Minecraft Pocket Edition 0.7.3 Update Review

Today, Mojang released the newest update to the mobile version of its Minecraft franchise, 0.7.3

Most of the new features are cosmetic and don't improve actual gameplay. These small improvements do, however,  bring us closer to seeming like we're playing the PC version of game.

The biggest aesthetic additions are the sun, moon and stars.  There's something magical about watching the stars and moon pass over the cubic terrain, because the days and nights are much shorter in the Pocket Edition of the game. Mojang also added the Quartz slab, which you can now use to build make-shift stairs or other purposes.

Also notable is the main menu.  The background now does a sweeping pan of a plains biome, the picture is blurred out as always, but it adds motion to the menu.  Adding even more motion is the implementation of the pulsating yellow text atop the Minecraft Pocket Edition Logo.  This yellow text changes with every loading of the menu.

The other big feature in this update is double chest.  You can now place two single chests side-by-side to make a double chest, which holds double the inventory as a regular chest.  In addition, the player can place double chests side-by-side.  This cannot be accomplished in other versions of the game.

There were various bugfixes and tweaks to Realms, namely the login.  Loading it a lot smoother and fast.  Also there is less of Realms crashing and disconnecting players.

Other Realms Tweaks include:

• Realms can be reset
• Glowing Obsidian can yield resources with an Iron pickaxe, but obsidian can only be mined with a Diamond one
• You can't type capital W in world or seed
• Wooden Slab hard to break w/ Axe (easy w/ pick)
• Furnace crash bug *SEVERE*
• Inventory bug (throwing items in hand while in a gui)

There is much room left for improvement on Minecraft Pocket Edition, but this definitely a welcomed small update. What we need now is access to creating our own Realms, still this feature is in Alpha and Mojang has released only a few hundred to the public.  If things progress at this pace, we will see another update in October. With all the bugfixes, tweaks and added features, I'd rate this 4 out 5 stars. 

What feature would you like to see most in Minecraft Pocket Edition?

RAWR(for more)

Announcement!

Hey everyone,

First of all, I wanted to comment on the incredible growth over the past few months.

A year ago, for the entire month of August we had 792 visits and 949 page views on the site. That was for the entire month.

Last month, over the course of July we had 1,806 visits and 2,175 page views.

In fact, since March of this year, these stats have been steadily increasing by the hundreds with no sign of slowing down. Each month receives more hits than the previous and I can't even describe how excited I am.

This is all because of you guys. So, I want to thank everyone out there for reading and sticking with us and for telling your friends and spreading our links and for anything else you've done to help Pop Culture Beast grow like it has and continue to grow.

Secondly, and this is the announcement part of this post, I wanted to let everyone know that we will be moving Pop Culture Beast to a new blog platform very soon. I am still trying to decide which one is best for us so we can make everything a little cleaner around here and easier to navigate and enjoy.

If you have any suggestions, feel free to email me.

We've recently added a couple new writers but we still have plenty of room for more so if you are interested in writing for us please also get in touch with me. We'd could also use some savvy web designers who might want to design a new look or logo for the site.

Without you, Pop Culture Beast would not be where it is today. So I thank you for that.

We'll continue bringing you reviews, news, commentary, and more for as long as you guys stick with us.

So again, Thank You.

Your Pop Culture Beast,

Garon

RAWR(for more)

Coming soon to PCB

I wanted to make a quick post letting everyone know what is coming to the site in the next few days.

I've gotten a lot of stuff to review so it is keeping me pretty busy, including a couple books:

Blind Fall by Christopher Rice courtesy of Scribner.

and Me 2 by M. Christian. This review will appear both here and at DoorQ.com.

I also will be reviewing some upcoming movie releases, including the upcoming Batman flick Gotham Knight, as well as four upcoming TLA Releasing films: Pistoleros, The Living & the Dead, Storm, and Amnesia: The James Brighton Enigma.

Not to mention a computer program that I am especially excited to try out. More on that in a week or so.

Also, everything is falling into place for the Pop Culture Beastcast! Just some details to iron out, and some decisions on a cast, and we'll be in business.

I might also start taking applications for writers. This has not been officially decided yet but it might happen rather quickly.

Things are getting rather exciting here at the Beast! Thanks for sticking with us.

RAWR(for more)