Rock, Paper, Shotgun

When Unity 3D went free a friend of mine started playing around with it and voiced the opinion that mods would now increasingly become free or indie games, because here was a 3D engine that was so easy to use, and so straightforward to port assets into. Then we had the UDK announcement, which gave us modder’s favourite, the Unreal Engine, as a free platform. So what does that mean for the future of modding?
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For any game, of any genre, at any age: just make sure it’s available to download. Recommend us mods, tell us why they are great, and why should we play them. Should they be featured on RPS? Should they, like Air Buccaneers, be pulled from death and made to live again? You are their champions: speak your mods!

Everyone loves an underdog – but Doom 3 is in the curious position of being an underdog whilst simultaneously being big enough to be widely loathed. Arguably, only Bioshock has stolen its crown as king of the PC FPS whipping boys – both being heavily-trumpeted games that didn’t live up to their own enormous hype, and suffered a disproportionately vicious backlash as a result.

Doom 3 -which I found bland and repetitive but often fun and certainly atmospheric, its major crime being stretching its few ideas over too many hours – however, has managed to enjoy a huge and enthusiastic modding scene nonetheless. There’s everything from extensive co-op versions to an infinite array of flashlight tweaks and assorted mini-campaigns, maps and graphical upgrades. It may not enjoy the profile of the big Half-Life 2 mods, but its scene remains alive. Hoping to throw this underdog a bone (I have no idea why – these cursed whims of mine), I’ve spent today wading through a few of them.
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Modding mecca ModDB has announced its Mod Of The Year Awards 2008, and you lot need to get voting, especially since the awards seem to have expanded to include a gamut of beloved indie games, such as Mount & Blade. It’s all fairly easy – find the mod you want to vote for on the ModDB pages and click the rather prominent button.

Wait. What was mod of the year? If you guys have any nominations for the RPS crew to vote for then post their ModDB links in the comments below. Go!

Yep, Valve’s unfortgettable opening salvo officially gets a decade under its belt on this very day. This terrifies me in ways I can’t quite vocalise.

Said terror is not simply because it makes me feel so very aged, but also because it’s been so long and yet still most FPSes seem entirely ignorant of what HL did with setpieces, incidental detail, gaming-specific narrative style, pacing and world-building. The straight line to most of today’s shooters that started with Doom seems to almost bypass Half-Life. Fortunately, there is one huge, positive side-effect which does ensure HL’s legacy is unassailable: modding.
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Valve loves them some modders. In fact, a significant proportion of their employees come from modding backgrounds – it’s an area they take incredibly seriously, as a source for enormous talent. This goes a step further this Thursday, as Valve begins to host selected mods on Steam.

“As a part of our continuing efforts to support the MOD community, we will begin hosting selected MODs directly on Steam starting next week. The first five MODs to ship on steam will be Age of Chivalry, D.I.P.R.I.P., Insurgency, Synergy, and Zombie Panic. As always, owners of any Source game will be able to download and play all of these MODs for free.”

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[Since Quinns' last piece on a mod he loved went so well, he's done another one. Hurrah for Quinns! Also, Alien Swarm for UT2004. This article includes profanity and mild-bullying of PCG deputy editors]

Deep Space
The Sigma Campaign
Mission #3
23:49

For the first time in hours our squad was experiencing a period of speechlessness. We were all looking back and forth between the smoking barrel of Schach’s shotgun and the bloody smear where FiveEight used to be. The dismembered chunks of the alien that had been attacking FiveEight bounced away from us all into the shadows. Silence.
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Over at Moddb, they’ve announced their not-that-shortlist of the 100 best mods released this year, as voted for by their readers. Or, more likely, by the various and rabid fanbases of the respective mods. Which sort of means that whichever mod has the busiest forum/ most militant fans wins. I guess that’s no different from any other form of modern democracy, really. Suggestion to Moddb: lock a load of PC gamers in your cellar, force them to play mods all day every day, but don’t let them anywhere near the internet. Then, each Christmas, tell them to vote for their favourite just before you treat them to their annual festive whipping. It’s the only way to be sure.

Anyway, there’s a load of excellent mods we’ve gibbered about on RPS over the past six months (goodness, we’ve gotten old. I hope the kids still think we’re hip) in the list.
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This is reasonably amusing: a Half-Life 2 mod project that recreates large areas of central Toronto.

The website explains:

City 7: Toronto Conflict, is an action packed Half-Life 2 mod with a variety of unique levels and game play. Explore what has become of City 7 in areas like Dundas square, Eaton Center , Mel Lastman square, St. Michael’s Hospital and TTC system under the Combine rule. This version features Gordon Freeman as the main character, stuck in Toronto due to a teleporting accident in Kleiner’s lab. Try to escape this war torn city by finding any type of teleporting technology and send him back to City 17.

Next week: City 13 – Battle For Basingstoke.

Here’s an interesting FPS oddity: a mod created for training Canadian Federal Law Enforcement folks, now freely available for the Federal Law Enforcement training needs of you and me at home.

The project was created using the truly excellent SWAT4 (that’s an Irrational game, development-history fans) and includes a number of custom weapons and playable civilians, that training types can use to make the best-laid plans of their trainees go awry. The agencies responsible have even included their contact details for training tips for other police-folk to make the most of the mod.

The training project was created with help from the 10-David SWAT gaming fan community. Good work, chaps.