If you are not familiar with Telltale Games, they have a habit of taking intellectual property that essentially belongs to other franchises and turning into games of their own, usually of the RPG kind. They have their hands in such cultural phenomena like Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Jurassic Park, and Back to the Future. Telltale Games has recently got their hands on some Mojang/Microsoft property with the immensely popular Minecraft, and is giving gamers a chance to try something a little different with Minecraft: Story Mode. I had a chance to play it at PAX Prime 2015, and here is a review and news with a release date.
As I have mentioned before, Minecraft: Story Mode is an RPG, unlike the sandbox/strategy game that it is based on. I had the chance to try it out at PAX Prime 2015, which is an annual video game convention held in late August/early September at the Seattle Convention Center.
Minecraft: Story Mode allows the player to be Jesse, a very gender unspecific character that the player can design the look for with the traditional square blockish feel. Jesse is voiced by Patton Oswalt (voice actor who was the lead rat in Disney/Pixar's Ratatouille) if you choose a male Jesse, or Catherine Taber (voice actress most famous for numerous roles including The Clone Wars series). The game is full of voice actors including Corey Feldman, Dave Fennoy, Ashley Johnson, Martha Plimpton, Scott Porter, Brian Posehn, Paul Reubens, and Billy West, according to Geek.com.
The version of the game that I played was the beginning of Chapter 1, and I am told that there will be five chapters in total for Minecraft: Story Mode. It begins with Jesse looking for a pig named Reuben, and I wandered through many areas to find him. Unfortunately, I found that there were several enemies waiting like the green creepers and a blocky skeleton who shoots a bow and arrow.
Taking out the enemies involved using specific buttons on the controller, but I break my sword in the process. Then a girl named Petra shows up, and takes me to a place where I can craft more weapons. I stopped playing at that point, but something tells me that there will be a blocky world of exciting adventure awaiting me in this chapter and the others.
Minecraft: Story Mode is due out in the fall, and it will hit practically every gaming platform with Windows, Mac, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Wii U, iOS, and Android. As for an exact release date, I've heard that Telltale tends to only give small warning of a day or two before another chapter of their game gets released. You might want to bookmark Telltale's official website on Minecraft: Story Mode if you are interested in purchasing the first or any other chapter.
