Minecraft news » An Up-Close Look at Minecraft on the Xbox 360!

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During Minecon, we had the opportunity to see a wide variety of exciting releases and demos. Today, we're focusing on the Xbox 360 Minecraft port, by 4J Studios! The booth was demoing the first build of Minecraft on the popular home console, and it was impressive! Here, Pico speaks with the on-site staff about the game, and sits down for a play-through.

A number of features from the PC version made their way into the port, such as seed-generated worlds, basic Survival mode, the crafting system, and more. The game handles very well, with smooth animations, a strong fps rate, and a highly intuitive control system. While player controls are solid, one strong suit of the control system is the menu and inventory navigation setup, which is incredibly well done - swapping items between the tool bar and the inventory is quick and simple. The crafting system also has an innovative approach, with built-in blueprints that clearly show how to build various in-game objects!

First, you select a given material from the blueprint area. To the right of your selection, the menu shows you the various things which can be made with the chosen material - highlighting the desired item shows a detailed breakdown of what is needed to make the item, similar to having someone place the required materials on a workbench for you. If the correct type and amount of materials are in your inventory (say, 4 wood planks for a workbench), you only need to click on the item blueprint, and it is instantly produced and dropped into your inventory, ready to use! There are sub-categories for easy navigation, for construction items, tools, food and more.

We would like to thank Microsoft and 4J Studios for giving us a hands-on look at this amazing console port, and we anxiously await the full release!