Blockland Review

For many of us, a staple of our childhoods would have been LEGO. A simple building toy where blocks connect to each other through the pegs and joints, it had a sheer creative joy which every other creative toy aspired to emulate. And indeed, whilst some of us continued to play with it well into our teenage years, and some even in our adult ones, most “grew out of it”.

However, others wanted more dynamic, digital ways to achieve the same creative freedom in a bigger way.

It’s from this concept that the game Blockland was formed. A non-linear, digital sandbox game, it was designed with building in mind. As a mini-figure with an unlimited supply of what is essentially LEGO, you can use a variety of blocks to build elaborate structures and run around them like in some childhood fantasy. Initially released in 2004 as a freeware title, a retail release with extra features came in 2007, with additional features such as Physics and enhanced lighting released in subsequent updates.

So why am I reviewing it seven years after the retail release, in 2014?

Steam Greenlight. Having never received an official steam release, it was put onto the Greenlight service and eventually re-released in December last year, at the cost of £6.99.

However, much has changed in the gaming world since the humble initial release, most notably with the release of the highly-acclaimed Minecraft, itself a game built on LEGO-like nostalgia, continuing to be built upon after many years. Can Blockland shine with such fierce competition?

Firstly, despite the obvious Minecraft comparison, they are in many ways completely different. Whilst Minecraft’s popularity has come from the combination of its digging, fighting and building game-play in a single main survival mode, Blockland has a more complicated structure. The game modes are designed by the players, for the players. With a variety of different modes shipping with the product, including a variety of multiplayer combat maps, theoretically there is much more you could do.

And this carries over to its flagship mode and most popular element; Building. This is where the Minecraft comparisons begin and end.

Blockland is all about Blocks, and I don’t just mean a variety of pieces which at the end of the day are all the same cubes. Like a virtual LEGO set you can just choose a piece and put it down. Simple as that.

Almost anything is possible with such a large variety of pieces; the creative prospects boggle the mind, and in the same way LEGO always did, you can build whatever you want and walk around inside and on it.

So it’s much more crafty than Minecraft. However, despite this, there are a few things which hold it back as a game re-released in 2013.

Firstly, the interface looks like something from fifteen years ago. With no real finesse or fine-tuning, it’s generally low quality. When a Game has been in development for as long as it has, I would expect the 2013 re-release to be somewhat better. Secondly, although it could be argued that the lighting effects, graphics and physics have been drastically improved since the initial release, they are still far from impressive. The only time the game looks alright is once you’ve built a massive creation and you’re looking at it from quite far away.

It’s not just the menu’s that are far from beginner friendly. Whilst the controls are re-bindable, their initial set up is in no way intuitive by modern standards. It also doesn’t help that despite the fact my Steam Screenshot button is F12, every time I placed a block using Numpad Enter, it would take a new picture of the state of my build.

The pile or bad photos I could deal with, but the constant camera clicking was much more difficult to ignore.

Blockland has a great concept. The central building mechanics are executed fantastically, as it’s possible to make some truly astounding builds. However, the overall execution, which would have been acceptable in 2004 should have been updated drastically for the Steam version. You can struggle through and have a lot of fun, but I can’t help but feel that there is only ever going to be a small cross-section of people who would be willing to when there are newer, more polished alternatives available with similar goals.

You can grab Blockland for £6.99 on Steam, but you can also play the Demo for free by visiting http://blockland.us/Download.html.

Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.