The dark days of Minecraft Alpha are finally behind us. Today, the indie sensation has finally broken through to Beta mode. The game itself doesn't look all that different; the patch notes for Beta version 1.0 (available here) are not all that substantial. They're mostly bug fixes and balance changes, as well as tweaks to increase multiplayer stability. Primarily, the changes (besides the name) are the price, which is increased to 20 Euro, and the fact that accounts purchased after today will not be guaranteed all DLC packs for free. So if you don't have an Alpha account, you have my sincerest condolences.

I personally started playing the game a week or so ago, and have been having serious difficulty putting it down. A few of my co-writers here at DualShockers started very recently as well, so there's a good chance you'll see a lot more Minecraft-related content from us in the near future.