Let me begin by saying that this episode is particularly short, like a little over an hour short. I guess that’s what happens when the first two episodes are only separated by a few weeks, but the fact that to get the entire experience you have to play through it twice sort of pans out well because it then makes the episode about two hours long. Still, a much longer playthrough for the sequel was expected considering the complication of the events taking place. That being said, the episode covers the areas following either Elligaard or Magnus and each path allows you to follow and understand more of the world of Minecraft. There are a few inconsistencies that don’t make sense and some new events that don’t necessarily pertain to Jessie or his/her friends, but that doesn’t label the episode as terrible. By inconsistencies, I mean there were points in the game where I thought, “why can’t they just do this/that in order to progress?” One moment that comes to mind is when a character falls into a hole and can’t seem to get out when they could have built their way out as they were able to in the first episode. The rest of the episode is littered with little things like that that make you scratch your head and ask those questions.

Editor’s Note: Before reading this review, we highly recommend checking out our review for Episode One: The Order of the Stone , Episode 2: Assembly Required , and Episode 3: The Last Place You Look as there are spoilers ahead.

Galactic Café went a step further with their Stanley Parable demo, creating new content not just for the free demo on steam, but for various venues that showcased the game. While all offered a short bit of meta-commentary on the nature of demos (pretty much the only way you could convey the core concept of the game without spoiling it), each was tailored to a specific scenario. The demo at PAX took some lighthearted jabs at Octodad (which was just across from it in the Indie Megabooth), and at one point made the player stand up and apologize to the audience for playing the demo so poorly. A special version made for Game Grumps addressed Danny and Ross by name. In this case, the demos were an unbridled success, building enough hype for the small indie game to garner 100,000 sales in 3 days.

If you haven’t already boarded the hype train for Minecraft: Story Mode , the newest episode from Telltale Games might not convince you. The review that was done for the first episode ended with the hope that the following episode would be just as wonderful and expansive. Unfortunately, it didn’t meet the standard appointed to it for a variety of reasons. This new episode taps into the lore, one that you would normally have had to guess playing the original game, delving into the world that Mojang had created for us. Depending on which member of the Order of the Stone you decided to pursue in the previous episode, you either begin the episode with Olivia (if you’re pursuing Ellegaard the Redstone Engineer) or Axel (if you’re pursuing Magnus the Griefer). While which character you begin with doesn’t necessarily matter at the beginning, the stories begin to change as you near the middle of the episode, causing you to have to play it twice in order to get a full understanding.

Minecraft story Guide: Story Mode – Episode 4: A Block and a Hard Place is the strongest episode yet in basically every aspect. Employing emotional factors as well as hard story elements, Telltale has managed to create a story that originated from just a few blocks. Every second of this two hour episode was spent towards making the player feel as though everyone really is depending on them to save the world. Hard times fall, but Jessie and his friends make this episode an unforgettable experience that one can only hope to be transferred to next and final episode of this series.

Each path differs in gameplay as Magnus’s path is a lot more action-oriented with the introduction of Boom Town and ‘griefers.’ Of course, we all know ‘griefers’ from the original game as annoying players who would blow stuff up. Because of this, QTEs (Quick Time Events) are utilized that were so popular in the previous episode to dodge TNT. Ellegaard’s path isn’t as action oriented and focuses more on puzzles and the character focus from the very first episode. There is a lot more dialogue in this path and a lot of it makes up the funnier aspects of this episode. This episode capitalizes on the voice actors that Telltale has gotten together like Corey Feldman (Magnus), who played Mouth in The Goonies, and Grey Griffin (Ellegaard), famous for playing Daphne Blake in the Scooby-Doo cartoon movies that bring the characters to life.

Ellegard (for me) and Gabriel begin conversing in hopes that he would regain his memory and in doing so, mentions something about Lukas’ jacket, saying that he has seen others wearing it inside of the Witherstorm. With this comes Jessie’s first big decision, either allowing Lukas to leave in hopes of finding his friends or make him stay to help in your fight. This is only the first of many heartrending decisions that need to be made throughout the entirety of this episode. While most of these decisions are among the toughest in any of the episodes, they help dictate how the game will end and who will be standing next to Jessie when it does. This episode lets you customize your decisions a little bit more, allowing you to decide which weapon you want to create for the final battle, which armor you would like to wear, and even in what manner you will enter the Witherstorm. It isn’t much, but that’s far more customization than most Telltale games allow. While it is important to be careful with your decisions, it’s more important to learn who your real allies are and dictate how you want your destiny to unfold in your fight towards saving this blocky humanity.