2010 had many inspiring and graphically stunning releases throughout the year. To be nominated for an award in Best Original Art, a fresh and unique look was key. High-res textures and detailed models while great, was not our focus, instead this award is all about artistic originality. Here are the ModDB editor's and our judges top selection of 2010.
The Call of the Fireflies
is a puzzle-based singleplayer mod for Crysis. There's no guns, explosions or nanosuits involved. Just an old man who follows mysterious fireflies through mountains and dark caves, sleeping villages and frozen woods, and has to use all kinds of mechanisms to open his path, while battling to stay alive in the winter cold.
Halfquake Sunrise
is the third part in the series. With over a hundred new traps that will kill you over and over again - for the enjoyment of whoever's watching you. Claustrophobic black-and-white surroundings, intimidating voice-overs, and a new ambient/industrial soundtrack with over an hour of playtime.
Open Outcast
aims to create a freely available inofficial sequel to the Action-Adventure Outcast, not recreating the original game using a modern engine. You will be able to visit familiar locations and meet old faces from the first part while the story will continue after Cutter Slade returned to earth from his first trip to Adelpha.
Nehrim: At Fates Edge
is a Total Conversion for the RPG The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. It is a self-contained game that bases upon the Oblivion game engine, but has no relation to Oblivion's lore. It is a world in which neither Tamriel nor any other TES based name exists. The continent itself on which the game is situated is called Nehrim, it is completely independent from the base game.
Nightmare House 2
is a total conversion for Half-Life 2. You wake up inside an abandoned hospital with no understanding of how you came to be there, only a vague memory of the girl from Nightmare House haunts you. Soon it will be difficult to determine between a dream and reality. How long will it take you to realize that escape is not an option?
Congrats, guys. :)
Wow, open Outcast was nominated :)
Obviously the other titles are top-notch as well!
Interesting selection. No idea what Halfquake lost in this list but the others are interesting picks. I have the feeling Nehrim gets the win since their artists really worked of their ***** for that one. Never played tCotF but from what I've seen this one is most probably duked out between the two of them. NH2 is done nice too but I don't think it has what it takes for the first place. OO I don't know.
Half-Quake is really minimalistic in it's art(which doesn't mean it's not good enough to win), that being said it's not the first installment in the series, and when put up against such competition it's clear to see why it was nominated and why it didn't win.
my opinion: HalfQuake:Sunrise - mod of the year
I didn't really see much original textures in NH2...
Now I'm impressed :D open Outcast is nominated. Yes! Also congrats to our competitors :D
My voice for "The Call of the Fireflies" ^^, but i dont tasted "Nehrim: At Fates Edge" - maybe it's good too.
Zeitgeist should win this, definately. It is the only one BETTER than these nominees
Needs to be released or have a demo out.
Else Galactopticon would have won! ;D
"halfquake" and "open outcast" 4 da win. :)
i don't know "The Call of the Fireflies" but it really looks awesome.
i don't get why "Nightmare House 2" is here... its everything (also a really good tc) but NOT original in artstyle at all. imho.
@classic319: you're right. "zeitgeist" should be here too. :/
edit: @henley: i see. damn it ;D
Ahha, danke henley. I should have recognized that :) thank you
Videos aren't as good, without that sexy Australian accent telling me about the games/mods.
Congratz to the firefly crew! You really deserve this!
As a Crytek community rep it's nice to see some CryENGINE entries go far, good job guys. ;)
Now you and all developer can see, why they should keep supporting the modding community with SDK, source codes etc.
There are around 4 awesome mods, out of 100 of awesome mods, and the winner deserved it.
You can see now very good, which awesomness a modding team can develop, I have to say in there free time, and it's in my opinion more awesome that a li'l team of guys run this page, the biggest mod and game development website in the world. And every year the awards grow more and more.
Guys, where can I donate?
Buy a shirt bro.
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*is floored*
Congratulations for the winner, as well as the nominees, who all deserved getting there.
Congrats to everyone! The call of the Fireflies looks amazing I will definitely give it a try, thanks for making me discover it!
WOW...Wow
Replace Half-Quake with Dear Esther and you've got a list.
needs to be released, or have a demo... And no, the old demo of Dear Easher already got nominated last year =)
Every one of these is absolutely brilliant, but I have to agree with the choice for the winner. "Fireflies" is absolutely sublime and represents exactly why I still love PC gaming.
IMO everyone of nominees deserves a cookie!
Open outcast win i love the art i love anything in there!!
Great choice with Call of the Fireflies, it looks fantastic and is pretty much unique amongst Crysis mods with its gameplay style.
a Mod that uses model packs and game assets won the Best Original Art catagory?
i agree that CotF looks really nice and deserves an award for its style, but these other teams worked hard to produce all their own art, i feel as though they deserved it more.
Neotokyo belongs on this list D:
GREAT!
2010 has been really a great year for the modding, congratulation to the winners !
Great to see that even a Half-Life mod has the potential to be one of the best art related mods!
But actually its not suprising that HQ:S got nominated since it really beats the **** out of the old GoldSrc Engine.