Minecraft’s 1.5 patch has been out for quite some time now. It released on April 19th to some fanfare, but I’m not completely sold on it. It’s biggest features – weather, achievements and stats – haven’t changed the game for me like I had hoped or feared they would.
Weather is the biggest disappointment for me. I’ve played days and days in my worlds and not once have I even seen a single shower. I think there needs to be a tuning of it’s frequency because I’ve read of others who, like me, have had either no or very little encounter with this ‘marquee’ feature. 
The achievements aren’t that great either. I’ve skipped some and missed others due to quirks in the system, like having prerequisites for one achievement or another. There’s also disappointingly few of them. Stats are a little better and cover most anything you’d ever wondered about your playtime. Ever wondered how far you’d fallen, or how many dirt blocks you’ve dug? The answers to these and many, many other useless questions can be answered in the stat panel.
Personally I’m not playing Minecraft more or less because of this patch. I thought that maybe I’d get drawn back in with this patch, or at least have a lasting opinion on it, but ultimately it’s pretty much gone by the boards for me. I could completely take it or leave it – and that’s never a good sign.
Alphasim out.
