Some things were never meant to be seen up close and personal. Take the Mona Lisa – Da Vinci’s elaborate smiley isn’t kept behind bulletproof glass for its own safety, it’s locked up to maintain a secure distance from onlookers. Get within a few inches and the familiar smile ceases to draw the eye – instead, you’ll be unable to ignore the painter’s self-insertion, an image of himself mooning the model, reflected in the sparkle of her eye.
With the release of a Dark Souls 2first-person mod, it’s now possible to see the buildings and beasties of Drangleic up close and personal, but do you really want to? Take a look.
Doom Reborn is a mega-mod, with the sole aim of proving that the shotgun sound effect in Doom is more exciting than the entirety of Doom 3*. To achieve this goal, a team of modders (currently consisting of the contrarily named duo, GameHacKeR and Brent) are reconstructing Doom and Doom 2 in the idTech4 engine. I think they might be on to something. During the hour of footage below, edit: the shotgun can be heard punctuating the action with its signature ‘BOOM CH-CHCK’ the shotgun sound hasn’t been replaced at all**. Some would argue that the shotgun sound was outdone by its own sequel, Doom 2’s super shotgun, which went ‘BOOOM CA-KLUNK-CA’. If memory serves, the Doom 3 shotgun went ‘PFFFFFFFFT’ and the pistol simply uttered quiet apologies whenever the trigger was pulled.
Distant Worlds is the best space strategy game ever made, although I’ll permit some leeway for the Master of Orion 2 lovers and have a real soft spot for Ascendancy. Hell, if you want to argue a case for Master of Orion 3, I’d love to read it but I’d need a heavy dose of sedatives on hand in case things became a little too weird. If you haven’t already acquainted yourself with Distant Worlds, my conversation with Edward James Olmos about its charms and intricacies may be just what you’re looking for. If you’re already a convert, news of a Star Trek complete conversion mod should be very exciting indeed. It’s here.
Starbound was always going to be a game that players would want to re-build in their own image. A procedurally generated sandbox means systems. Lots and lots of systems. It means the community can change whatever they want, and the players have responded at a phenomenal rate of moddery. I’ve done ridiculous things to my game that I’d never recommend you do. I’ve added a Dubstep gun and a Vuvuzela*. But there are broader changes I’d happily recommend: tweaks to ship shapes, planet generation, better farming. There’s as much to explore in the modding scene as there is on Alpha Diadem 028 III C, and I’ve beamed down to have a look. Read the rest of this entry »
Skywind is a mod that brings Morrowind into the Skyrim engine. It’s like someone at Bethesda took the Morrowind and Skyrim design documents and riffle shuffled them as a party trick, and then forgot to unshuffle them. Somehow–probably through a montage–those files ended up with modders. A less tired Craig would probably recount that montage, but that show-off wasn’t up late playing Starbound and eating takeaway, so you just get facts and trailers. The last time I reported on Skywind, it was just an empty world. You could run around, but you could not do anything, but more recent updates have begun the task of integrating people, monsters, and quests. Which means it might be worth installing. There’s a wee video to demonstrate some of that work. Read the rest of this entry »
According to international law, I am not allowed to post the video I made playing of myself playing this Skyrim Mod, which changes the fighting music into Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins. Now, I’ll admit there hundreds of reasons and at least three court orders that should prevent me from going anywhere near recording equipment, but I am sad that one of them is “A man in his pants enjoying a game and wants you to share it with the world.” It seems like my happiness, and the happiness others would get from it, should override petty rules and regulations, particularly when it involves Skyrim and the Top Gun soundtrack. Read the rest of this entry »
We’re still waiting for official Arma 3 content to arrive from Bohemia, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to play. The Arma 3 Steam Workshop is a time-sink of missions, mods, and misc add-ons that I can only describe by pulling a face. Just imagine a quizzical kitten. What’s on there? What’s worth playing? What’s worth experiencing (which might mean it’s broken but worth a look, or it might be so ridiculous that I couldn’t help but install it)? Here are a few things that caught my eye.
If someone is keeping a Big List Of Inevitable Things somewhere, they can cross out ‘modders remaking Morrowind in the Skyrim engine’. For it is no longer inevitable, but is in fact, er, evitable? No, that’s not right. Though I guess you could avoid it, but that would make the modders of Skywind very sad indeed, because all their hard work in rebuilding Morrowind is worth looking at. Even if you just coo over the videos below, because cooing over the scenery is pretty much all that’s possible right now. Read the rest of this entry »
Hunting through impressive Arma 3 mods is a full-time job. Luckily for me, it’s my full-time job, so I get to show everyone what amazing things the community has been making and keep myself in the manner to which I’ve become accustomed (impoverished, hungry, covered in sores). So in admiring this amazing in development Arma 3 Construction Mod, you’re doing me a favour. Go on, admire it. It’s definitely worth a coo over: it’s a building mod that will enable you to create everything from simple shacks to complex, multi-story, er, shacks. The trailer is very impressive. Read the rest of this entry »
Falskaar is a folly. It really shouldn’t exist. It’s a ploy by a 19 year-old modder to prove to Bethesda that he can make something that rivals their DLC, but with a fraction of their resources. That’s a bold claim for an amateur to make. Can it be done? Skyrim‘s built for adventurers and sightseers, not just quest hunters. It’s a place as much as it is a game. Is Falskaar a place? I spent the morning playing it to find out. Read the rest of this entry »
3761 AD. Seattle. A line of tourists is snaking around a wrecked skyscraper. If we listen closely, we can hear their guide: “… this is the cupboard where they found the ‘test heads’, and this is where they arrested Robin “Mad Hatter” Walker, who admitted to 243402 counts of decapitation. That’s the rebuilt Dota 2 annex. The war where the Dota 2 team attempted to secede from the union in 2103 caused a brief civil war, but it turned out their tactics when applied to a real world conflict just got them all killed. We don’t know what this place was: a cupboard where we found the skeleton and a crowbar. Just a handyman, maybe? Moving on to one of the more remarkable finds: a PC that was found in the rubble, still running a copy of Alien Swarm. And beside it was this Steam Greenlight page for a mod that turned it into a first-person shooter. What was Greenli…” Read the rest of this entry »
Living in Skyrim must be like having Charlie Kaufman as your god. You’d be pottering along, chopping wood, checking the sky for falling dragon poop, just doing your best as a person living in interesting times. You’re not noticing the changes that are happening right under your nose: the flowers look prettier, you can’t speak when you want to, and before you know what’s going on there’s an airship overhead. The hands of mod, reshaping your reality. I expect most of the inhabitants have just woken up to the new neighbouring landmass of Falskaar. The mod adds a remarkable amount of new stuff to base Skyrim, clicking in a new continent of content for you to play. Everyone seems to be talking about it, and with good reason. Read the rest of this entry »
Jim is basically the J. Jonah Jameson of RPS: I was handsomely making sweet news for you guys when he stormed into the forbidden RPS chatroom of mystery, slammed his fists on the desk with the rage that only an editor can muster, and demanded I find some mods. “It’s the weekend!”, he angrily typed. “If you don’t find at least three mods by the end of the day that the readers can play, you can go and beg VG247 forra job.” And then he stormed out, muttering about page impressions, tea, and robots. Luckily I’ve been on a bit of a modding binge of late, so I have a few interesting things for you. Do you have Arma 3 installed? That’s nice. Read the rest of this entry »
The sun is beating the UK into sweaty submission. Flowers are blooming, there is blue where there’s usually grey, and lollypops are the staple food source. Summer has finally decided to show up and make the world brighter and sort of happier, so this weekend I closed the curtains and spent my off-time fiddling with Stalker. I decided I wanted to pretty up the original game: I wanted pitch black nights, livelier fauna, blowouts, lovely skies, and more interesting weather. Unfortunately I’d forgotten I’d already modded it, so I ended up with a broken mutant of a game. I’m reinstalling now. It wasn’t at total waste: on my hunt for the Shadow Of Chernobyl mods I discovered that the long-awaited Misery 2.0 for Call Of Pripyat is out this month. And it has a trailer. Read the rest of this entry »
I once modded Oblivion to stop some text from popping up on screen, which technically makes me a modder. I don’t imagine I’ll be building the next Skyrim anytime soon, but if you need me Bethesda, I am here. In similar news, one of the main chaps behind DarthMod, probably the Total War series’ most famous mods, has decided to make a game. Not content with fixing and rebalancing The Creative Assembly’s war fiddlers, he’s making his own RTS: Ultimate General: Gettysburg,
If gathering friends to play Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator is a bit cumbersome, and if you find FTL a bit lonely, then I’ve found the perfect game for you. Final Frontier is the result of a nasty transporter accident between the pair, where the Heisenberg compensators decoupled and they arrived on the SS GMOD screaming and inside out. The sick bay did its best, but all it could do is stabilise the life signs. To be honest, the gristly lump that was spat out looks pretty amazing. Read the rest of this entry »
While the Oculus Rift is a fine and interesting thing, I think adding it to the Source Engine might also be responsible for the death of Steam. Think about it: Valve are looking to make a follow-up to Episode 2 and at the same time they’re looking to implement 3D goggles into the Source engine. Gabe decides to take charge, because he’s hands-on, and replays Episode 2 while testing out the Rift. He’s forgotten about that ending. The lights flicker across Bellevue and Steam Towers power down. All of Valve’s engineers are disconnected from their Steam pods, plasma weeping from their DLC holes. They follow the smell of cooked flesh and burning hair to Gabe’s office: he’s sat in the corner, hair standing up straight, the device fused to his face. His tears at the ending shorted out the Rift, sending his sadness into the building’s infrastructure. Steam is set to emo mode and refuses to co-operate until the ending is changed. All because Valve have just added Rift support to the new Source SDK, enabling modders to add it to their games.
I rarely role-play in games. I’d like to believe it’s because I have such a well-defined personality that I simply can’t accept not being myself, but the real reason is that I’m rubbish. I only ever have one well-defined notion of what I want to be: Garrett. Every opportunity to create a character in a game for me means loading up on stealth options, and when I do I don’t really feel the character. I’m just a dude in the dark. But my last Skyrim character was lost to the great platter splatter* of October 2012, and I’m keen to go back the Fus Ro Dah. The question of whether or not I replay as a Garrett lookalike or roll something more adventurous has been answered with this mod that puts Team Fortress 2’s heavy into the dragon’s lair. I can tell I’m not going to be loading up on stealth options with this one. Read the rest of this entry »
This may look like a blog post but it’s actually a combination of confessional booth and news stand. Gather round and confess the mistakes of your past as I do the same, then pick up the evening papers on the way out. As the headline suggests, my sin relates to The Witcher 2. I’ve never finished it. Or started it for that matter. The reason I haven’t started it is because I haven’t finished the first Witcher game, so I should probably do that. But what’s this? A small leaflet on the news stand informs us that Andrzej ‘Flash’ Kwiatkowski, an ex-modder and now ‘Gameplay Designer’ at CD Projekt, has returned to modding in an effort to rebalance the combat in Witcher 2. The file size is currently 8 gigabytes, which is too many floppy disks to consider, but should be smaller by release. Which should be very soon. Details below.
PC people really are clever and dedicated folks. If they’re not inventing new and grotesque ways to contort the G-Man’s face and limbs, they’re making mods for games that have only been out for a few hours. Codemasters didn’t include cockpit views in their enjoyably silly racing-game-with-a-plot, GRID 2. The reason given was that only 5% of people who played the original ever used the in-car cams and “they are expensive to run due to the requirement for high-resolution interior textures which are seen close-up and require a considerable amount of in-game memory (to store) and processing (to render).” Intelligent sorts have already modded the game, adding cockpit views, and, lo, the interiors are indeed low resolution, but there are already folks working to sharpen the whole thing up. Video under the hood.
