back.

Ill prob get it no matter what, as i know ill play hrs & days on it.

(i currently have it on my works pc, and have a dabble at dinner times)
 
After watching a lot of videos on youtube of this i can't wait.

Also will this be co-op and if so how will it work.
 
After watching a lot of videos on youtube of this i can't wait.

Also will this be co-op and if so how will it work.

Im hoping for some kind of online co-op world building, im not sure how it will work as on pc it needs servers, but some of the indie arcade clones have online worlds?

Ive not bought one so cant see how they work.
 
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The Xbox Live Arcade version of Minecraft will launch without Kinect functionality, it emerged at Microsoft's recent Spring Showcase.

The Xbox 360's own version of Minecraft, the phenomenally successful indie title from Swedish developer Mojang, was announced at last year's E3, and was originally slated for release late last year.

The Xbox 360 version of Minecraft will also be base on version 1.6.6, which released on PC last May. It's the intention of 4J, who is working together with Microsoft Games Studios and Mojang on the port, to bring the game up to speed with its PC counterpart through a series of patches - one of which will introduce Kinect support.

"1.6.6 is the level playing ground that Microsoft, 4J and Mojang agreed on at the start," lead producer Roger Carpenter told Eurogamer, "At some point we'll announce how the updates are going to come about - we will slowly but surely bring the Xbox version up through the versions."

The Xbox 360 version introduces an in-game wiki, as well as tutorials that run through the foundations of Minecraft. It remains unclear how exactly Kinect will be integrated within the game.

"The one thing we were at great pains to do when we took on the project was, for want of a better phrase, not mess it up," said Carpenter. "Minecraft's so dear to so many people that we had to nail it on a controller, and on Xbox."
 



Not sure if this is new, but I saw it posted elsewhere.
 
8 player over live!

Nice!

So where does it save the world, when everyone signs off?

pc version has servers??
 
8 player over live!

Nice!

So where does it save the world, when everyone signs off?

pc version has servers??
I imagine it won't work in the same way as the pc version. Instead there'll probably be a host, and in order to continue working on the same world they'll be required to sign in and be playing the game.
 
Release date anounced:

May 9th

:arty:


MINECRAFT: XBOX 360 EDITION, May 9 for 1600 Microsoft Points
 
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1,600 MSP is £13.60 and you can knock a decent chunk of that price off by buying Microsoft Points cards.

The PC version is £16.95: -

Minecraft
 
Thought so expect the same for trials

trials is 1200

i dont mind 1600, ill get hrs and hrs play out of it, even tho i own the pc version aswel
 
Some of only paid €10 for Minecraft because we got in at the Alpha stage - I forgot it had gone up in price. I suppose that's fair, then.
 
Yeah i bought it at alpha, but i only have a decent pc at work, and can only grab 10 mins at a time on it, and online doesnt work properly.

So to have it at home on big tv with online working it a big bonus for me.
 

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