Advanced Mods and Free Games

            Complex mods are essentially mods that completely alter a games appearance, characters, and/or gameplay. Some of these mods have been turned into some of the full fledge games we know today. The best example and most well known one is Counter Strike (Mod Hall of Fame).

            Counter Strike is a complete re-work of the original Half-Life game. Unlike Half-Life, it is a realistic multiplayer game where players choose from Terrorist or Anti-Terrorist team. Once teams are selected you can choose your load-out and after that the game begins. Counter Strike has multiple game modes to choose from. You can play hostage rescue, assassination, death match, or the classic bomb defuse (Mod Hall of Fame). Now the old Counter Strike is on Steam as well as the new Counter Strike Global Offensive. CS also has a number of mods to choose from on ModDB and other third party sites.

            Strike Suit Zero has a few interesting mods based off of old game favorites. The most notable for me, was S-Type. This turns SSZ into a remake of the classic S-NES game, R-type. S-Type gameplay is the same as the original R-Type, however it makes the game co-op. This gameplay change, coupled with the art-style of SSZ, makes S-Type a mod for both SSZ and R-Type (Steam Workshop).

            One problem in the modding community is money. Sometime the game you want to create a mod for is still too pricy for your budget. For the more frugal modders out there, there are some great games that don’t cost a dime that you can still make mods for. One free game is Alien Swarm, a top down shooter from Valve (Steam). You can download it for free on Steam, plus the Alien Swarm SDK is also free, so you will have no problem getting right into the thick of it. Another good game choice is Minecraft Classic edition ( Richard Cobbett, Techradar). Minecraft Classic is basically Minecraft without the monsters, so you can explore the open world and build whatever you want with no sudden attacks. Minecraft provides an interesting way to mod because you alter the world directly, in-game, as well as editing the code of the world you create. Finally, there is the Marathon: Trilogy (Richard Cobbett, Techradar). This game is for the modders out there who prefer the classics, since it came out around the same time as the original Doom. Marathon is what the Halo universe originally started as. It is a old classic that is free to download, same as Minecraft Classic, from techradar’s 50 free games article. These three games will get you started modding for free in no time, and will probably be fun pass-times when you are not modding as well.

Sources

Top 50 Best Free Games You Should Play Today, Richard Cobbett, Techradar. Last edited: April 3rd, 2013. Retrieved From: http://www.techradar.com/us/news/gaming/top-40-best-free-games-you-should-play-today-695473

Mod Hall of Fame, ModHOF. Found: Oct 25, 2013. Retrieved From: http://www.modhof.com/

S-Type, Bluestone, Steam Workshop. Found: Nov 9, 2013. Retrieved From: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=146768574&searchtext=

Preview

            The post timeline got messed up this week. Things will be going back to normal next week with a post every Wednesday and Friday at midnight. Wednesday we will have a guest blogger, Nick Wingard. Friday, I will be showing you all a infographic for bringing your weapon into Unreal Tournament 3.