Mod News: The Return
Hello! I'm back. I think I've forgotten how to write words in sequence, which might be problematic. Not sure yet. What I'm almost certainly now terrible at, though, is scouring the internet in an attempt to compile a collection of interesting mod-related gubbins from the past TWO! weeks. Can I just show you my holiday photos instead? No? Okay. Well, go easy on me. I'll almost certainly have missed a lot of wonderful stuff. Consider this a brief round-up of what's been happening since I've been away - I'll get stuck in properly again for next week.
NEWS
Here's something we don't see very often: a single-player Halo mod. It's called Lumoria, and seems to have been officially in existence since April, though this is the first I've heard of it. Anyway, here's a news update about a section of the mod, featuring screenies.
Meanwhile, in the world of Stalker mods, there's an upcoming sequel-thing to Call of Pripyat tweakathon Atmosfear. Amosfear 2, as it's sensibly named, will look like this, if these first in-game screenshots are anything to go by. I must say, I still think that pretty much all of the visually upgrading mods for the Stalker games are fundamentally flawed by their making it look a bit less like Stalker.
The creators of Max Payne mod The Real World, which claims to be "THE most explosive and complete" Matrix mod ever crafted for the game, are - after seven years of development - finally thinking about a release date. Woo! Except, that is literally the news: that they're thinking about it. One has not been announced. "It would be good [for the release date to be] before Christmas," they say. But in the meantime, here's a bunch of interesting information about how they'll be approaching the release.
And finally, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne mod Warcraft IV: The Edge Of Eternity, which is a confusing clause to write, has received a media update. In it dwell a few pieces of concept art as well as four pieces of music from the soundtrack, which sound pretty good, if a little midi at times. Here you go, you hungry wolves.
RELEASES
Here, have a beta. Half-Life 2 mod Ragnarok Arena, a side-scrolling multiplayer dealie, has arrived at beta version 1.0. I haven't played this, but I am struck by how similar it looks - as in, from a purely visual point of view - to recent indie effort Booster Trooper. Look: which is which?
There's also the Night of the Living Dead mod for Men of War. All I know about this is that, for some unknown but highly satisfying reason, its name in the ModDB URL is simply "phil". I like to think this was its codename during development. Grab the download here.
But by far the biggest release this week is Nehrim: At Fate's Edge. It's a total conversion for Oblivion, one of the largest mods ever created for the game, and - if early reports are anything to go by - quite possibly one of the best. Its average user rating at ModDB is currently a sky-high 9.6 out of 10. There's just one catch: it's all in German. But an English version is planned for some time in the next few months, so there's that. Grab it here if you sprechen sie Deutch.
UPDATES
LURK for Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl has hit version 1.1 after a rather long time. There's a big list of updates over on its ModDB page - it's mainly updates, but they've also completely redone the HDR lighting and some other stuff. Grab it here, and beware that it requires a fresh install.
And MechWarrior: Living Legends, the rather-popular-indeed Crysis mod, has hit version 0.3.0. Whatever that means. It brings together an array of balance updates, bug fixes, new features, gameplay modes and performance enhancements to provide a reinvigorated gameplay experience for the player, allegedly. Grab it by clicking on this here crazy computer clicky hypersplodge.
AND THE REST
Are you in Madrid? If so, you should totally go check out Robert Yang's Radiator mod, which is on display in the Intermediae museum alongside stuff like - I think - Dan Pinchbeck's Dear Esther. Sure, you can play it at home, but for mods to be in a museum is lovely, don'tcha think?
And finally for this week, there's a podcast about Deus Ex to listen to, featuring myself and Nameless Mod Jonas as guests. Which might not sound like it has much to do with mods - and you'd be right - but we do talk about Deus Ex modding at various points, including a bit where I ramble on about how deep Kieron's mod was, man. I'll go hang my head in shame now.
Wonderful. See you next week. UserCreated's got a couple of new writers about to start too, so it might even be worth checking there in the near future too.