Mod Madness

Doom3, the first title to allow gamers to modify it. This is where it all began.

Let's pretend no one else has written about Half-Life 2 already, okay? To assuage my ego, we'll consider the topic every bit as untainted as newly fallen snow on the smooth buttock of a baby deer who is napping in a field of original mint-in-box Boba Fett figures, or even Britney Spears' vagina. The technology displayed in Half-Life 2 takes asshole physics to a whole new level, then pushes it down a flight of stairs and directly through a glass box full of fine china. It's so impressive and just plain fun to goof around with that for the first time in my life I felt compelled to create a mod. In order to bring my lifelong dream of playing with three-foot wide Tiddly Winks to fruition, I had to learn a bit about the actual process of creating a mod first. After all, in the world of modding I was just as much of a virgin as Ron Jeremy's vagina. After locating a few tutorials on how to make a box (protip: use 4 walls, not 2), I came across a listing of several thousand Half-Life 2 mods currently underway. It appeared I was not alone! I had been sitting on my roommate's lap the entire time without realizing it.

After kicking him out of the room, I perused the list. While my project was going to be a rather simplistic mini-game of sorts, all of the mods I came across seemed to be incredibly elaborate. Here are a few which I found particularly promising and probably didn't make up.

Donkey Kong: Source

The Project Leader's Pitch:

Imagine experiencing the arcade classic Donkey Kong in a glorious 3D environment that takes full advantage of the Source engine's incredible physics! Now stop imagining because it's here! Now start imagining some more, because I didn't mean that literally. The project is "here" since I'm announcing it, but we don't have a beta version yet.

In Donkey Kong: Source, players will enter a virtual arcade and come upon a Donkey Kong machine. At this point they will be able to manipulate the arcade cabinet with the Gravity Gun, push it on its side, throw boxes at it, or drop it on one end of a see-saw and send barrels hurtling into the air. Incredible!

Counter-Squad

The Project Leader's Pitch:

Counter-Squad is a team-based tactical shooter set in modern times. It sets itself apart by offering an incredible level of attention to detail and realism that you simply will not find in other games. All guns will have the proper sounds, rate of fire, accuracy, and reliability of their real life counterparts. Guns will jam in the middle of a firefight and require cleaning after every spent magazine. Uniforms and commands will be perfectly replicated. You've never seen anything like it!

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Brothers In Combat

The Project Leader's Pitch:

Brothers In Combat is a team-based tactical shooter set in World War II. It sets itself apart by offering an incredible level of attention to detail and realism that you simply will not find in other games. All guns will have the proper sounds, rate of fire, accuracy, and reliability of their real life counterparts. Guns will jam in the middle of a firefight and require cleaning after every spent magazine. Uniforms and dialects will be perfectly replicated. You've never seen anything like it!

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Dragon Ball Z vs. Pokemon: Project Yaoi

The Project Leader's Pitch:

When I saw Half-Life 2 in action, the first thing I noticed was the life-like animation of the characters. It was like you were really talking to a person! I just knew I had to make an anime game with it! ^______^ As any true connoisseur of anime knows, Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z are the absolute pinnacles of the genre and are so deep that they would lend themselves well to a game (why hasn't anyone thought of this before?). Not only will we combine the best of both worlds by featuring characters from each series, we'll be putting them in the genre that will let the player get to know those characters best: the Japanese dating sim. Take on the role of Vegeta or Snorlax and woo your way into the heart and orifice of your favorite male characters.

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Neo-Dawn 3016

Project Leader's Pitch:

Neo-Dawn 3016 throws you into a visually stunning and socially complex world of the future. This 3rd-person action/rpg hybrid will pull you in with an intricately woven cyberpunk storyline unrivaled by even sci-fi's greatest films. Drivable vehicles, fully destructible environments, lavish sounds and dialogue, completely open-ended gameplay and a deep skill system will keep you glued to your computer for years to come!

I'm a very busy guy and can't do everything myself. I currently need people to fill the following positions on the team: Lead designer, story writer, dialogue writer, mapper, texture artist, concept artist, modeller, someone who knows how to make this 3rd person, someone who knows how to add rpg stuff, skill system expert, sound guy, vehicle guy, destructible environments guy, someone that saw Hackers and can help make the cyberpunk stuff.

Wow! And mods like these only make up 99% of the projects out there! I had secretly been hoping that my Tiddly Winks game would be a wild success and Valve would employ me and let me wear a cape to work, but now that I see my competition I've come to understand what a silly notion that was.

– Dennis "Corin Tucker's Stalker" Farrell (@DennisFarrell)