Mod me up

I've always enjoyed the customisable elements of games. Often I'll find myself enjoying building my own character a lot more than I do the actual game! Some games take it even further and you enter the wonderful world of modding. My first introduction to modding was through my favourite game, Total Annihilation. There's all kinds of mods available for TA, including things like fan-built units and maps, but the one that really got me was Warhammer TA. Back in the day before Dawn Of war existed there wasn't really a good Warhammer game, so Warhammer TA was a great stop-gap. It allowed you to use the Warhammer units but in a game that had great gameplay and mechanics.

Sticking with Total Annihilation, the world of modding has now brought about Spring. Spring is basically a total recreation of the original TA but in a fully 3D environment. This means that you once again get to use the great gameplay elements but it updates the parts of the game that have now become dated. It's also opened the door for even more mods along the lines of Warhammer TA as the code is now open source, so even more of the fundamentals of the game can be changed.

So, what's the appeal of modding? From a player perspective, it allows you to manipulate the game to do what you want with it. It allows you to be creative and play with game elements that are personal to you. From a game designer perspective, it allows you to prolong the lifespan of your game and to add functionality without any cost to you (and sometimes it can even help you make money).

Modding is becoming an essential part of many modern games. Whether in its simplest form of character creation (such as in an MMO like World Of Warcraft) or allowing the use of user-created maps. Some mods work on the game's mechanics and gameplay in order to make the game behave the way they want (such as Project Reality for Battlefield 2). There's even games like LittleBigPlanet where the entire point of the game is modification, with the completion of levels allowing access to new elements that can be used in the level designer. Or there's things like the Spore Creature Creator which has been released separately ahead of the actual game itself. The implementation of hard drives in consoles is now allowing modding to happen on console games with things such as downloadable content, etc.

The world of modding can make great games better or at least great for longer. They can make them more challenging or simply more surreal and humorous. They also allow fans to give something back to a game (and possibly community) they love.

20/03/08 - 03/03/08

So, due to the fact I haven't had exposure to any new games recently (due to not buying them, among other things), I thought I'd use the past two weeks to reflect on games that I've spent a large amount of time on. Games I keep returning to.

PC:

Total Annihilation: I've spoken before about Total Annihilation. It's a game I've always loved, even from before I had a computer that could actually run it properly. I have fond memories of playing skirmish battles and only building air units and just bombing everything I could find. I've recently discovered there's a fully 3D remake called "Spring" available (it even runs on Linux!), so I shall be looking into that soon.

Worms 2: A game I will definitely never get tired of. I even have a version of it on my old phone. The humour and the fun of the damage you can cause when using suicidal tactics is great. Also one of the few games I've ever completed, though with only 17 short missions, this is no great feat.

Dreamcast:

Shenmue: Now almost 9 years old, this game still stands up as excellent. Games like GTA might have made the idea of a fully explorable environment somewhat commonplace, but Shenmue is still great, thanks to an excellent storyline and great characters. It really saddens me that Shenmue 3 (and thus the end of the Shenmue saga) will likely never see the light of day.

Soulcalibur: Like driving games, I've always enjoyed fighting games on a basic level, but I've never been that good at them. While I'm still not exactly great at Soulcalibur (I still get beaten in multi-player games fairly often), I've managed to complete a fair amount of the missions (though they are fairly one-dimensional, you're fighting someone, just the why or how changes) and I've made it through arcade mode a few times. I mostly play for enjoyment, rather than because I feel the need to complete and unlock everything.

Playstation 2:

Canis Canem Edit: Another of the few games I've actually completed (storyline-wise, at least). The storyline and the humour of this game just make it insanely fun to play and quite addictive to boot. One of the best parts of the game is how the richness of the environment really encourages you to explore and do things your way. This definitely ties into my post on narratives as while there is a definite pre-defined story but it allows you to explore that story with a great degree of freedom.

Kingdom Hearts: Again, a game where the story and the characters are the draw. The great part is that while most of the characters are familiar, they're used in interesting and new ways and the story of the game is still very strong.

Burnout 3: I think I've said enough about this game before. Definitely another game I've become addicted to. The lure of just doing one more race is something that can easily eat away at my time...

14/2/08 - 21/2/08

I didn't manage to play any games this week, but there's lots of stuff to come. I've got various articles I need to read and write up and these are currently on my "to play" list:

Total Annihilation
Total Annihilation: Kingdoms
Supreme Commander
X-men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse
X-men: Next Dimension
Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks