Editor's Notes News

32 comments by Henley on Oct 31st, 2009 digg this super bookmark

Ghosts, Zombies, Vampires and other monster boggiewoggies. Halloween is a great time to get into the scarier movies and games to give yourself a good fright. Last year on ModDB I created a video for the top ten voted spooky mods by our community, it had some interesting results to say the least with the popular but not always scary mods took the cherry. This year we will do something a little different, I have compiled a list of singleplayer mods (because we all know being alone in the dark really sets the mood) for different engines that you should check out if you want to get your spook on.

Mistake -1 (Half-Life)

Mistake -1 is the prequel to 'Mistake' and tells the story of Steve Rick, a patient from the Andrew Parker asylum, who harbors a dark secret. A very spooky mod that uses the Goldsource engine very well. Creepy lighting and visual map changes creates something very unique and exciting.

Hollow Moon (Unreal Tournament 2004)

You arrive to the moon research station to work as heavy machinery engineer. From now on you are on your own. Created as more of an experiment for different means of showing audio-visual styles Hollow Moon boasts no environmental sounds, but what is produced is a thick atmosphere that few games or mods can come close too.

Paranoia (Half-Life)

You will play the role of a Russian officer of the secret service. Your first impressions are that this mission will be just like any other, but you really have no idea what nightmares future events have in store for you. Paranoia is one of the very best mods to come out of Half-Life for both engine expansion and content. A must download!

Curse Episodes (Half-Life 2)

Curse episodes is an Egyptian themed action/horror/puzzle/exploration FPS where the further you creep into the world of Curse the harder and more frightening the entire experience gets, its up to you how you want to play. A very unique and very amazing mod worthy of your attention and bandwidth!

Dear Esther (Half-Life 2)

A deserted island... a lost man... memories of a fatal crash... a book written by a dying explorer. Dear Esther is a ghost story told using first-person gaming technologies. If you want a very spooky interactive ghost story Dear Esther should be the mod for you, highly recommended by all the staff here on ModDB.

There are hundreds more mods and games out there that will help create a fantastic Halloween experience for you all, these are just some of the truly stand out mods that deserve to be the major source of your ghostly ahhs and eeiies. Hope you have a very frighting Halloween!

32 comments by Henley on Oct 30th, 2009 digg this super bookmark

A few days ago the multi-platform Unity engine had a brand new update (version 2.6) as well as a price drop for independent developers who choose to use the engine for both personal and commercial use from $200 USD to well zero.

Now I can hear your eyebrows raising but before you ask there really isn't any catch to this, aside from the Unity spashscreen that is. So there really is no reason as to why your not tooling around in it as you read this go and download it now!

Or for your Mac, or iPhone!

74 comments by Henley on Oct 20th, 2009 digg this super bookmark

Call of Duty's community manager Rob Bowling has mentioned on a fan podcast (fast forward to the 1:41 mark to hear the discussion on dedicated servers)that Modern Warfare 2 will not be getting any support for dedicated servers. As it stands now all all games even private games need to be run through a service being called "IWnet" which simply put is a peer 2 peer service where the best connection will be hosting the server as a listen server.

Currently mods that use the COD4 engine are all server based. With the above news of dedicated servers being dropped in favour of a more tightly controlled multiplayer system what will it mean for modders? One would be safe to assume that modding is not going to be supported out of the box any more, so only certified maps and gametypes are going to be playable.

So this either means modders will have to wait for the ability to change content, it just wont be supported or it will be very tightly controlled as far as what is and isn't allowed to be played any more. I cant say I'm to impressed with the initial decision but I will reserve my judgement for "if" they decide to let people know what will be expected as far as modding goes.

Thank you to Mr_Cyberpunk for the heads up!

** Update: Just to give you guys an update on the whole modding issue with MW2, today Gameinformer has just written an article that should give you guys a fair idea with what they have planned for modders.

And with that modders hopes and dreams of customising the new game modes have been dashed with what almost seems like a careless statement. You can read the entire write up here. So guys what can we expect now? Will there be a official statement released that will give us hope again or is this it?

39 comments by Henley on Oct 20th, 2009 digg this super bookmark

Here are the Phase 4 finalists for the Best non-FPS Mod, Best FPS Mod, Best Machinima and Best Vehicle Set category's in the $1 Million Intel Make Something Unreal Contest. All finalists in this category are eligible to enter the Grand Finals. This competition rewards top mods created for Unreal Tournament 3 with cash and hardware prizes in four preliminary phases and a grand final. Visit Makesomethingunreal.com for full details.

Best FPS Mod Phase 4 Finalists:

• The Ball
• Crucible
• Defend Unreal Territories
• Prometheus
• Angels Fall First: Planetstorm
• Sanctum
• Unreal Space
• TRE Last Life
• The Witching Hour
• Warm Gun
• UT3 Jailbreak

Best FPS Mod Phase 4 Honorable Mentions:

• Domination Games and Maps
• Kilter Bombing Run
• DM_Spectrum
• XS Vehicles
• Hostile TakeOver 2050
• Black Sierra Alpha v21
• Reapers Curse
• Holocaust
• Deadman's Tales
• VCTF-Boilerplate
• End of the Beginning
• RamPaGe Mod

Best non-FPS Mod Phase 4 Finalists:

• Coda
• The Haunted
• Steam Racers
• Unreal Tactics 2
• Airborn
• Archasis II
• Hazard: The Journey of Life
• Renegade X
• UnWheel 2
• Bailter Ray
• Killing Time UT2D (eligible for grand finals, but not for Phase 4 prize since not updated from Phase 3)

Best non-FPS Mod Phase 4 Honorable Mentions:

• Voider
• Takeshi Gladiators
• Millagun UT2D
• Robo Coop
• AZ66 Mod
• Macchinisto
• Steel Halo: Imperial League
• The Year 2000! Gameshow
• ToonDoom
• Cartel
• Cubes of Serenity
• Project Swing
• CarBall 3
• Ancient Tales Mod
• SCUM
• Adrenaline Rush
• Doll Carnage

Best Machinima Phase 4 Finalists:

• The Plan
• CylinderSequence
• Airborn
• Exodus
• Renegade X
• Maladroit of Serendipity Episode 1
• Maladroit of Serendipity Episode 2
• Assault
• Starfall Opening

Best Machinima Phase 4 Honorable Mentions:

• DoubleKill Episode 1
• DoubleKill Jess
• FightSabers
• The Crucible Trailer
• UT3 News Take 1
• The Last Stand
• Dream
• Silent Scream of Vengeance
• Prometheus
• HOLP 3 Teaser

Best Vehicle Set Phase 4 Finalists:

• The Ball
• Crucible
• PlanetStorm
• Renegade X
• Steam Racers
• Project Swing
• Snarf Vehicles
• UnWheel 2
• XS Vehicles

Best Vehicle Set Phase 4 Honorable Mentions:

• XS Prototypes
• Starbase Defense Vehicle
• VCTF-Boilerplate

44 comments by Henley on Oct 15th, 2009 digg this super bookmark

Crytek is excited to announce that their latest all-in-one development solution CryENGINE 3 is now available for all developers. CryENGINE 3 is the first game development platform for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, MMO, DX9/DX10 that also is truly Next-Gen-Ready - with scalable computation and graphics for all major upcoming platforms. It provides the complete game engine to create AAA quality next generation games, and includes the redesigned CryENGINE 3 Sandbox level editor, a production-proven, 3rd generation "What you see is what you play" (WYSIWYP) - tool designed by and for professional developers.

CryENGINE 3 also introduces CryENGINE 3 Live Create. It allows developers to work with a single editor, but see and play the results in real-time on PC, PS3 and Xbox360, hooked up to a single dev PC. The engine takes care of the conversion and optimization of assets in real-time; enables instant, cross-platform changes to any part of game creation and as a result materially increases the speed, quality and significantly reduces the risk of multiplatform development.

"With CryENGINE 3 we are releasing the best development solution available today and tomorrow. With its scalable graphics and computation it is next-gen ready and with new features like CryENGINE 3 Live Create the best choice for game developers and companies developing serious games applications alike. It is the only game engine solution that enables real-time development and can ensure teams are able to maximise their own creativity, save budget and create greater gaming experiences." said Cevat Yerli, CEO & President of Crytek.

CryENGINE® is the underlying technology for Crytek's critically acclaimed games Far Cry, Crysis, Crysis Warhead and NC Soft's recently released MMORPG blockbuster AION. It has already been licensed to a number of major game companies around the globe, including several recent serious games training and simulation projects. CryENGINE®3 is the underlying technology for the highly anticipated Crysis®2.