The first episode of Minecraft: Story Mode introduced players to Jesse/Jessie, the main character, and his/her band of misfit friends as they entered into the annual building competition. The competition itself goes awry though when a mysterious person unleashes a Wither Storm on the town that is quickly growing to encompass the entire world. With the help of a legendary warrior, Gabriel, Jessie and friends make their way to safety through the Nether. Now tasked with finding the members of the Order of the Stone, the gang must scour the world.

Where the last episode ended, you were forced to choose between suggestions from your two closest friends. Would you look for the master engineer Ellegaard with Olivia, or the best rogue the world has ever known, Magnus, with Axel. Minecraft: Story Mode - Episode 2: Assembly Required picks up with you starting that new leg of your adventure.

Minecraft: Story Mode - Episode 2: Assembly Required starts off with you back in the Nether with whichever friend you sided with. Your race to the end of the tracks will land you at either Boom Town or Redstonia.

If you choose to look for Ellegaard, then you will end up in a town of engineers looking to impress the member of the Order of the Stone in the hopes of becoming her next apprentice. Just as you walk up to Ellegaard's base, she locks herself in with the intent of making a Control Block. Players must find a way to get through the building's defenses and get to the master engineer's central lab. Of course, just because you manage to get to her doesn't mean you will easily be able to convince her to leave her experiments behind and help you.

If, on the other hand, you chose to find Magnus, you will end up in a ruin of a city that apparently really enjoys blowing things up. Just when you have a plan to find Magnus in the explosive town, you and Axel are surrounded by a bunch of hoodlums. When they take your only means of finding Magnus, you are forced to run the people down and dodge explosions. Like with Ellegaard, just because you find Magnus, doesn't mean you can just leave Boom Town in peace.

One minor point of disappointment is that you can't actually play through both of these paths in the same playthrough. Where some Telltale Games might have made this only a choice of which character you look for first, in Assembly Required, the friend you left behind decided to go out and find their choice while you were out, so if you want to experience the other half of the story, you will want to copy off your save, rewind the first episode and then choose the other option.

Minecraft: Story Mode - Episode 2: Assembly Required continues when you turn the Order of the Stone locator back on and see that apparently Soren is back on the map and is at his secret study. Another light also appears and the team realizes that it must be the forgotten member, Ivor. Now, with as much of the Order of the Stone assembled as possible, everyone decides to march on out to find Soren, stop Ivor, and hopefully end the Wither Storm once and for all.

You can choose to head out right away, but face the perils of night, or hold up on in the temple and leave in the morning. Either way, your trip to Soren's place will not be uneventful, and when you do finally get to his secret library, you might find yourself in even deeper water than anything you've faced so far.

Minecraft: Story Mode - Episode 2: Assembly Required ends with Jessie and the gang in a tight spot, and the apparent rivalry between Ellegaard and Magnus means that the two Order members you've managed to find might not be all that much of a help. It's hard to see exactly where Episode 3: The Last Place You Look will take your party, but it is clear that Jessie and friends might actually end up being a stronger and more competent group than the legendary Order of the Stone. Could the Order not be as heroic as the legends have told, or are they simply out of practice?

While Assembly Required didn't feel like it was as good as the first episode, it's obvious that it is a necessary step towards where the game's story is going. While that doesn't mean I didn't have fun playing through this episode, I am hoping for a stronger experience next time.