Modifications of games done without the consent of their authors. They can range in scope from minor tweaks to “total conversions”. While ROM hacks and mods are technically the same thing, there are various differences between them, such as their perceived legitimacy and histories, that warrant the distinction.
Dodgeball
Cycle: This game had lots of unique mods, but this was my favourite to play. No one had weapons, but you could pick up balls of your colour and launch them at other people. If a ball of another colour touched you, YOU DEAD. Just remember, if you throw a ball and miss, you're defenceless while you go back another one up. Was lots of fun.
Alien Vendetta
T.:
Malde's maps are meticulous and beautiful, overflowing with unique areas and held together by a real sense of tension and
Johnsen's (particularly ep3) are expertly strung together hordes where every encounter is the most exciting one yet. And even though his hell is not the most detailed one, I still find it particularly unsettling and grotesque (oh right and all of the other maps are excellent too)
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SplashBeats: Each of the 12 authors of this wad created one section of the map, and it was then thrown together. the results are pretty interesting! The most notable transition I noticed was stepping into a small elevator in a sleek, brown & gray space-ish area, only to arrive in hell after a short trip down.
It's only one level, and entirely too fucking hard for it's own good (play with monsters off and just admire the architecture) but it's a rather charming application of a literary/visual art technique to videogames.
Slipstream: It's a shame the people who made the maps that went into this don't understand what makes a good level. The buildings and structures were well designed, yes, but it was a chore to move around in. It's great to look at and admire from the perspective of a Doom player, but very few parts of the map are really playable.
The following Morrowind mods are game enhancing/fixing add-ons for the original game, rather than new things in, and of, themselves.
The Sect
T.:
The Sect is a gold box engine
FRUA mod designed originally in '95 (but was released only recently) which I fell in love with damn near immediately. It takes the humor and puzzles of mid-90s fantasy adventure games (
Discworld,
Kyrandia,
Simon the Sorcerer) and puts it on the lengthy, exploration heavy structure of
Ultima 4-7 (secrets everywhere! and expect to take notes!) and all the while still playing essentially like a great and difficult gold box game <3
Half Life 2: Jaykin Bacon -
video
crouchjump: It would be impossible to list all the awesomeness in this multiplayer mod, but a few select features include
MGS's
cardboard box (you're invisible when still), a handgun (your fingers, making a gun noise. sneak up behind dudes to hold them up and make them drop their items!), the machinegun from
MGS3 (you scream while shooting it), throwing chainsaws, and a scoped knife. Also features a Snake VS Monkey mode (all players but one become
Ape Escape monkeys and must beat
Snake to death with their bare hands), and a version of
MGS3:S's Capture the Kero-tan mode that's much more fun than
MGS3:S ever was.
Science And Industry -
video
Dear Esther
tacotaskforce: There are something like three different stories with the same characters all told by the same narrator along with historical information about the island. Snippets of each story will activate as you walk through the island, some of them randomized, some not. By the end of the end of the mod you'll have an idea of who the avatar and the island are, but the pieces won't all fit together because they can't all fit into a single interpretation.
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Tulpa: A beautiful classic
Knytt Stories level. I'm a better player than the game expected so I got to some areas earlier than intended and skipped an entire item. Its sense of place is unbeaten by anything except
The Life Ruby.
Rockman no Constancy
T.: A
Rockman 2 hack that is
IMO the best NES
Mega Man game. Entirely new levels/music/stage design and stupidly, wonderfully difficult.
Tortured Hearts
T.: If a game opens with the main character being blindly ambushed it's bound to be a favorite. A bit awkward and clumsily self-referential in parts (a lot like
Fallout 2, actually) but unmatched for ambition (it's an attempt at merging
Fallout/Arcanum-style malleability and
Morrowind-style open-endeness) and with excellent world and quest design, lots of stat-checks, choice-dependent quests/dialogue options.
Action Quake 2
Tulpa: A wonderful shooter, the minimalism of the mechanics and the guns/powerups makes for a surprisingly balanced experience. Possibly started the 'action movie' game subgenre (Quake's Navy Seals might have been the real start, but I have never played it). The best video game take on the western action movie though.
Hunt Mod - by J Hoffmann
Cycle: Basically, a quad damage spawned randomly in a level, and a beeping sound told you how close you were to it. You have to collect a certain amount to win. BUT there are demons all around the level. They can't see you, but they can hear you, so you have to sneak all around them. Got very tense, especially when a quad was surrounded. The final version of the mod was this massive.. thing with new weapons and items like a grappling hook and even has a random level generator, and had more focus on the action rather than stealth, but you could still edit the options to get the old school gameplay.
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internisus: The Complete packs improve the games a great deal without changing them. A desire to play as was originally intended blah blah is generally understandable, but in the case of Complete it would be misplaced. I have to echo the recommendation.
remote: In general I do feel like the Complete mod has improved things and added a few nice features, but it also seems to have taken away the game's raw edge, somehow.
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diplo: Akin to the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2, rather than one of those mind-bogglingly specific hacks of the original SMB; which is to say, it's about exploiting the idiosyncrasies of the source, specific to the medium, for a stranger and more demanding product, but without coming across as too dense in challenge for most potential participants.
glossolalia: You've stumbled into this inconceivable hell world where even mundane things are deadly to you, like Metroid II but even worse.
Bo 0: It
looks like the
Super Metroid 2 of my dreams, but the fifteen years gap between the original title and this hack shows a fundamental change. I feel that the maker of this game knew in advance that everyone would watch a speedrun or read a
FAQ somewhere, so he adapted the level design to this new reality.
Sketchz: this guy has nailed the Metroid atmosphere perfectly.
RT-55J: It [is] so alien, bizarre, hostile, wonderful, unnerving, and impenetrable. After about two hours of play time I had only found the morph ball and two missile packs, and ended up looping right back to my ship with no idea where to go next (multiple times). It was wonderful. Eventually I started making actual progress (at an accelerating rate), and began to understand the world's structure and logic, which was a very satisfying feat given my prior difficulties. Unfortunately, this sense of impenetrability doesn't (can't) exist on replays, but it's a well-made enough game that it's still worthwhile just to play it.
