It appears that it’s the end of an era here, folks. Fistful of Frags just got updated to version 3.5, which adds the much publicized overhauled dual-wielding system, various massive AI improvements, new guns, maps and a mode. Unfortunately for all of us, 3.5 is (from what I can gather) the last major update in the Fistful of Frags development cycle.

I’ve already downloaded it and intend to play it over the weekend; maybe I’ll see some of you chaps online in this world where men are men, women are manly and horses are feisty and kick people in groins.

Download it here for your executable-types or click this link if you like your mods in Desura-shaped packages

Oh Spelunky. It’s amazing how a game can be simultaneously charming and infuriating to a degree that Spelunky reaches. It’s probably the game that got me through the last year of school, and while I didn’t beat it I got to the boss seven times. Total death count: over 350. For those who don’t know what Spelunky is, you control the eponymous Spelunky Man. Mr. Man travels through fifteen levels of hilariously tortuous randomly-generated levels until he reaches the final boss, which he then murders for massive profits.

This mod is a simple one: take the hilarrowing game that is Spelunky, and subject it to your friends as well. Player 2 takes control of the Damsel, complete with screaming animation while running. The Damsel has all of the same talents as Spelunky Man: the rope, wall climb, and to the annoyance of anyone you play with: bombs.

Yes, this game could devolve into a bomb-throwing match really really fast. Leaping, running, climbing through the level knowing that the next death could just as easily be at the hands of your pal instead of an enemy could be one of the bright points of this mod.

It’s still very much an alpha project, and requires a bit of fiddling to get working properly (for example, some runtime errors appeared while changing settings and there’s some issues with animations), but if you get it working… retroactive co-op game of the year 2010 award?

You’ll need Spelunky for it to work, which you can get here. The co-op mod is located here.

‘Tis the season for long-dead mods coming suddenly alive again, apparently. First Return to Mana makes a triumphant return, now Kingdoms Collide is back. Black Mesa, next? Please, gaming gods? Bah, even optimism has its limits I guess.

But in any case, Kingdoms Collide, the third-person hacky/shooty/magic(-y?) multiplayer… game, is set to receive a bundle of updates just in time for Christmas. Proposed changes are two new maps and the always-vague “changes”. I’m rather unfamiliar with this mod, so it’s hard to get worked up over changes. Chaaaaanges.

But also present is the impending onset of new gamemodes, and one player character from that gamemode: a blood-covered quadrupedal monster.

Here’s a video of the monster in creation, overlayed by some rather terrible music:

Here’s the link to their ModDB page.

Oooh, Fistful of Frags: the eminent Source-based cowboy shooter is going to be reaching its version beta 3.5 in the near future. It’s also, bum bum buuuuum, the end of major development for Fistful of Frags. Sadness. The next version expands FoF by adding proper dual wielding.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t fulfill my dream of a game where each and every weapon is dual-wieldable, but it still lets you use two of the game’s large amount of pistols at the same time. In addition to this, it adds three pistols of various sizes and manliness. I think that once this comes out I’ll be seen running around dual-wielding the game’s two smallest pistols. This is an incredibly large possibility.

The newspost has some interesting stuff at the end about NPCs and a fantasy Western-type game that the developers are working on in the future. It could seem interesting enough, so it’s worth looking out for that in the future. One mod ends (at least the big updates, as small ones are still in the future), and a new one begins.

I’ve been interested in Off Limits since I first discovered it a couple months ago, as the mapping seemed to be awfully top-notch. In a video posted earlier today, the developers of Off Limits seem to be keen on continuing this tradition with a video posted about two maps: ol_russia and ol_styx.

The former is a combined effort between Robert Briscoe (that guy who’s making the stunning Dear Esther remake) and modder Wesley. It seems to be an appropriate version of Russia, all dingy and filled with abandoned military vehicles as well as a rather impressive submarine. You know, like all of Russia.

The latter is a similarly abandoned city, with the shots of the mall that were posted last month. However, if pictures speak a thousand words, then videos must say several hundred billion. I’ve included it below for your viewing pleasure.

Off Limit’s moddb page.

Somewhere along the line, the Half-Life 2 Wars developer succumbed to Duke Nukem Forever syndrome. Wait, I guess since that’s getting a release, it probably doesn’t apply anymore, right? Well, okay, Episode 3 syndrome. After posting the news article saying that the new demo, with a playable Antlion race, was nearing imminent release, many people cheered and applauded loudly. A month and a half later, all of the applauders went home, because their definition of “imminent” differed from what the Half-Life 2 Wars developers thought.

But never fear! It’s coming in the near future. Not the imminent future, but good enough.

After implementing the playable Antlion race, the Half Life 2 Wars Dev Team realized that due to their rather limited tech tree, by going off of Valve’s already implemented lore, it simply wasn’t fun to play against other Antlion players, which is what the demo would have only contained. Simply antlion versus antlion.

Therefore, in addition to the classic RTS skirmish mode, they’re focusing more on a co-operative survival mode, where a group of people construct a base together to fend off the antlion horde. This… this I can get behind. Most of my friends hate survival gamemodes with a passion, but I love games where it’s you and your closest friends, defending yourselves against impossible odds until you all fail miserably in the end. This way, you know who is the most reliable in the impending zombie apocalypse.

Just looking for the future, I guess. And, if optimism is to be believed, Half-Life 2 Wars will be in the future too. Cross fingers.

The news, the news! Oh, the news!

Oh, here’s a playable build from all the way back in TWO THOUSAND EIGHT.

I didn’t think that this was really under-appreciated (and the fact that it was posted by a developer in the last Mod our Comments, naughty naughty) so I figured I might as well post it right now, though not under the banner of “under-appreciated”. How can a game be under-appreciated if it’s already won an award? Sure, it’s not in super-hype mode like Black Mesa was (two years ago), but it’s not like it’s some obscure breakout from a country you can’t even pronounce.

I will confess that I hadn’t heard about this before, so here’s some words about it. Apparently, today the developers just announced that the team doing Blade Symphony, previously “Project Berimbau”, are teaming up with modding superstars Puny Human. You know, those people who made Dystopia.

It’s certainly got an interesting concept behind it, though. Ninjas from the future-past fight each other in landscapes that would make any architect faint out of joy. There’s three different races, two seemingly inspired by East Asian culture, called the Hokuten Assassins and the Vagrants, and another by European culture, the Black Rose Knights. Of course, this is mainly conjecture, so don’t take whatever I say as hard fact.

But I think that what is most interesting about Blade Symphony, which isn’t a rhythm game unfortunately, is what it’s not. It’s not a shooter on an engine which is defined by its shooters, instead priding itself on close-in blade combat. It’s a total conversion, which is even more rare than the first point. It’s more focused on smaller battles compared to the 32 player shooterfests that we so often see.  And, the mapping looks good. Scary good. Of course, we’ll have to see how it plays once the mod is actually released in the near future*. There hasn’t been a whole lot of gameplay footage, besides one rather grainy and old trailer with a bunch of people somersaulting around.

Will it make a splash like it’s older brother, Dystopia? It certainly appeals more to a niche audience than Dystopia ever did, but I don’t think that would stop people from enjoying it. It’s it’s a quality game, the people will come.

ModDB  page? I think so.

Website link? I also think so. Don’t you?

*pending “when it’s done” syndrome.

Here is Firearms Source as it stands right now. You’re all prepared to shoot people that need shooting on the Internet. You go to connect to your favorite server, but lo and behold, the version you have is different than the server version. “Gah!” you cry in exasperation. “I’m just an average, everyday person! How is this development team expecting me to keep up with the crazy amount of updates they put out all the time?”

Unless you obsessively refresh ModDB, this could happen to you. Luckily, the Firearms team has the solution, by adding Steamworks to the next release.

Unfortunately for you, this means that you’d have to down the entire thing, all over again, but through Steam this time. However, they seem to have padded this blow with enough goodies to make the crushing blow of another couple hundred megabyte download much more bearable.

There wasn’t anything said about new maps, but there will be handful of new weapons, like the two pictured above and more above. Also mentioned is the probably-intentionally vague “more features” and “feeling like a whole new game” and “more content” that could hint on additional stuff being added into the new version of Firearms? I don’t know, but I do know that there might be achievements and player stats. More numbers; always good in my book.

Before I forget: obligatory ModDB link.

If you can’t wait until “whenever it’s done”, the version 1 of Firearms: Source is still available for download. It’s decent enough.

Woo, Zombie Master! Yet another mod to join the landslide of Source 2007-based games, thus sealing away beast that is Source 2004 forever. But what’s interesting about this new version of Zombie Master isn’t that the engine is getting a shift, it’s that it’s considered a sequel to the original instead of merely an update with some new features.

And it seems to be an actually proper overhaul. No part of the mod is safe from the modder’s renovating hands,  and therefore most of the content seems to be poked, prodded, stripped and redone.

And when I say nothing is safe, it really means that nothing is safe. The HUD’s being redone, the maps are being rejiggered, new ewapons and suchlike are being added, and a host of other additions and fixes that I will include in list-tastic form slightly below here.

Zombie Master 2 requires Source SDK Base 2007.

There will be new content such as maps, models, weapons, etc.

The HUD will be fully remade, but there will still be the option to use the original interface.

New functions for the Zombie Master will be added. Such as the Zombie Vision.

The Zombies are enjoying a complete makeover. (Animations, skins, etc.)

We will not announce a release until we are sure it will work out.

The official homepage will be up very soon.

Yes, lists.  Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see how this all turns out. Zombie Master is a classic of sorts, although being 3 years old isn’t really “classic”, but it’s one of those mods that seems to fit into conversations regarding good Half-Life 2 mods. Not that I’ve ever had one of those conversations, mind.

Oh yeah, the link.

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this new Pirates, Vikings and Knights II update. On one hand, the previous voiceovers are being replaced by sexy new voices unique for each class. On the other hand, my days of running around like a madman as a Viking, mindlessly shouting “YOU ARE NO MAN” to anyone that happens to be within earshot are sadly numbered.

From the Audio Milestones that have been published by the developers, the new voices seem to be worthy replacements of the “so-bad-it’s-amazing” voices that they have right now. My current favorite has to be the Skirmisher sounds, that voice actor seems to have captured the essence of that class very well, simply by casting him as a twitchy, psychopathic pirate who occasionally bursts into rousing sea shanties in the middle of battle. And the Heavy Knight’s muffled Monty Python and the Holy Grail quotes are eerily appropriate.

Also, it seems that the weapon sounds are being replaced. I thought that the old weapon sounds were perfectly fine as it is, with their only downside being that they were all the same. You know, the same problem that the characters suffered from.

While you’d expect something as massive an undertaking as this to be all that would be included in the next update, there’s a few goodies on the gameplay side of things. Well, if you consider unlockable titles as “gameplay,” that is. I can’t wait to run around as “Zyzzi the Instinctive Nocker” or “The Ballerina” to justify my masculinity in an ironic way.

There’s some fancy new shader work as well; from the looks of it, they’ve made it so the light plays over your chosen implement of death better than it used to. Neat.

It doesn’t seem like there’s an ETA on this update just yet, but it looks to be nearly done. Hopefully.

You can download PVKII on Steam right now! Right now!

Also, the PVK homepage, and the PVK modDB page.

I was so ready to write this mod off as simply a fond memory when the news pipeline went dark several months ago. Fortunately for me, the Mario Kart Source developers have proven my extreme pessimism wrong by releasing some new screenshots and an assurance that they weren’t dead, just really busy. Phew.

It certainly looks like Mario Kart 64, except vastly improved in terms of the visual department. Block Fort, literally the greatest multiplayer arena released in the history of ever, looks utterly fantastic in the newly released screenshots. It seems to be shaping up nicely, even though there’s only screenshots for two racetracks and three battle maps.

Will it shape up to something good? Adapting something like Mario Kart to the PC means that as long as the karts move, it’ll still feel like Mario Kart. The physics had changed so much between each iteration of Mario Kart that whatever they do to the kart physics should work as long as it feels natural. So far it seems like they have a pretty good selection of courses, both done and planned. I mean, if they have Block Fort, they really can’t go wrong.

Now, if they added every Rainbow Road racecourse, then it might be the best Mario Kart game ever.

Here’s the official website with some interesting screenshots, and the ModDB page.

Ah, the humble forest. All you need to do is turn the lights down, sprinkle a few props around – a splash of blood across the path, an empty hut in a clearing glimpsed in the distance – and pretty soon you’ll have most players tearing their hair out and firing wildly into the trees at the slightest noise.

Seriously, though, it still takes some effort to make a setting work for you, which is one reason Left 4 Dead campaign Back To School would seem to be worth looking out for.

Modders 100_o/o_f@ke and romasm are clearly being careful not to fall back on tree-lined corridors, or just dotting an empty plain with foliage. There’s some striking level design going on here, keeping the naturalistic feel of Valve’s original game, with enough obvious care in the set dressing that it suggests they’ve got a good idea how to pace this stuff, too.

The campaign is being worked on in Left 4 Dead first, then being converted to the sequel at some later date. While they’re only a two-man team, they’ve been posting some detailed, professional-looking updates showing off their level construction and tweaks to the Source engine’s different systems, and all the media in these updates looks polished enough Back to School could well be worth the wait.

You can find the ModDB page for Back to School here.

So it seems that yet another venerated Half-Life 2 multiplayer mod has made the leap to the Orange Box engine, fancier graphics and eventual super-stardom. Well, probably only the first two. Dystopia is one of those fancy “team deathmatch as well as a bunch of other original game modes” kind of games, with a new update coming out September 10th (four days from now!).

It brings with it the usual bout of stuff that a Orange Box update comes with, namely the enhanced TF2 version of the engine, possible achievements/stat-tracking as well as a mountain of bug fixes, balance updates and a brand new map. It’s a rather impressively sized list of updates. The current news update doesn’t include the update list, but it does have a large amount of screenshots for the new map, titled Fusion.

For those of you that don’t know, Dystopia is a “cyberpunk themed total conversion of Half Life 2, created by an amature [sic] development team and released to the public for free.” It also happens to be a hard-to-explain game. Objectives are reached through the classic way of blowing everyone and everything up as well as hacking into the internets and blowing everyone and everything up. It’s like you’re playing on the internet whilst playing on the internet!

To sum it all up, the 1.3 update for Dystopia has all of the fanciness of the new Source engine. I’m looking forward to it even though I’ve played very little of the older version of it. So, Steam, September 10th.

Or, if you can’t wait, look at pretty pretty screenshots at the Dystopia website.

You can also get the jump on it by downloading the older version. It’ll update automatically once the new version comes out.

Okay, I guess it had to happen; Team Fortress 2 fans may have thought they were having a bit of a laugh creating these pictures of the (non-existent) ‘Team Fortcraft’, but someone else saw them and thought ‘I could make that into a mod’. Modders JetDragonsLeague seem quite happy to invite mockery from every Tuftoo fan on the face of the internet, but at the same time it does look as if they’re taking Fortress Craft perfectly seriously.

The project’s not really any more than concept renders and developer notes at the moment, so who knows if it’ll get anywhere, but the StarCraft 2 editor seems more than up to the challenge and their modelling skills are certainly a cut above a great deal of ModDB.

Hey, sometimes even an idea’s worth making a little fuss about. Fingers crossed. I don’t know if I’d buy TF2: the RTS exactly, but I’d definitely give the mod a shot.

You can find the ModDB page for Fortress Craft here.

Now isn’t this charming? I’m pretty sure I’ve seen people attempt to imply that arcade racers with shooting basically got made because someone wanted ‘Mario Kart, only with weapons’, and Supercars II is… well, Mario Kart with weapons, basically. In Half-Life 2.

Okay, let’s have the correct description this time, now it’s been pointed out I should be registered legally blind. It’s a remake of a game which originally appeared on the Commodore Amiga some years back, a top down racer in the grand tradition of Super Sprint – see, I do know what I’m talking about, honest – where you drove your fancy ve-hickle contraptions round and round a track and shot repeatedly at each other.

It’s… I really don’t mean this to sound patronising, so sorry if it comes across this way! But the way it’s cheerfully slapped together any old how genuinely feels like part of its charm, from the Mode 7 graphics to the Outrun-esque splash screen to the lack of any collisions to the way the weapons are literally Half-Life 2 rocket launchers bolted onto the (totally incongruous) car bodies (much like the original box art way back in the day).

It’s been going a while, and the latest improvements involve a comprehensive overhaul of the scoring system, which supposedly frees up lots more resources for better performance overall. You can take a look at the current trailer, like so:

and dream of someone sticking that fat little plumber in there, so you can treat him to the business end of a heat-seeking missile. This is how we do it outside the Mushroom Kingdom! Snarl.

The ModDB page for Supercars II can be found here.