Review | Sean Cleaver

SingOn Review

Posted on April 16, 2014 by Sean Cleaver

SingOn feat

This is the strange thing about this review – SingOn isn’t strictly a game. I mean there are gaming elements to it of course, but the truth of it is this is more of an app than a game.

SingOn is a karaoke ‘game’ that is coming for the PS3 this week for its initial release. However its plans on household domination are hoping to be stretched to most consoles and even Smart TV’s. That’s because all this game/app needs is an internet connection. SingOn boasts a rather large catalogue of over 1,000 songs of various different genres. How? Well because, in the words of Tommi Halonen, Executive Producer of SingOn, it is “a streaming entertainment service rather than a gaming title.”

SingOn will have an ever-expanding catalogue of titles on a weekly basis. Unlike the rhythm games that proliferate and, let’s face it, spam our DLC sections on the stores; it will all be streamed to the game. Much like a karaoke Spotify if you will. The idea is that this is a social game that everyone can play. Halonen, who does a mean version of ‘Angels’ by Robbie Williams by the way, expanded on this further to me, saying:

“It’s a party game, it’s a family game, it’s for everybody basically. That’s why we have such a wide range in the catalogue.”

SingOn Sean Which is a good thing to point out. At launch the catalogue will be fairly substantial with everything from rock, heavy metal and pop going up to be streamed. I managed to throw in a few verses of Poison’s ‘Every Rose Has It’s Thorn’ and some ‘More Than Words’ by Extreme. But there will be very regular updates, at least weekly if not more often.

“That’s one of our strengths,” Tommi pointed out to me, “for example, we keep updating the UK chart, so whenever there are new hits coming on radio players and Spotify we can put it on within the week, which is something no one has ever done before.”

In fact the benefit of this is that, because they are all Karaoke songs, there isn’t anything of the red tape horror of copyright legislations and all that palava from record labels/publishers.

In my most humble of moments I asked Tommi “What if I’m crap at singing?”

”It doesn’t matter. We have a few voice changing features. We have TuneOn which auto tunes your voice.”

So now you have the facts, you can have the review.

In fact there are two modes. There is the auto tuning function, which is pretty good, and there is a RoboOn voice, which emulates the kind of Daft Punk style electronic voice to the song. Advance warning, the latter seems cool, but if left on, the novelty will quickly wear off. If you do this and have hyperactive kids or irritating friends, it’s best not to tell them about it.

The service works very well indeed. The streaming of songs is quick, the words come up and your lyrics appear on the screen with an excellent sparkly fill. You’ll also get points (ala rhythm games) in order to judge your performance. This is where, as a veteran player of these games, I did notice a slight latency issue. But that could also have been me jumping the gun in anticipation of the lyrics. Something that familiarity of songs occasionally does. So in that regard the service is very good.

The catalogue is already as varied and open as it can be. In fact the only thing I noticed it was missing was musical theatre. Which, knowing several performing artists and their love for karaoke, is probably for the best unless you want to burn out your PS3 from overuse.

The social element is certainly something this game pulls off pretty well. The playlisting function and the ability to search while the songs are running is excellent. It’s smooth and it isn’t intrusive at all. So there isn’t any of that dithering silence between songs. You can get up, swap things around and have a continuous stream of people warbling their little souls out without the irritating pauses and indecision.

SingOn

So where are the negatives here? Well… You of course need a microphone. SingOn can use any mics from SingStar, Rock Band and Guitar Hero automatically. Which certainly solves the issues for console owners that have them. If not you can get them easily second hand or in a shop for cheap enough.

How much is it going to cost me, you ask? Now there are a few options here, you can have a three hour pass for around £3, a 2 day pass for £6 or a whole year for around £50. Really your choice here is a justification of how much you want to use it. The app itself is free and includes ten songs, also for free. If you think you have a party coming then your options are there. Certainly beats a DJ and people arguing over the iPod anyway.

Essentially, what you need to know is that I had a lot of fun with it. It certainly is a social game though, best enjoyed in the company of friends, family or people who are too drunk to be classified. It isn’t a game like your Rock Band’s or Guitar Hero’s. If you’re having a house party, it’s certainly something awesome to have on without the clunky, bad quality karaoke machines you can get from catalogue stores. But hey, it’s free so give it a go.

[divider]

[tabs]
[tab title=”Summary”]

It’s an app, not a game, which streams karaoke songs to you so you can sing your heart out (butcher) your favourite songs without downloading. The expanding catalogue and UK Top 20 deal will see it remain joyfully up to date too.

[/tab]
[tab title=”Good Points”]- Streaming works very well.

– Large ever-expanding catalogue.

– Easy to use.[/tab]
[tab title=”Bad Points”]- Mic needed.

– Pricing options need you to work out how much you’ll play it.[/tab]
[tab title=”Why an 8?”]It is exactly what it says it is and does it well. A wonderful social gaming experience.[/tab]
[/tabs]

[divider]

Screenshots

[divider]

[author]

TheIndieJar: Toast Time Review

Posted on February 27, 2014 by Sean Cleaver

toast time feat

There’s some really neat things about playing games on the iOS/Android platforms. It’s that they have the three things that consoles and PC’s can only dream of: An easy intuitive control system, mobility/accessibility and the ability to keep things wonderfully simple.

Toast Time, from Force of Habit is a proper game. By that I don’t mean that it’s an award winning story epic, a graphical wonder or a massively multiplayer game. I mean it’s a proper game that you can take anywhere, play by yourself, have fun and enjoy.

toast time 2 Here’s the idea. You are a piece of toast named Terry and you must stop enemies from reaching your alarm clock that explodes if they touch it. Your weapons are pieces of bread related ammunition, which not only kills things but also propels you around the area over a multitude of different platform based levels. Simple and easy yet also sufficiently challenging.

One thing that sings to my heart is how it replicates the golden age of British game programming, the 1980s. In this age, Spectrums and Commodores ruled the living room. The home programming market and the rise of the independent developer out of a bedroom (something we are seeing a repeat of now arguably) was a treasure trove of brilliant ideas using not very much.

Toast time harks back to that with many different angles. Firstly: graphics. Graphically this is a very simple, mostly two tone affair. The 8-Bit reminiscing echoes throughout the game but it visually affects memories of games that it is actually better than. The quick and sometimes frantic nature of the game is complimented by how simple it is graphically. Colourful explosions are normally quite distracting and the 8-Bit nostalgia actually aids the gameplay. It’s smooth, quick and has one control, your finger. Simplicity at its best.

Secondly: music. Here is where I try to be as unbiased as possible as my love for 8-Bit music is quite well known. But the music is excellent and, again, arguably better than the games of the age. It is simple and changes with the different levels without ever feeling repetitive or over the top. It’s enjoyable, almost funfair like at times and it can’t help but allow you to enjoy the game your playing without ever patronising you if you’re having a tough time. I’m sure we’ve all had frustrating platformers where the music of a level we get stuck on slowly boils us with rage. This does not boil anything except the tea.

toast time 5 Thirdly, and most importantly: Humour. One of the great things about the age this game is heavily inspired by is humour. You will probably find many people who developed AAA games, even GTA (especially the first two), that will cite the crazy humour of the Brit indie scene. This has some great little touches, from jokey forfeits if you die to many customisable Terry additions like the “Gamesmaster” monocle and a top hat – admittedly my favourite combo. Plus what isn’t to like about a baguette that fires off into multiple pieces and kills egg like enemies? There are enough of these to keep you occupied for a short while but if, like me you become addicted to this game, you could run out of levels quite quickly.

This game costs a few pounds and has the added bonus of all DLC being completely free. It supports indie gaming, in a market that’s quite dominated by big studio cash-ins and knock offs. Money aside you are probably going to be playing the most enjoyable casual game I’ve played on a mobile since Game Dev Story by Kairosoft, and that is an accolade you cannot ignore.

[clear]

[divider]

[tabs]
[tab title=”Summary”]

Toast Time is an enjoyable game in its own right, even if you can’t disassociate it from the 8-Bit nostalgia it evokes. But with the simplest gameplay, easy visuals and infectious music, you’ll have a hard time putting this down.[/tab]

[tab title=”Good Points”]- Glorious 8-Bit nostalgia
– Enjoyable gameplay
– The epitome of a casual game[/tab]
[tab title=”Bad Points”]- Maybe slightly too short for how addictive it is
– It’s addictive[/tab]
[tab title=”Why a 9?”]Because it is a simple fun and encouraging game in a time where mobile markets seem to be completely missing the point. This game has found it perfectly.[/tab]
[/tabs]

[divider]

Trailer

[divider]

Screenshots

[author]

World of Tanks – Xbox 360 Review

Posted on February 24, 2014 by Sean Cleaver

World of tanks feat

The title says it all really. World of Tanks is now on the Xbox 360. The MMO action game, which allows you to join other players around the world in rolling around in tanks and blowing each other up, is now a part of your console set up and it’s free.

Wargaming.net, the developer of this series, are beginning to branch out a lot with their franchises. The already successful World of Tanks on PC is being accompanied by sister titles involving Warplanes and Warships. But if you’re new to this, let me give you a run down of the game.

World of Tanks is a MMO that gives you multiple arenas to roll tanks around and engage in team deathmatch and/or objective games. You can choose from a multiple of different tanks from a multitude of different countries around the World War II era. You can select from British, German, Soviet, American or Japanese tanks (to name a few) and also different classes of these from light mobile scout tanks to big heavy marauding beauties.

The PC version of this has been around for four years and has had over 75 million subscribers (although that term is slightly redundant as it’s free) and Wargaming.net aim to make the Xbox 360 version just as successful by aiming for the 48 million Xbox Live users. Can they do this though, realistically in a FPS heavy online environment?

World of tanks 2 To start, World of Tanks is very, very good graphically and in its content. The historical accuracy of these tanks is wonderful and it really gives an air of confidence in the game that it can deliver. The game actually transposes to the console with relative ease. The control system is very easy and quick to master and the online play is smooth and fluid. Anyone who has played Battlefield 1943 will instantly be able to pick up and enjoy this game.

It does look absolutely wonderful on a big screen and with a decent sound system you will hear and feel every jolt that a firing tank has to offer. It is incredibly immersive and as that was one of their primary objectives in making this game, they have definitely succeeded.

The game is still completely and utterly free. There are different add-ons and customisations that you can pay money for but you would get these anyway with enough level grinding. World of Tanks 360 is a “free AAA game” in the words of Wargaming.net and you can’t refute that it is AAA. But there are some reservations in my eyes.

Firstly: the maps. The maps in World of Tanks 360 are great and very well detailed. The Mediterranean war torn villages, the snowy icy areas and such typical WW2 areas are all extremely well presented. Whilst you don’t expect there to be many at a launch, you will find yourself losing the challenging terrain aspect of this game pretty quickly as you grow very accustomed to the areas. This presents a secondary problem that they are, for a console game, too big.

This becomes a problem because of the audience you are aiming for. One of the benefits of PC online play is that people will play a bit more tactically. They will learn a map, develop strategies and utilise cover in creating a big open tank battle from a distance. Console gamers don’t care as much and mostly will run headlong into melee battling, which quite obviously does not exist here. The result, especially in the games I’ve played, is that I die very quickly in the initial rush, or spend ages looking for someone to kill because everyone died very quickly in the initial rush. It unfortunately becomes repetitive a bit too soon. There is very little team or strategic nuance in the console gamer (not to be insulting but there really isn’t outside of extremely hardcore FPS clans or dedicated players) and whilst the game accommodates them, it doesn’t really suit their kind of style. This is no fault of Wargaming.net at all, that’s just an honest appraisal of the market and the niche of the genre against the FPS gaming arena.

World of Tanks, though is certainly a big step forward in console MMO terms and whilst it may seem a backward move to release a new game on an older console, the Xbox live market will be there for a long, long time before the now current-gen becomes available en masse. I don’t honestly think it will pry enough people away from their already very accessible and paid for FPS multiplayer gaming, but it is a nice diversion for gamers and should survive.

[divider]

[tabs]
[tab title=”Summary”]

World of Tanks 360 is a very enjoyable and encouraging MMO, completely free (bar the Xbox Live subscription cost) and accessible to all. But it does lack some longevity and might be a bit too demanding of tactics to keep a sufficiently large console fan base.

[/tab]
[tab title=”Good Points”]- Free. Enough said.
– Visually well presented.
– Enough options and customisations to keep you happy.[/tab]
[tab title=”Bad Points”]- Maps a bit too big for Console gaming
– Might have a short life span for some players
– Possibly a bit too niche.[/tab]
[tab title=”Why a 7?”]It’s a free AAA game that is visually good with plenty of options and is enjoyable to play for a while, but big repetitive maps and gung-ho players might put you off too quickly.[/tab]
[/tabs]

[divider]

Trailer

[divider]

Screenshots

[divider]

[author]

Dungeon Keeper iOS Review

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Sean Cleaver

… I should have seen it coming.

Those of you that have read a few articles of mine already will already note a certain cynical tone. But let it be said that I am not without my optimism. One such optimism was when EA announced that Dungeon Keeper was coming to iOS.

For those who don’t know, Dungeon Keeper was one of the best of the isometric God Sim-Strategy-Comedy romps that Peter Molyneux’s Bullfrog Productions gave us towards the end of the 90s. You take over a dungeon and build up a sinister enough army to destroy the realm, alone with guidance from the silky smooth voiceover of Richard Ridings. Whilst being as objective and unbiased as possible, it was one of my favourite PC games and will regularly feature in any top 10 list I produce.

Now my alarm bells should have been ringing when I downloaded the “free” app (to purchase this game from the App Store, you impart no money) because I suddenly realised that I had heard nothing about it since that announcement. Not a screenshot, not a video, not a release date, nothing. So I should have sensed disaster.

To be fair, it is visually very nice and colourful. With some brilliantly realised character animations, remembering that these creatures looked really cool back in the original game. However within three seconds it becomes very busy on your screen. What are these meters all over my eye line? Gold of course is needed, which in this version is mined from an actual mine, as opposed to your imps taking it from the wall. But there is suddenly a “Stone Mine” and the need to harvest gems from the wall. Which also allow the speeding up of tasks… If you can see where I’m heading, skip two paragraphs.

If you haven’t skipped, you start a tutorial by having your devilish imps appear. You remember those little cute things you could slap and chuck around who’d make loads of noise? They are your workforce for this game and do your bidding. They start getting to work by clearing out some wall space for rooms. Once they start, they then get this little green icon with a timer and a gem in it. These gems will allow you to speed up the time it takes for the task to be done. All of these gems are occasionally found but are mostly available as an in-app purchase. Digging out the outer wall to expand your dungeon and acquire these gems takes approximately 4 hours per tile, real time. All of the fun and humour of these creatures and indeed the game is now apparent by its complete absence.

Now all the rooms cost Gold and/or stone, each has its own minion much like the original game to help you conquer, and gives you a little extra bonus. However the time it would take to save the resources will force the less patient/casual gamer into buying the extras. Added are the various traps you can lay to stop people raiding your dungeon. The slight multiplayer aspect is that you can raid other dungeons and yours can be raided, essentially turning the game from the hilarity it was before into a tower defence game. Everything you do slowly levels your dungeon up from its heart and of course, costs more purchase-renewable resource.

If you have skipped, I’m sorry to report that they’ve bastardised the concept of Bullfrog’s excellent achievement and turned it in to a skin of Farmville. This is basically Dungeonville to coin a probably already used phrase. It is very hard to review a free casual game that by design takes four hours to bust a certain wall down. You may think I’m being unfair and not seeing it for what it is, a casual game, designed to be played on lunch breaks, that utilises the nostalgia of players of the original to create a cash-in… Oh. That’s what it is.

I’d like to think that as a reviewer of video games, we all want something good. We don’t want to trash something that we love, no matter how easy it is to do so. But I think the luxury of writing for TheGameJar and through non-official print medium allows me to be a bit more open and honest as to what a game can be, especially when it is so blatant and shameless in conforming to a gaming stereotype that started five years ago with Plants Vs Zombies and the aforementioned Farmville. Casual mobile gaming has always swayed massively to a lot easier and simpler pick-up-and-play formats like Candy Crush, Bejeweled and Angry Birds. To me, Dungeon Keeper iOS is in gaming terms purely a backward and outdated move, completely misjudging its audience and far and away wasting a prime opportunity that the iOS platform allows. Just look at how good a job has been made of Lego Star Wars/Lord of The Rings, Sonic, Grand Theft Auto 3/Vice City/San Andreas, Minecraft, Transport Tycoon, Baldur’s Gate, Monkey Island, et al.

This is not the isometric game of nostalgia’s past and I was wrong to even hope that it might be. But given the obvious comparisons that other publishers have created, EA are severely lacking in the mobile department. It does make me worry because when you look at the plethora of isometric strategy games they could release, it makes you shiver to ponder that they could ruin them: Command & Conquer, Red Alert, Black & White, Theme Hospital. Then I remember what they did to Theme Park a few years ago… I should have seen it coming.

Summary

Dungeon Keeper in name, voiceover and licence alone. Free to play, but in the same way that condoms are free in sexual health clinics for birth control, the latter being a concept that should have been exercised here.

Good Points

– Casual gaming at its most familiar, so an easy learning curve.
– Visually very nice, new slightly less adult animations and designs
– Runs very smoothly, as smooth as Richard Ridings voice.

Bad Points

– Surgically removed all fun and humour.
– Completely different concept to its original namesake
– Even by casual games standards, very limited appeal and quick to lose interest in.

Why a 3?

Because there are enough games like this around, and the opportunity to do something great and resurrect a brilliant game, era and style of gaming has been completely missed. But somewhere a team of people has spent time designing and making cool looking little evil minions and they should be credited for their efforts.

SimCity: Cities of Tomorrow Add-On Review

Posted on January 7, 2014 by Sean Cleaver

I’ll be honest here, which is the least you can expect from a game reviewer. I’m still playing this add-on as I write the review. In fact I’ve started a new city and I’m at 1,400 residents. Not only have I played it myself but I’ve watched others online and I feel I’m now at a stage to review this add-on to the most recent SimCity iteration with as little hypocritical finger pointing to be directed at myself.

Why hypocritical? Because I actually really like SimCity and without spoiling other articles like the fantastic games of the year feature, I am a big fan of the game in itself. However, I feel has been sadly overshadowed by the almost comically poor approach to launch and consumer satisfaction management from EA, that seems to be a problem not just exclusive to SimCity (Battlefield 4 anyone?).

Which is why I’m ultimately left feeling utterly disappointed. I’m from a generation where an add-on pack costs £15. It gives you new levels, it improves upon features that the main game had just got a bit wrong. It basically extended the playing life of that game. SimCity – Cities of Tomorrow tries to do that. It really does try. But I feel it ultimately does not succeed. Here’s why:

Firstly, it doesn’t really bring you anything new to the game. This is partly because additions have already come to the game. They’ve been trickled out slowly and have sweetened a deal that was originally seen as a bit sour. The additional maps and potential buildings that would make this a proper package have already been released. So while there is an excuse for how little this add-on has, it does raise a question of a justifiable price for it.

To explain these additions a little more, the game has gone all high tech. Now there is an additional element in the game you can make called “Omega.” This can lead you down two roads: filthy industrial development and mega income, or a clean high-rise educational utopian vision. There are a few things that have been “futurised” as well. You get to build new Megatowers which are constructed in blocks of different game areas (commercial, residential, industrial, educational, etc) and these correspond to whichever path you decide to go down. Other new buildings include water pumps, cleaner energy/waste disposal and a neat high altitude road for connecting the “Megatowers” you construct in whichever vision you choose.

Which is where I come on to a second point. Visually, the game has always been very good. The Megatowers look stunning. The High wealth academy towers look like beautiful futuristic havens of success, almost like they are right out of the movie Elysium. But personally, I feel they pale in comparison to the dirty, high industrial Omega franchises, which have a air of Blade Runner about them. Dark, dingy buildings splattered with neon and look incredibly imposing and dystopian once put together. Visually the futurised areas also change. New house, industry and commercial building models appear, the roads have a texture that you could use to play Blockbusters on and it all looks rather swell. Even the low wealth houses with laser fences that look like dinosaur pens from Jurassic Park.

The problem though is that this is where the fun ends. Not enough of the game has changed for these really to make a difference to the overall gameplay, or to reinvigorate the gameplay sufficiently. After nearly a year playing the game that has been heavily criticised for its limited scope in building and creating the vast metropolis’s it’s famed for, all this add-on really does is give a slightly fresh lick of paint and another few buildings to try and squeeze in to an already busy and tricky economical system. Cities of Tomorrow integrates in to the existing framework so you start the game, region, road layout, city planning and everything else just like you already would. You then do the slow process of waiting to grow, timing your expansion and how to substitute the wealth factor of your residents. Overall there is zero difference between how you play the game in either the add-on or basic game. At least not enough in the early stages to warrant it being a useful part of the game and even then, it just solves some problems later on at a cost of potential building space.

Which leads me to my final gripe and it’s a gripe for anyone who’s ever heard the name Dr.Vu… You STILL can’t turn it off. Of all the additions that have been released, there is no option to deselect them from your gameplay, this included. Once you’ve installed it, you won’t be able to go back. Of course you can just not select anything from the add on, but the bubbles will pop up, your GUI will be changed and you’ll forever be clicking “No Thanks” while screaming “I DON’T GIVE A FLYING MONKEY’S MATURING INVESTMENT PORTFOLIO ABOUT DOCTOR SODDING VU!”

I’m now at 2,300 residents. The game has also made me demolish a whole row of abandoned houses, which doesn’t seem to be repopulating. My residents are unhappy, sick and I can’t get enough money because the Omega is costing too much in imported materials to produce. I’m stuck in a rather boring looking grid system town with a few trees, a couple of parks and some flat looking shopping areas… I might as well have just visited Milton Keynes.

Summary

An outrageously overpriced add-on pack (unless it’s on sale) that adds very little to the game except a lick of paint and a new resource challenge. Completely devalued by the constant release of additional content for free, although it does look rather cool.

Good Points

– Make your own Blade Runner city

– Rather satisfying clean energy and a few fresh building models.

Bad Points

– Very little change to the game

– Makes other game strategies a bit redundant

– Can’t turn it off

– Too much money.

Why a 5?

Because even though I love the game a lot, even I can’t justify the price for the lack of content and small gameplay life extension it gives.

Minecraft 1.7 Update – The Beauty of Nature-Cubed

Posted on November 26, 2013 by Sean Cleaver

minecraft 3

Minecraft has had an exciting time of it lately, at least in the PC market. User modifications have expanded the game to mind bending degrees (a look at a Yogscast upload list will show you how mad this has become). Customised single player adventure games have turned this into almost an indie game-making kit, much like Half Life 2 did for FPS create-your-owns. In the PC market, it’s had new pretenders challenge it like Terraria and Cube World, both of which are equally successful, enjoyably different games in their own right and are still evolving.

Yet even with its own rapid expansion to the mobile market, the merchandise industry, consoles and of course conventions and the ability to make stars out of YouTube gamers, Mojang are still looking out for us – the player. Even though the game is on full release, updates have come to fix bugs and add new content to the game at NO ADDITIONAL COST (read it and weep, EA) and this latest one is a biggie.

“The Update That Changed The World” is no small claim, but Minecraft 1.7 really has done just that. It’s own world that is. Earlier this year, horses were implemented in to the game, mainly because these were one of the most popular/requested modifications and, much like Valve, Mojang noticed this and helped implement it. Now however the biomes you find have evolved, the world is much more sensibly generated than previous versions and the items for construction or “crafting” have become more varied.

Biome wise there have been new areas added; a savannah (no lions yet) with wonderful acacia trees, a roofed forest which contains a brand new, bigger and darker oak tree, Ice Spikes that look like you could build wonderful fantasy palaces in them, a new Mega Tiaga with new dirty toilet-brown Podzol blocks and natural mossy cobblestone and the fantastic (and much requested) Mesa biome. All of which add a lovely and much needed visual touch up to the game, along with lots of new flowers to spruce up your gardens.

One of the big things though with these biomes is how they generate. No more will you skip from desert to extreme snow. The game now makes things a bit more sensible and tries to group things by temperature. If you’re in a snowy area then the next areas around you are going to be colder biomes until you get to the warmer ones, like the plains and so on. And the same goes hot for places like deserts and mesas – the further away you get, the colder it will get.

Another addition is the inclusion of stained glass. Many Minecraft fans have wanted this since it was teased as an April Fool by Mojang, but now you can have different coloured glass and, for the most part, it does look rather lush.

However, if like me you’ve been playing Minecraft for a while casually, or even if you’re someone that makes a career out of it, this does feel like a precursor to Minecraft 2.0. The new live streaming feature revealed at Minecon (where you press one button to instantly Livestream to twitch.tv) is now available, which creates an exciting new possibility for those wanting to share their experiences, although still in testing at the moment. It very clear that Mojang knows the success and survival of the game is catering to not only the fans, but the people who share their experience of it online.

It’s surely only a matter of time until the game expands to make use of those empty oceans; bringing some new creatures in (friendly or otherwise), introduce multiple uses to some stagnant blocks and find something that makes redstone less technically confusing. But until then, this will quench your metaphorical thirst to explore brave and strange new procedurally generated worlds and admire the beauty of nature-cubed.

[author]