Minecraft XBLA: A Treat for Console Gamers

While some savvy 360 owners have been playing Minecraft knock offs for some time now, the rest of you will get your chance to try the real deal in Spring of 2012. It isn't going to have all the features of its PC counterpart when it releases, but the XBLA version of Mojang's fantastic open-world create-anything-you-want game is still fun and addictive. And it has at least one component that all Minecraft players should envy.

The 360 version of Minecraft is still largely the same game. You drop into a world composed of various types of cubes, chipping away at them in an effort to gather resources and create new tools and items. At night monsters come out, forcing you to build structures to survive. It has a lot of the same appeal as working with a box of LEGO, only here you have to actually mine the right types of blocks to be able to make the various structures conceived in your mind's eye. You can play it just to go nuts creating, or you can build armor and weapons and go spelunking in caves, exploring and hunting for precious minerals. Minecraft isn't meant to be played a specific way, but rather is intended to be a true sandbox for you to play around in.


Console players will be able to do all the above when Minecraft releases, but they won't be on the same page as PC players. I was told that the XBLA version is currently based off an older version of the PC game, so it doesn't include any of the 1.8 adventure update features. However, the team at Microsoft who are toiling away on the port assure me that additional content will be released after the game comes out, so it'd be foolish to think of the XBLA Minecraft as a "lesser" version. From what I played during the short demo, it still has the best parts of the game – you still work to earn your blocks, fight for survival and create whatever you can dream up.

For controls, the console version works like many first-person shooters. The twin sticks operate your movement and your view, while the left and right triggers act like the left and right clicks of a mouse button; clicking in the left trigger hits blocks, while clicking in the right uses them. It isn't quite as fast and smooth as using a mouse and keyboard, but it's still intuitive, and within moments I was digging tunnels into the world and building new structures.


Minecraft XBLA allows you to create grand structures out of chunks of dirt, but more ambitious players will want to craft an array of items and tools to help them make their visions come to life. To this end the XBLA version's crafting system has been tweaked and reimagined to take advantage of the 360 controller. Instead of opening a crafting table and dragging raw materials into the right configuration on a 3X3 grid (as is the case with the PC version), players use a really simple interface to quickly make exactly what they need. If you walk up and use a crafting table in the 360 version it brings up a menu where you can quickly select between recipes, creating the items you need with a tap of the button. If you don't have the materials needed it'll show you exactly what's missing. This means that console players don't have to use any wikis to hunt down recipes, and don't have to spend time making sure resources are in just the right slots to get what's needed. It's fast, works brilliantly, and left me wondering why the hell it isn't in the PC version.

I think the most telling thing about my time with the XBLA version of Minecraft was that I didn't want to put it down; I would have spent hours with it if they hadn't kicked me off the demo station. It works well with the 360 controller, and the new crafting interface is fantastic – an even better solution that I could have expected. If you've been dying to try Minecraft and don't have the option to play the PC version, I think you're going to be in for a treat when Spring 2012 rolls around.

Anthony Gallegos is an Editor on IGN's PC team. He loves any and all sorts of games and gaming questions. You can reach out to him on Twitter and MyIGN.

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