Left 4 Dead 2 – Deathcraft II
Deathcraft II is a rather impressive mod and campaign for Left 4 Dead 2.. turning it into something that looks just like Minecraft!
Minecraft – Super Pirate Battle Royale
A friend linked me to Rock Paper Shotgun’s article about Super Pirate Battle Royale for Minecraft.. two huge battleships with working cannons firing TNT!
I thought this was some kind of a mod, but it’s actually a map, which you can download from Planet Minecraft. If, like me, you wanted to take a look around but don’t have access to a server, it does work in singleplayer! To add the map into your game, just copy the folder into your .minecraftsaves folder (mine is C:UsersKristineAppDataRoaming.minecraftsaves).
Quantic Dream’s Kara and Other Videos
Quantic Dream have created an amazing demo video, featuring an android called Kara. The video shows off new development tech and some fantastic writing too..
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtbDDqU3dVI] (more…)
Dear Esther Releases Today
The indie remake of the cult mod Dear Esther releases today for PC and will be available on Steam.
Dear Esther started as a mod for Half Life 2, an interactive ghost story with randomly generated audio telling a tale, created by Dan Pinchbeck and with a soundtrack by Jessica Curry.
The visual overhaul comes from professional game artist, Robert Briscoe., and the remake of Dear Esther has been supported by the Indie Fund, an investment model which aims to support the growth of gaming and indie developers.
Rexaura – a mod for Portal
Rexaura is a mod for Portal by Mevious, featuring a full sized campaign, unique dialogue, and plenty of puzzles including some new types featuring plasma balls, which you can deflect using cubes, send through light barriers and so on.
You can download Rexaura from moddb. To play this mod, you need to extract the file into your sourcemods folder, and restart Steam.
The author of this mod has previously created another Portal mod: Portal Pro, which can also be downloaded from moddb.
From an Elevator to The Blind Monk’s Society
Two mods came to my attention this week: Elevator: Source, a mod built on Garry’s Mod, and The Blind Monk’s Society, a mod for Half Life 2.
Elevator: Source is an elevator simulation by Pixeltail Games. You get on the elevator, and then wait until it stops on a one of the 28 randomised floors..
First I got to look out into a freezing world.. I wanted to step out and have a look, but there was an invisible wall 🙁
After this, there was a dingy corrridor from which an NPC appeared.. she joined me and waited.. the next stop had the doors open in space, with a strange spinning kaleidoscope pattern. There is an end-level where you can leave and walk around a games room, play pool and watch TV, but I just didn’t feel like sitting through more floors to get there.
I had the second mod to get to.. Blind Monk’s Society, where you play the part of a blind monk!
The game has no visuals, so to find your way around you have to listen very carefully. I had read about this game over on Rock, Paper Shotgun and seen a recommendation to shut my eyes. This actually helped a lot as it removed the distraction of my room and forced me to just listen..
You are greeted by two other monks, who really are channeling Monty Python with some very strange voices, silly singing and random phrases. I got told off rather a lot as they explained my first task, for not keeping up as they started walking!
The first task is to collect a wind-chime, making your way alongside the river and up to where you can just hear them chiming. My path up to the chime was extremely hesitant, after I stepped into the river and quickly backpedalled to get out, then didn’t want to end up lost. The return journey was guided by the ringing of a bell, although I was nearly distracted by a crazy monk chattering about sitting in the grass and getting a wet bum!
I consider my hearing to be poor, so I was surprised to find that on the second mission, I was able to follow the audio cues rather easily, retrieving the second wind-chime and returning rather quickly.
I would have loved to see an overview of the path I’d made afterwards, but as the game was made as a project in navigation, there weren’t any visuals. I would also rather like to see a horror game using some mechanics like this.. scary as it would be!
Dear Esther – First Trailer
Dear Esther is the reimagining of an interactive ghost-story by the same name, originally created using the Source engine and released as a mod for Half Life 2, by Dan Pinchbeck and The Chinese Room, a development research project at the University of Portsmouth, UK.
With an overhaul of the graphics and level design from Robert Briscoe, a professional game artist, the project became so much more than a simple mod, and then with the support of Valve the team were granted a license to turn Dear Esther into a completely independent release. The Indie Fund have also helped by providing investment funding for the project.
The first trailer for the game shows off some of the beautiful environments on the island:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7VJ4lP-05A]
Dear Esther is planned for release on Steam on the 14th Feb 2012.
Saints Row 2: Gentlemen of the Row
I came across IdolNinja’s Gentlemen of the Row mod for Saints Row 2 by chance, while reading the comments on the end of an article for the latest installment in the Saints Row series, Saints Row: The Third..
I grabbed Saints Row 2 for the PC almost two years ago, and quickly found a gamepad essential. While running around with my purple-haired freak was passable, driving without the gamepad consisted of crashing left and right across the road with virtually no forward progress. I know I’m not the best driver in games, but I can usually keep the car in my own lane! With the gamepad, I made some progress.. till I got to a mission that required a lot of driving, and got stuck slightly. Around the same time, I met a certain friend who started inviting me to lots of Left 4 Dead.. and Saints Row 2 ended up accidentally abandoned.
Not only does the Gentlemen of the Row mod fix some of the bugs and performance issues in the PC version, it also adds new content, from clothes and tattoos to extra weapons and missions! A friend also tried out the mod.. and came back with rather a lot of praise for it!
I had a slight technical hitch getting started.. the game doesn’t like me having two monitors, so I had to disable one, start up the game and put it into windowed mode, before getting my second monitor back on again. After that though.. I went with a new game.
Having proper controller keymapping made the tutorial much less hit and miss, and when I got out of jail, driving was passable, though still not great. I can’t honestly say whether the game is running more smoothly now due to the mod, or the upgrade on my PC.
I attempted some streaking, though as I’d not yet been to rescue Johnny Gat from the court, I think that prevented me clocking anything up in terms of respect, or stats on people having seen me streak. I went to put some clothes on before carrying on with the story.. as crazy as this game is, having a blur-censored character running around in the cut-scene would feel really silly. Where would she keep all those guns?!
I also had a go at the Crowd Control activity.. I don’t think I came across it last time round.. not that I got all that far with the story either! I aim to get this game completed before picking up Saints Row: The Third 😉
Minecraft Mods – Technic Pack
I’ve mostly ignored Minecraft’s various mods so far.. nothing really leapt out as a must-see, and I just didn’t have the enthusiasm to face the hassle of setting them up.
However.. a friend has been trying out the Technic pack, which adds a big pile of mods to the game.. building, industrial machinery, more creatures via Mo’ Creatures, and from Millénaire, NPC villages which grow as the villagers work in them.
Minecraft itself has to be downgraded to version 1.7.3 before the pack can be applied. So that I can play on the multiplayer server still, I need to have a second install of Minecraft.. or a second copy of the game’s bin folder at least. I looked into creating a batch file to switch between the modded version and vanilla version, but that would rely on naming the folders “bin” and “bin(1)” rather than something memorable. As I want to keep a backup copy of the modded version anyway, it should be easy enough to just copy that over when I want to play the mod.
So, into the game..
I spawned right next to an Indian village, with a few small buildings, and NPCs going about their business.. collecting wood, making bricks, and if I headed into the town hall, one or more would come running to trade with me 🙂
I decided to avoid gathering resources directly within the village in case it turned them against me.. but I was lucky enough to come across loads of blocks of wood from trees which were despawning all around, and ended up with a full stack of wood without having had to strike a single tree!
I’m still only at “Stranger” status with the Village Chief, though as I bring more goods to trade, this reputation should improve and I’ll be able to get more interesting things, including housing which isn’t so easily destroyed..
My friend had warned me against building too close to the village, as they will expand onto you if it’s in their plans. I moved to the next flat piece of land and made a small house, containing a workbench and chest, and a bed for passing the night in safety.. or so I thought!
The Mo’ Creatures part of the pack adds.. as you’d guess.. more creatures, including werewolves, big cats, and Ogres..
I awoke from the third night’s sleep to a smashing sound, grunting, and the realisation that my house was being destroyed around me by three large Ogres! I ran away, not wanting to take them on with the wooden sword I had to hand.. and when I came back there wasn’t much left..
In case you don’t want to be surprised like this, Mo’ Creatures has a few adjustable settings.
I have reduced the number of Ogres.. for now. They drop Obsidian, so when I have a bit more gear, I will be hunting them for it!
Werewolves were another threat I’d been warned against, with the recommendation of just running if I saw one. It’s a different matter during the day, though.. and I was encouraged to attack the “hobos” wandering around for their loot.. as well as for the fact that they were the Werewolves’ daytime form.
As well as the hostile creatures, there is a nice variety to the wildlife.. rabbits, cats, fish, horses.. even pegasi and unicorns, which a friend has been busy trying to breed..
For my part, I still need to create a saddle, find food, and even tame a horse, before I can worry about breeding them 🙂
I came across some dolphins too.. and I even managed to get a ride on one by clicking him. I couldn’t repeat it when I tried, though, as the other dolphins just threw me off!
The trees are another great thing about this mod.. more variation, with a few types of fruit trees too.. and some insanely large trees dotted about, which remind me of our attempt at a giant tree on our old multiplayer map!
I also found an Oil Slick, but I think I’m quite a way off building any of the industrial machines which I’d want it for.. so I’m leaving it alone for now.
Before I start ripping apart the countryside, I want to see quite how much my little village can expand.. they’ve already started! 🙂
Adventure Craft and Zelda Adventure
Another Minecraft-related recommendation by a friend.. this time with the requirement for a mod called Adventure Craft. (more detail).
Zelda Adventure is an adventure map inspired by The Legend of Zelda, which uses Adventure Craft as a base. After installing Adventure Craft, I saw a rather large number of other maps too, some of which may be worth a look too 🙂
I prefer to avoid reading up on games before playing them as it tends to ruin the surprise, and with mods, you never know if there’s going to be enough direction so you don’t just end up walking around aimlessly. There were enough directions here though.. on loading in I got a cutscene with Zelda calling for help.. the mission.. and then a second cutscene showing me where to go first..
Into a little cave, where I met an Old Man who had a gift for me 🙂
The Adventure Craft mod means that maps can be created with non-destroyable blocks, which means players have to go down the routes made for them, rather than digging through if they want to cheat. I wonder how easy it is to learn how to use..
On my way towards the first dungeon, I met my first slime! I’ve not managed to find a single one on our multiplayer server so far, though since Slimes were added, I’ve not discovered many new caves..
This slime died on the fall down to the path, but in the dungeon, I met more.. one large one which appeared right in front of me, making me scream, and then a large group of them. As well as monsters, the dungeon contained a few puzzles, including a rather infuriating jumping puzzle which took a while to get right and complete in time..
Eventually I managed to light the torch at the far side, allowing entry into the next area, where there were more slimes and a skeleton to fight. So far so good..
The first dungeon’s boss was a massive slime.. his main attack involves landing on the player, where he can kill almost instantly.
I think the smaller ones look fine, but the texture is a bit lacking on this massive one.. though when you’re fighting with it it’s not exactly the first thing you’re thinking..
The second dungeon was full of skeletons.. warriors, archers.. and jumping puzzles with the addition of spikes! This dungeon finished with a Skeleton Boss who was rather hard to kill..
The Skeleton Boss was customised to shoot four arrows at once.. and he doesn’t take damage from the player’s sword..
He had to be enticed over the spikes in the corners to kill him.. but eventually he died, leaving only a mess of arrows behind.
Here’s where I found a little problem.. I didn’t receive any loot.
This meant that I was unable to enter the third dungeon when I eventually discovered it at Lake Hylia.. the door was locked and I should have had the key from here. I tried going through the dungeon again, but there was still no loot, and I didn’t really want to start the whole game over..
The game isn’t yet complete, so I might leave it till I can play the whole thing through. In the meantime there are plenty more mods.. 🙂