For those of you familiar with Minecraft, you're no doubt checking out the newly launched 1.5 update (read our Minecraft 1.5 update guide!), but for those of you who are not or haven't made time to give it a chance, then we have a solution for you.

Currently in its Beta form, with a release date set for November, Minecraft is still available for free if you're okay with trying out the Alpha build. That seriously outdated though in a variety of ways and you'd be missing out big time. So, if you're unsure about the 3D blocky sandbox game, you can now try out the free Minecraft demo!

Notch and the crew at Mojang created a custom PC Gamer demo of Minecraft which features the PC Gamer logo branded onto the side cows. The demo lets players take advantage of literally everything the game has to offer, from every tool to every block you can mine and every item you can craft. The hitch is that you only have 90 minutes to play until your world locks you out from editing. You can however, create other worlds but you'd be starting from scratch and losing all of your progress, creations and inventory from before.

For some, 90 minutes may actually be enough as there isn't too much to do by yourself after you've found every mineral and built a few objects. A lot of the fun comes from multiplayer and working with others to build massive objects. Outside of randomly located small dungeons, there are no NPCs or objectives to complete and trust me, sitting there by yourself and mining for goods for a few hours is not a fun gaming experience. Fortunately,yesterday's 1.5 update added achievements to help extend gameplay but they're rather easy to attain.

Download the 4mb demo here and try it out. If you wish to continue extending your creativity and jumping on to some multiplayer servers, head to the official site and purchase at minecraft.net.

Minecraft hits “full” retail on November 11, 2011.

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Source: PC Gamer