Blogs - TheCrisisKing

I know revealing plans for mods you yourself want to make isn't always a good thing but I have many idea for mods I want done that are promising enough that gamers will enjoy. Two of my top wanted mods are in development at the moment but many more await. These are some of my ideas and if anyone reads this damn blog but me then comment with your thoughts.

First, a adaptation mod of the comic book series, The Goon. The Goon is about a man named The Goon and his partner Franky as they try to defeat the Zombie Priest of Lonely Street. In the book and inevitable mod, The Goon faces of against mobsters, spirits, fish people, and zombies with actual intelligence. The player controls various characters from the comic such as Goon,Frankie,Buzzard, and a cameo from Hellboy. It would perform in TPS and would take a comic book pulp art style of the comics.

Next would be a mod of my own personal creation called Symbol. It is a superhero mod similar to that of The Punisher. In the mod, an off duty police officer is mugged and witnesses the murder of his wife shortly before he dies as well. A year later, he returns from the grave and promises to take vengeance on his and his wife's murder. Here he will hunt down, shoot, and kill members of the mafia in order to take down his arch-nemisis, mob boss called The Grimace. It would be a Half Life 2 mod.

Finally my grand project: an adaptation of The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Nothing else about that will be said at this time.

Adios

This is a blog of advice for any mod development team using Half Life 2. In the gaming industry, Half Life 2 is the most common PC game modded by fans. This causes a vast amount of mods to be thrown out at the public and often most are overseen. Even more don't even make past the early stages of development. This can be due to the idea that their is too small of a team or the idea is unoriginal. Still, CounterStrike, the most popular mod of all time, was made by 1 man.So why should you make your mod, you ask? Well, I guarantee every mod has a fan base. Some bigger than others but still, people will play your mod. No matter what your mods does it still adds to the community and allows for creative new takes and ideas for the people

Now, I know that was a mouthful of a title but to put it more simple is to make it a bigger explanation. I am here to list the top five developers of the top FPS games and then I will explain why their franchises succeeded and also I will see them at a different angle.So here we go:
5. 3D Realms: Duke Nukem series: 3D Realms was at one point, not a FPS developer. Actually, the only Duke Nukem game developed by 3D Realms as a FPS was Duke Nukem 3D and while Duke Nukem Forever is a FPS in development, then ask me why 1 FPS game by 3DR is so revolutionary? Why, it was a game that provided politically incorrect humor and the most references to icons in pop culture. While it was obviously labeled a DOOM clone, this "clone" showed how much you could get away with in gaming and give it a sense of humor without space marines all serious. If you look at the game from a different angle, I should Duke was iconic because since DNF is taking so long Duke got lost in the new millenium and lost appeal and credibility to almost everyone except diehards like me.
4. Infinty Ward: Call of Duty series: You know the whole World War II trend in FPS gaming now, well your looking at the grandaddy. Infinity Ward developed the massively popular Call of Duty and its direct sequel into insanely popular WWII games and other developers followed suit. What really made them popular was when Infinity Ward left the trend they started and focused on modern middle eastern warfare. Thus Call of Duty 4 was made. The game brought about an epic way of immersing people into a virtual war and brought about an perfectly executed multiplayer. If you look at it from a different angle, one could say Wolfenstein was the grandaddy of WWII games and well Infinity Ward were the ones who made it more mainstream (that and the fact that if you can tell me at which point in Wolfenstein 3D did you fight on the Normandy beaches).
3. Bungie: Marathon/Halo trilogies: You know Bunie. I know Bungie. If you have lived since 2001 you know Bunie. Bungie first made games that like 3D Realms, weren't FPSs. GNOP was a MAC version of Pong made by 1 guy in his basement and named his "studio" Bungie. Skip ahead a little and we find Marathon, which is considered the MAC's response to PC's DOOM until MArathon was ported. It proved FPS's could be as fun on MACs as PCs back in the day. THen came this idea for a RTS called HALO. A few years later, this little game called HALO developed from a RTS to a TPS to finally a FPS. After it began production, Microsoft studios purchased Bungie in order to make HALO for the console known as Xbox. Soon after launch, HALO picked up steam, won awards, was praised by fans and critics, and became a pop culture phenomenon. This therefore proved that FPSs could play well on a console besides Goldeneye and Perfect Dark 64. From another perspective, if Halo became a PC FPS instead of the Xbox FPS we know it would have been labeled a highly polished DOOM clone, but never was on the console front.
2. Valve: Half Life series/Every other game they have made: Valve has not made a single flop for the PC. Not one. Every other game I have listed and even the #1 has had a flop. Valve hasn't. Back in the 90s Valve was formered by Gabe Newell and a friend. They thought that FPS games should tell a story amd imerse the player in this universe they create. In a contrast to DOOM, Valve began making a FPS with a story and the game began to take off. This game was Half Life. When it was released, it recieved inarguable perfect scores and was the #1 ranked game until its very sequel Half Life 2 was released. When Half Life was released with free source code, modders went nuts and created successes such as Team Fortress Classic, Natural Selection, and of course Counter Stike. Then Valve had a leaked source code of Half Life 2 released and nearlly killed the company. Even after Valve managed to move on to bigger success and created the idea that FPSs can have plot. (As for a retrospective, there is none. They are that good in every way)
1. id software: Wolfenstein/DOOM/Quake: id software is the grandaddy of the FPS. Without id, none of the previous games would exsist. Does the fact that they created FPS put them at #1? No, nut it helps. The other major thing is...well... the games are good. Aside from the flop of Quake 3, every game has sold magnificently well. Their design works, their ideas work and they know what scares you. C'mon, look at me and tell me you weren't strartled once playing DOOM 3, my favorite. In each of the previous paragrapghs I have mentioned an id game. It serves and always will serve as the reference for FPS devloping. Their is no way in the history books of videogaming that their won't be a chapter on id. If you dont like this pick then got to HELL.

*Honorable Mentions: Rare, Guerilla Games, Ubisoft, Insomniac, Monolith

Hello, today I am here to ask you a question and I will give you my answer. The question is: How far must remakes with the Source engine? I am personally talking about remakes of Half Life games here. Let me quickly tell you how it begins. In 1998, Valve released a groundbreaking PC game which we all know is Half Life. It became a huge success and the rest is a Cinderella story. When Valve later decided to remake Half Life with their new Source Engine fans where thrilled. What they got though was the original Half Life with a few extras. It was by far what most people did not expect. So here came a group of upset fans who thought up a plan to remake Half Life with Half Life 2's engine. That is now know widely as Black Mesa. Black Mesa was not the first remake, but is now the most famous. There are others such as Fortress Forever, Goldeneye: Source, and Perfect Dark: Source to name a few. So where does it end? Must we lose all retro aspects of old game for an updated version. I am speaking of when I first play Half Life it changed my thoughts of gaming. Now with Black Mesa I know I wont feel the same way. Does that mean I won't get it? Absoltuely not. I am totally getting it, anyway wouldn't it be nice to leave classics as what the are and not as the "original."It has became a trend lately, like the foil looking jackets of the 1980's, that we have to make something good and make it "shiny" because we want to fit in. With upcoming mods of Opposing Force and Blue Shit (known as Operation: Black Mesa and Codename: Guard Duty- either name is subject to change) it is becoming relevant that originality will become a uncommited suicidal standing on a bridge. Soon people will Source port even little known mods just to keep up. Some people the same with sequels though, but saying that would be different. For example, a game is like a plastic toy which comes out with new accesories every once in a while. A sequel is a toy made by the very same company but is mostly bigger and better. A remake is the same first toy with new paint (think Airsoft rifles). So must we lose all retro games to the future of gaming or do have some orginality anyway?

-deathcheckedin (Steam name)

Side Note: Half Life, Black Mesa, Half Life 2, Operation Black Mesa, and Guard Duty have or never had no more affiliation with myself. This doesn't reflect their views and by no means attacks them.