Between each level is a brief stop back at base camp, which is a fairly empty area that honestly feels like it's missing content. The shops let you spend the green gems found throughout the levels on a random piece of equipment or accessory, and...that's it. There's a map on a table to choose the next level or you can just hit the Select button to do the same thing. Sometimes there's a random chest somewhere in the scenery if you wander about. It's a good amount of space, nicely decorated, with little in it.

There's probably a good reason people build dungeons. At first it seems like a great plan to construct a subterranean labyrinth, because maybe the kingdom needs a place to store its surplus supplies or random undesirable people. Why build a giant construct from wood and rock when there's so much unused space underfoot, other than mining being crazy-hard to get right. The point is, eventually all that space attracts things. Big, mean, hungry things that no society can function around. Zombies and skeletons are only the start of the problem, and it doesn't take long for an evil overlord to come along and put this undead labor to use devastating the countryside. Dungeons are an archaeological trap, useful right up to the point they're the base for the downfall of the realm, and the ones in Minecraft Dungeons are a perfect illustration of how it all goes horribly wrong.

Stickmanhasfeet's battleship is impressive as it is, but it's even more awesome when players realize that they actually completed this build in survival mode. The sheer dedication needed for something like this is impressive, but hard work tends to pay

Minecraft: Story Mode strays from the more mature content that Telltale normally associates themselves with and manages to create a fun, family-friendly world for one with no real story. The episode is expertly done and gives players a perfect standalone game to the critically acclaimed game from Mojang. With the new lore introduced in the first episode, it's hard to believe what other new content will be available to us in the coming episodes. By focusing on a new concept that strays from their normally mature games, this episode paves the way for what is hopefully a great series from a great developer.

While Mojang may in fact be too busy at the moment to make that a reality, let's be very clear about something. If Nintendo had really wanted Minecraft Desert Town on the Wii U, it would be in the works or out already. That's not to say it would be easy to make happen, but ultimately they are the kind of company that can make something like that a reality if they really wanted to.

The big semi-mystery of Minecraft Dungeons, though, is what this has to do with Minecraft. It's a fun, light action-RPG, sure, and the world needs more games parents can play with their kids, but Minecraft is a skin draped over the action rather than having any real effect on the game's design. Everything looks right but that's as far as it goes. Not a single block in the game is breakable and there's nothing to build. This could just as easily have been My First Diablo as anything else, and the Minecraft license ends up feeling like a check box filled in on the marketing list.

So if you accept that the Wii U is Nintendo's system for the foreseeable future, and that the system itself is not going to make any major changes, you considerably narrow down the list of problems that Nintendo can conceivably address in order to improve their console market standing.

Someone needs to have a nice sitdown with the gaming industry about VR and what it can and can't do. The ability to transport the viewer inside a scene is incredible, and if that scene happens to be in the cockpit of some kind of ship, then it opens up a whole range of movement options that would otherwise be a bad idea. Putting the player behind the eyes of a protagonist who walks around freely in the standard FPS viewpoint, on the other hand, is something that has only sounded awesome. It's hasn't been. Really, seriously, it's kind of sucked, and while wanting it to be different won't change that, clever viewing systems just might. So now Minecraft has official VR support, and it's taken an interesting approach to the presentation that's a little awkward but usable.

The game begins with the newly formed Order of the Stone infiltrating a dungeon that Ivor tipped them off to. They manage to find a treasure room that contains what appears to be an enchanted flint and steel. After escaping the booby trapped dungeon, they come across the former Ocelots and their leader Aiden. They don't seem too happy with the fact that you reached the dungeon before they did, Aiden mostly, and they begin to spew hurtful comments to the new team. Ambushed by the former Ocelots, now known as the Blaze Rods, Jessie and his friends explore an entirely new area only known as Sky City where resources are plentiful but nothing exists below the world. the world is conceived using what is only knows as the Eversource, a material that has the power to create all materials. Aiden convinces the city's ruler that the Order is up to no good so that they can be punished and he could take the Eversource for himself. While this episode may be jam-packed with story and new characters, be warned; this will not be the last we see of Minecraft: Story Mode.