Mod News: If It Ain't Broke
I'm never sure what to make of mods that make changes to the original game's mechanics or image, rather that create an experience that exists separately from it. Things like putting trees in Fallout 3 just strike me as stuff that doesn't need to be done. So I'm always wary of mods that purport to make big alterations to the best game of a given year so far - like, say, Call of Pripyat.
That's what one of this week's picks is doing, though, and while I'm dubious, plenty of people are likely to be glad of it. There's also - ooh - lots more stuff below the jump.
- So, yes. Call of Pripyat Reloaded - or, at least, a "light" version of it, has been released. It combines the already released Atmosfear mod (which, ironically, makes the game look ostensibly prettier while detracting from the atmosphere) with a selection of other graphical tweaks. Gameplay updates are on the way, apparently... which doesn't bode well, if I'm honest. Call of Pripyat's basically the only Stalker game that didn't need fixing out of the box. Stop ruining everything!
- Swords-and-sorcery HL2 multiplayer mod, Kingdoms Collide, releases its first beta. Impressions: very rough around the edges, but decent potential. Here's us having a chat about it over at UserCreated.
- I missed this last week, so here we go: Robert Yang talking about how he made the first episode of Radiator, and why he did it like that. He's doing one for Ep 2 soon, as well. Really interesting stuff.
- Duke Nukem Eternity is released and now patched. For a Duke 3D mod, it looks exceptionally pretty.
- The Cry of Fear videocasts have been interesting. Here's the latest one, with in-game footage as well as discussion of how they're going about making this extraordinary looking HL1 mod. I've been trying to get the team to let me play this for a while, but they won't respond to my emails. Boo!
- Source2D (which isn't actually rendered in 2D. Best not tell them) has released some minor news. But since this is the first time I've heard about the mod, it seems to make sense to link it anyway. It's Half-Life 2 engine stuff, only side-scrolling. I suspect it'll have to be very good to better Flipside, no matter how short that was.
- Talking of Source Engine side-scrollers - and I've literally just noticed this now - TF2 mod The Great Class Dash looks pretty nice. It's "a single-player modification that transforms the game into a side-scrolling platformer," says its ModDB page. And it's nearly finished, apparently. I'll be keeping an eye on this one.
- Blue Portals releases a Q&A session about the mod.
- An interview with the GraviNULL team.
More ramblings on mod-related topics over at UserCreated.