Ovo's Rustic Pack, Hand Painted HD Minecraft Texture Pack (64 x 64)
Sometimes something special comes along. Something that changes the way we think about high definition graphics. This is one of those times. Ovo's Rustic pack is a high definition texture pack painted entirely by hand. This may seem counter-intuitive to you, like a hand knitted titanium tea cosy, but I assure you this is real. It also has the bonus effect of looking very 'Minecrafty' which is an awkward way of saying that the textures are not so far from the original appearance of Minecraft that they feel forced and strange.
One way to describe it would be to say that it appears to be an HD version of the much loved default texture pack replacement, Painterly. Remember all the good times we had with Painterly before Hi Res and HD textures came to push it aside in the pursuit of photo realism that will in all likelihood never be achieved? I feel all nostalgic thinking about it and it was only a few months ago.
Ovo's Rustic Pack is gorgeous, there is one major issue with this texture pack however, and that is that it looks much darker than the default texture pack. This might not matter for most applications, but if you're playing a strictly survival game it means that you'll need more torches to see properly. Having said that, my monitor has the brightness set way low on account of I like having my retinas intact, so if yours is set up mostly for gaming and not endless typing into Open Office documents then this might not be an issue at all.
I can't say I care for the title screen, which is very dark and when you mouse over the various options there's a garish gold border that probably seemed like an awesome idea at the time, but fortunately for us all, Minecraft is more than just a title screen.
Another slight issue for some players could be the fact that the mobs haven't been reskinned at all, which rather spoils the mood of the pack. Then again, half the texture packs out there these days are self confessed works in progress, so we probably shouldn't hold that against the mysterious Ovo.
On the positive side, dispensers have carved faces on them that rather make it look as if they are spitting cake and arrows at people willy nilly. You'd have to be soulless not to like that. All in all this is a very homely texture pack experience that will work well with RPG style creations. It's certainly a high quality piece of work that's worth taking a look at.
