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Mod News: Stalky-Stalky


I've ranted about Stalker mods in this column before. The tools are now all out there! Stop just tweaking mechanics and updating the visuals! Make some new games for us to play. Finally, someone has listened to my cries. Who? Find out beyond the jump.

NEWS
So yeah, here we go. A total conversion for Call of Pripyat. It's called Return to the Shadows, and it'll be filled with new locations, a new story, a completely different interfaces and a bunch of other stuff. The devs say they're looking primarily to the original game in terms of atmosphere, which presumably means it's going more down the horror route than the feel of being lost in a wartorn environment, which the second and third games seemed to edge towards. Here's a big post of things.

That Resident Evil Mod for Deus Ex has been new-newsified this week. Updates have been fairly thin of late, but things are apparently still trudging onwards. The team is developing a Deus Ex survival mode in order to prototype some things, but they've also been working on the user interface, new weapons, and other such stuff. Have a click of that link for the full details.

And there are some new gameplay clips from Left 4 Dead 2 mod Drop Dead Gorges. It's "a harrowing three-map versus campaign" according to the ModDB page, though there aren't many more other details yet. Still, the footage demonstrates the style of play a little. Take a look.

What else? An Amnesia mod! Siege is a prequel of sorts to the mother game, which adds new levels and fully-voiced characters. Seems like the developer of this one is thinking carefully about the design: beyond this link, he speaks a little bit about puzzle design and the approach he's taking. Also, screenshots!

Finally, a Half-Life 2: Episode 2 mod that caught my attention due to a single screenshot, which is below. It's just a really nicely constructed, gritty scene. The mod itself is an "experience of pure adrenaline eye candy fire fighting and roller-coaster ride," apparently. Here's its ModDB page.

RELEASES
Half-Life 2 single-player mod Dissolution has been released, after a two-year development period. It's a sci-fi mod which encourages you to piece together its plot yourself, by interacting with characters, listening to audio logs, and analysing the environment. Not played it yet, but it sounds interesting. Give it a whirl, if you fancy.

There's also Oblivion mod Dibella's Watch, which has released an open beta. The devs are asking that people keep in mind that it's an incomplete version of the game, released to the public to get feedback more than anything else. From the sounds of things, it's very bare-bones - an environment to explore, a few enemies to kill, and suchlike. So there's not much of a game yet - no quests or anything - but if you fancy grabbing it, you can do from here.

And Left 4 Dead mod I Hate Mountains, which released over the summer, now exists for Left 4 Dead 2. Its name? I Hate Mountains 2, of course. It's pretty much a straight port, so no massive amounts of additional content for this version, but you can now play it in a different game. Since the original was brilliant, though, it's an easy recommendation regardless.

UPDATES
Zombie Panic: Source is about to see an update. It's been packaged up and sent to Valve, meaning it should be available via Steam very soon, if it hasn't already by the time this is posted. There's a full changelog, along with a whole load of new screenshots, beyond this link.

Europe 1200 for Mount & Blade Warband has seen the release of its third public beta, too. There are four new historical factions included in this version, as well as a great number of bug fixes and a handful of new features. More information, and a download, beyond the link above.

'Til next time. And all going to plan, there'll be some reasonably big news to report. Ooooh...

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