Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Alongside the Skyrim Creation Kit and the HD Texture Pack that was officially released last night, Valve added their own little addition to Skyrim: Fall of The Space Corp, Vol. 1 adds Portal 2′s jittery little Space Core to the Nord world, voiced by the man that holds the patent on all gaming voiceovers, Nolan North. It’s both proof that clicking things in Skyrim’s Steam Workshop works just like they said it would, and that Valve’s punmasters are missed a trick by not calling him Nolan Nord. When you add the mod to the game, you need to find him. Here’s a video I made that shows you how.
Read the rest of this entry »

You, there! Does your t-shirt say ‘I Love Portal, Especially Mods’? And is that a giant foam handheld Portal device? Say, aren’t you the chap who runs pleasemakemoreportalsmodes.com? Didn’t you name your twin sons ‘Blue’ and ‘Orange’? Is that a map to Erik Wolpaw’s house in your back pocket? Nope? I was wrong on all counts. Well this is horribly awkward. You’ve never even heard of Portal, and you’re now calling the police. Fine: I’ll just have to find someone else to talk to about this marvellous Portal mod I’ve been playing. The mod is Rexaura, and it’s more Portal in the best possible way.
Read the rest of this entry »

Ooh, that’s Dwight’s desk! Remember when Jim filled his phone with coins, so it got incrementally heavier? When he took them out, Dwight hit himself in the face? And Pam’s old desk. I have a small confession: I like Erin a bit more… What? Hmm, sorry, I got a bit lost in fanboying over a video of a Counter-Strike: Source map that recreates the American version of The Office. Oh, that’s where Oscar, Angela and Kevin sit…
Read the rest of this entry »

Game development hint: if you’re going to place your game in a real setting, make it an island paradise. That way you can claim a holiday on company expenses. I’ll bet the developers of this officially supported mod have spent the last six months laughing it up in the Pacific while they brought Iwo Jima into Red Orchestra 2′s chilly war. The Rising Storm team are suntanned and well-rested, and celebrating their jaunt with the dramatic trailer of their work we present below.

Read the rest of this entry »

Would you call Minecraft in the Crysis engine Mynecraft or Minecryft? I prefer the second, because the first could be a typo, whereas the only legitimate reason for coming up with the second is if there’s a Crysis mod that adds Minecraft to it. Wait, there is! And it’s called… what, ‘Craftable‘? Seriously?
Read the rest of this entry »

There’s so much to see and do in Skyrim that I might make a mod to hide half of it. I keep getting distracted by bears fighting dragons fighting the Forsworn, when all I really want to do is harvest some Nirnroot. Next week I’ll be able to start the long process of unfunning it when the mod tools, The Creation Kit, are released, alongside patch 1.4. You can pretend you were born on the first of January and look here for the full patch details. Read it in Max Von Sydow’s voice, for greater effect.
Read the rest of this entry »

Every game has at least one mod that will push their fans to the brink of uninstallling and having a shower. This is Skyrim’s, I fear. We should have known it was out there, we should have protected ourselves. But it’s too late. I’m sorry.
Read the rest of this entry »

Lost Alpha is an ambitious mod for Shadow of Chernobyl that aims to recreate all the content that was cut from the game between alpha and release. New (old) areas and new (old) mutants are the main additions, with the bulk of the mod being recreations of the cut locations. The team are aiming to stick as close to the original versions of the cut content as they can based on known info and it’s all looking mighty impressive. After a long time in development, release is closer than ever, which has of course been true every minute since it was first announced. We should have a date in February. In the meantime, here’s a trailer and a FAQ.

Read the rest of this entry »

Way back in the year 2000 I had a very brief stint on Dreamcast magazine, DC-UK. I won’t bore you with the details of my quick departure: just imagine the most dramatic escape scene you can, then double it. But while I was there I happened across a preview disc with Half-Life on it. I say preview, the damn thing was nearly complete and I played a tonne of it on that bizarre controller. It was cancelled. As is the way of these things, the code found it’s way onto The Google and now someone’s ported it to the PC.
Read the rest of this entry »

Elevators, or as we Brits call them, dangleboxes, get a fair showing in gaming. Very few FPS titles will let you reach their final bossmonster without having had at least one go on the world’s slowest ride, giving you a moment’s pause, before they inevitably shudder to a halt as you’re ripped out of the side of the building by something with more tentacles than manners. But until now (to my knowledge at least, inevitable person who knows of a game on the Amiga) they’ve yet to receive a game dedicated just to them. And that’s what we have in the Half-Life 2 mod, Elevator: Source. YES.

Read the rest of this entry »

Oh thank flipping goodness, Skyrim inventory mods are appearing. Big thanks to Rick Lane who let us know about SkyUI, which does wonders for the ridiculous inventory system with which Bethesda saddled the game. It’s not perfect, mostly because a giant great image of the item still dominates the screen, but it’s a darned site better than it was before. For instance, you can see everything on the screen without having to scroll until your fingers fall off.

Read the rest of this entry »