Hailed by many is this generation’s answer to Tetris, or the virtual reality version of Lego, it’s not unfair to call Minecraft a cultural phenomenon.

Within a year of its release on PC, it became the 6th highest selling PC game of all time, and earlier this year, it passed 100,000,000 registered players. Now the game has been ported to the PS3, allowing console users to immerse themselves in the world of building things en masse, although its obvious patience requirements will be a massive turn off to anyone not willing to put the time in.

You start off inside a randomly generated world, and the initial few minutes the game guides you along on everything you need to now. Knock down the trees to get wood, use the wood to make a shelter for yourself. Task one complete, and with it comes a massive sense of accomplishment. So then it’s time to move further into the world, and see what else you can build out of stuff you mine. Although you’re not alone in this world, with creatures who come out at night with the sole goal of killing you, and as you burrow further underground to find better and stronger building materials, these creatures become stronger and more difficult to defend yourself against.

That’s not the only company you’ll potentially find within the Minecraft world, as it allows for a four player split screen on the PS3 version (the bigger the screen you’re playing on, the better!), and up to eight player if you’re playing online. However, it’s with the increased number of players that the drastically decreased size of the Minecraft world, compared to the PC version, becomes quite apparent, and you’ll notice the possibility of mined elements will be far sparser, which’ll make co-operating far less likely than competition. That's not exactly a bad thing, but it's not fully in keeping with the general idea of creation that Minecraft is, ahem, built on.

Anyone looking for something different from their gaming experience – something that doesn’t necessarily involve shooting wave after wave of bad guys – might find what their looking for here in Minecraft. It is a world that you can understandably get entirely lost it, provided you give it the time to build the world in the first place.

Developers: Mojang / 4J Studios
Genre: Sandbox, Survival
Platform: PS3 (reviewed copy), PC, Mac, iOS, Xbox360, Xbox One, PS4, PS Vita, Wii U