Mod News: On The Move
Hello! This week I moved house. I forgot I was moving house when I wrote last week's column, which means I promised you all a far more comprehensive roundup of interesting mod-related spoutings, without thinking about the fact that my internet access would be intermittent at best for a few days. Still, I've done my best. Read on to see if I'm up to par (and to get your weekly dose of mod news, I suppose).
NEWS
The developers of Half-Life 2 mod Eternal Silence are slaving away on their next update. Fortunately for all interested parties, they've taken the time off to release some screenshots of some new maps. Which look lovely and laser-beamy.
Meanwhile, bouncy-jumpy mod Tension - again for HL2 - has a new video out, illustrating its HUD. UserCreated new boy Matthew Lee's written some words about it too, which are worth reading.
And there's a new teaser video of Bloodlines Revival, the massively ambitious engine-update mod for Vampire that I'm still convincing myself is going to be finished and work properly la-la-la I can't hear you. Here's the trailer. We are all in agreement that Bloodlines is the third best PC game ever, right? I mean, I know we done this before, but just checking.
But perhaps the most glorious of this particularly Source-Enginey news section is a Dear Esther update, featuring some absolutely spectacular screenshots of the caves. I've been promised an early build of Robert Briscoe's updated version, which should be landing in my inbox in the next week or two. Beware: I will be reporting back, and I will not be making any efforts to be restrained.
RELEASES
Meet Cel Shader, a Crysis Wars mod which supposedly "alter[s] the graphic output of Crysis Wars to make it appear hand-drawn." Er, but doesn't look in any way hand-drawn, instead making everything appear as if someone's quickly Photoshop-embossed the game world. Hmm. Here it is, if you're curious anyway.
Also meet Half-Screwed, which looks absolutely /mental/. It's a Half-Life 1 multiplayer mod that appears to combine a whole bunch of pop culture and gaming stuff into something which the devs have dubbed "tactical stupid action." They continue: "This mod is a Tribute to Hammy, Jaykin bacon, Various Video Games and the fact that you can make a mod fun without super-serious modern warfare guns or zombies." Fair play, folks. Download it here.
UPDATES
Star Wars in anything is always a good thing, and anything in Mount & Blade even better. So Star Wars: Conquest, a M&B mod, reaching version 0.9.0.3 is a fairly exciting prospect. Here it is. I wonder how many decimal places you could get away with using in a build version before people start to mistake it for an IP address.
Um. I think that's the only particularly interesting update, to be honest. Shout at me if I'm wrong.
AND THE REST
Andrea's been doing a sterling job with UserCreated since I became a bit of a deserter. One of his introductions is Mod Our Comments, in which he opens the floor to readers to discuss various mod-related gubbins. This week: which games would people like to see modded more? Here's what people said.
And, since it's been Deus Ex week, ModDB have been lovely enough to compile a list of the best in Deus Ex mods. The Narcissus Entity was said to be nonplussed at the noninclusion of The Cassandra Project.
Until next week. More at good old UC.