Hello everyone! To wrap up our count-downs for 2021, we’ve the Top 5 New Mods for Classic Games. To explain why this is our last count-down of the year - As we gear up to Mod and Indie of the Year, we will also be producing videos this year to commemorate the occasion. The countdowns as a result are going on pause until the awards are concluded. Don’t worry, though! There will be plenty to keep you busy until the New Year.
Having touched upon Mortal Night in the last video, I became aware of other quality Resident Evil 2 mods released more recently and revisited one of these for you today - Marvin’s Mod, also known as Desperate Times. The mod wears its name on its sleeve and hopes to fill in some more of the wider details surrounding Resident Evil 2’s story, putting you in the shoes of police officer Marvin Branagh before his demise. As you work through a way to help your fellow PD survivors, you’ll navigate the familiar hallways and streets of Raccoon City alongside a companion. Boss fights are included, as well as additional items, revised balance, and changes to both layout and puzzles that give old locales a fresh sheen. Lastly, graphical tweaks change up some of the visuals overall, and running standalone, there’s not a lot stopping anyone from picking up the mod and giving it a go. Marvin’s Mod doesn’t reinvent the wheel and instead aims to provide players with something familiar but new in its own ways. Seasoned Resident Evil 2 fans will still find a lot to chew on with the mod and new versions still in development will continue to add to the chaos erupting in Raccoon City.
Number 4:
Freelancer: HD Edition
Freelancer
Freelancer was the product of Chris Roberts, famous for his Wing Commander franchise. Bringing the player into a large universe where events take place without the player’s interaction, the game was ambitious and very hyped prior to release. Although it didn’t quite hit the mark, it remained a cult classic with solid dog-fighting and enough content to keep most players entertained throughout the run of the campaign. Never making the jump to a digital storefront, the original game didn’t receive the kind of modernisation generally hoped for from older games these days, and thus modders decided to take matters into their own hands. Marrying quality of life improvements with HD textures and models, Freelancer HD Edition provides ample reason to revisit the game in 2021. Graphical improvements range from aesthetic to technical, with enhanced draw distances in particular being a great addition to this large-scale open space-simulator, and many improvements accounting for newer resolutions and aspect ratios have been made. A range of bug fixes to singleplayer content and quality of life changes that make engaging with the game a lot easier help cement this mod as a “definitive edition” patch. Compatibility with the base game has been considered carefully, meaning using this mod doesn't even prevent you from accessing the vanilla multiplayer experience! If you’ve still got a copy of Freelancer on hand, this mod is a must-play, and a great way to revisit the story with all its cliched galactic struggles.
Half-Life 2 mods are synonymous with modding itself, that particular franchise of games being well-regarded for their support of user generated content. There’s no shortage of active engagement from the Half-Life modding scene, but one of the finer sleeper-hits to emerge over the last year is What Remains - a mod that, on the surface, appears to stick closely to the formula provided by Episode 2, and whilst the locales and scenery are generally reminiscent of Valve’s own work (a compliment in of itself, given all the levels look excellent), there’s a lot more going on under the hood. Having Alyx alongside you for almost the entire mod, What Remains leverages the community made Mapbase overhaul for the Source Engine, bringing many new technical features that allow Alyx to navigate and keep up with the player like never before. More tools are provided by this overhaul that the mod creator utilises admirably, including enhanced lighting and map logic which both enhance the technical scope of individual levels and puzzles. This mod doesn’t simply rehash Episode 2’s design - it intelligently mirrors the best parts, and then brings even more to the table. Vanilla-like Half-Life 2 mods are beginning to lose prevalence these days, but What Remains is a great example of how much can be done with the foundation laid all those years ago.
It almost feels like sacrilege to not mention a DOOM mod on each of these lists, and this time I couldn’t resist either. DOOM 64 was its own little phenomenon of a game, a very unique outing for the franchise on the N64 that, for a long time, was not easily accessible on PC. When DOOM Eternal shipped last year, Bethesda outsourced porting DOOM 64 over to Nightdive Studios, whose efforts in making old games like new again are well-known. It was a great little bonus, but its compatibility with much of the same systems and tools used by the community for years was even better, and it wasn’t long before mods with a focus on DOOM 64’s content began to appear. DOOM CE not only tackles DOOM 64 but also the PSX editions of DOOM with the intention of bringing up all of them. New graphical features, like PBR materials and AI-upscaled textures, are joined by many other extras like more levels and more difficulties to put yourself through for an added challenge. Customizability is the word of the day for DOOM CE, which makes many of its additions, extras, and features optional and changeable with a few presets to help you quickly get started. Crack open a drink and get ready for some ass-kicking - DOOM CE’ll keep you plenty busy.
For these lists you’ll generally just be taking my word for how good a mod is, but this time I’m going to keep it short and sweet and really suggest you check out the YouTube video and mod page to let the mod do the talking. Deus Ex was originally planned to have female options for the protagonist, but this option later had to be cut. With its emphasis on player choice, this mod team decided to add one substantial extra choice to the mix and make a female JC Denton a reality again. Featuring thousands of lines of re-recorded dialogue as well as lots of competent sentence mixing and a few extra scenarios to smooth the transition, this mod is a great way to revisit Deus Ex like new again. It’s so comprehensive and impressive in scope we’ve got to give it a special mention - so go check out the video above and on the mod page, and hear some classic JC Denton like you’ve never heard it before.
Conclusion
That’s all the mods we have for you today! As we stated before, this is our last formal countdown video/article combo of 2021, but don’t worry - lots of videos will still be coming out around Mod and Indie of the year! We’ll see you for the annual award events! Stay tuned!
