AmishSamurai reviews FortressCraft

[AmishSamurai]

So if you're part of the Minecraft community or pay attention to gaming sites, you've probably heard of FortressCraft, the XBL Indie Games knock-off of the smash hit PC game. It got a lot of flak because the creator announced it by flaming on the Minecraft forums. That and it's pretty much a complete rip-off of its source game (a fact that the creator justifies by saying that Notch plagarized Infiniminer).

So my friend and I downloaded the demo upon seeing that the first chapter was now on sale, and decided at the very minimum to give it a try. Oh sweet Jesus....

Some more background info- the sales model is that the creators will divide FC into seven chapters, each containing the content of the last, as a way to constantly add more while working around XBL's inability to patch. So by the end, you'll have bought the same game 7 times, for far more than a usual Xbox Indie game (the current one is 240). The first Chapter is "Create". This plays like Minecraft's creative mode- you have an infinite supply of blocks and can place and destroy them as desired. You carry a pickaxe, but it isn't actually used- blocks are destroyed instantly by clicking them. Also deviating from Minecraft, all blocks have the same properties- sand and gravel don't drop if there's nothing below them, magma doesn't flow, and instead of lanterns attaching to walls, they take up their own space.

You can build and destroy blocks from much further away, around 10 blocks instead of Minecraft's 3-4 block buffer. However, when they're destroyed, you see a grid of them, and things tend to glitch out if you go too fast. Running into walls creates that super-shaky effect that you had in super mario 64 when you landed on a spot and it couldn't decide if you should stay on or fall off. I found a lot of bugs like this, and didn't have to try too hard to do so. You could also place a block in a space you were occupying.

Interface was a bit wonky too. To select what block you're placing, you used the d-pad, which is tempermental at best on the 360. Along with this were the wall-freakout problems mentioned above, making things a bit frustrating.

Music? there wasn't any. At all. Moving on.

Graphics are the only thing that could be considered praiseworthy- however, in my opinion having HD graphics while keeping the blockiness is superfluous. It's nothing a good texture pack for MC couldn't do. One thing I did like was that instead of just loading, bits of map rose up when they were ready.


Final Verdict- FortressCraft is a terrible Minecraft ripoff, which doesn't understand the design philosophy of the game it is plagarizing. Minecraft is selling in Beta as a pre-order, simply allowing you to play the in-progress work as the final product is being finished. FortressCraft is trying to milk as much money as possible by staggering its releases. How this got past the peer reviews when its so buggy and unfinished is a mystery to me. Unless some later version becomes absolutely spectacular, or your computer physically cannot run Minecraft and you absolutely need a block-fix, I'd avoid FortressCraft like the plague.

[J T]

I had zero desire to play this before. Somehow I have even less than that now.

[MrPopo]

See, I was picturing a top down version of TF2 where you control all the members of your side instead of just one character when I saw the title.

[AmishSamurai]

I had zero desire to play this before. Somehow I have even less than that now.

I'm glad I cultivated a negative interest in a game for you then.