My boys want to buy it. What's it about, theme, is it graphic? I really don't care if you enjoy it, or think it's a good game or not. I just want to know if I should let them get it, and I know nothing about it. I see it mentioned on here every once in awhile, so I thought I'd ask. Thanks.

Jim

Yes you should. It is an "Open-ended Sandbox" game.

There is no blood or gore.
The only violence is when your sons throw the mouse because a creeper got them.
There are hostile monsters called Mobs that only come out in the dark, or if you are underground in a cavern with them.

Zombies, Creepers (green things that sound like a lit fuse before they explode) and skeletons with bows and arrows. Can't forget the spiders.

The goal of the game is that there is no goal. You make your own fun by building items in the virtual world.

All materials in the game are a 1 meter by 1 meter cube. Dirt, stone, coal, etc.
When you build the tools you need to dig the more rare minerals out, such as Diamond and Gold, you can use the diamonds for stronger tools and the gold to build things such as railroad track boosters which accelerate your minecart when you get to that stage. The virtual world is literally 300 times the surface area of the Earth. You could wander for days and days without finding seeing the same area twice.

You can die from falling or being attacked. The game is honestly very good for all ages, and it supports multiplayer, so you can set up a home server that they can play collaboratively on with multiple computers.

Here is an example video of a multiplayer server with several people building a project. This is an idea of the things you can do in the game.
This is a time lapse video. Each cube is 1 meter cubed. The player is 1.8 meters tall.

[This message has been edited by Synthesis (edited 08-02-2011).]

Its really harmless. It's really like an electronic LEGO set on steroids. There are zombies, Creepers, spiders and skeletons. The zombies aren't gory or crude. Thhiey moan and groan and take a swipe at you if they get close enough. The Creepers are basically "zombies" but they explode when they get close to you. This means you will have to repair your structure or whatever if it was damaged. The spiders are just big black spiders, not graphic what so ever. The skeletons are just skeletons. They shoot arrows. The whole game is 16-bit which leaves little room for very fancy details in the graphics. Everything is made out of blocks, including the player and the monsters. There is not blood (that I can remember) but if there is, it is just momentary, then disappears. There is a learning curve, and it can be quite frustrating. So, I don't know what age your kids are, but I would imagine it would be difficult for younger kids to play it. Things might get risky online, as there is no way to filter what another play may type in, but the game itself isn't profane in any way (unless someone constructs something vulgar- but I doubt that will happen).

Good game, I'd recommend it.

Brad

As the others have said - it's very harmless...Just make sure ya set how much time they can spend playin' it - so they don't get too addicted, or play it instead of studying

What Rumor said cause it is addicting. I wasted many hours on it. Haven't reinstalled since I formatted my desktop and been a lot more productive LOL

Thanks for the thoughts guys. I think I'll let them get it. Truly the reason I asked about it is because I knew absolutely nothing about it at all. If someone was to ask me what it was, I would have stated, it's a video game some members of PFF like. As for the amount of play time, it is something we monitor and restrict, especially during the school year.

Jim