One of the pleasant parts of writing about games is just meeting the people who share your weird career. I went to a media dinner at PAX East this year and had the chance to get to know some editors that I hadn t met before. The guy sitting next to me happened to be primarily a console gamer, but that actually ended up being a neat opportunity for us to have a kind of cultural exchange. I got to learn about the state of Kinect games and Halo, and he got to hear me explain the appeal of Arma, a game that inspired me to memorize the NATO alphabet.

I took his business card and emailed him a few of my favorite Arma videos by Dslyecxi and CHKilroy later that night, hoping they would give him a sense of the beautiful coordination that s possible in a systems-driven, moddable, massive-scale multiplayer game. A few days after PAX East, I got a wonderful reply our conversation and the videos I d passed along had inspired him to build his first PC in 15 years.

I love being a PC evangelist. With my colleague s note, though, came a tough question: What are the three PC-only games I missed in the last 15 years that I absolutely have to play?

Daunting, right? These are the games I recommended, pasted verbatim from our email exchange:

//

From: Evan Lahti
Sent: Tuesday, May 5, 2014 4:01 PM
To: James Videogames
Subject: Re: ARMA WONDERS

Hey James,

Late follow-up here, but whoa, how exciting! Let me know if you need a hand with the build. Happy to pitch in or mail along one of our PC building issues.

Glad to hear you re willing to dig through some of PC gaming s wondrous past. Give GOG.com a gander for most of that. Fallout 2 is a must; building a grounded, variously amoral character in that setting holds up well. Deus Ex demands a bit of modding to make comfortably modern, though there are some great guides out there. TLJ is a wonder.

But man, this is a dream question. It s the gaming editor s equivalent of being visited by an alien, then asked to provide the three products of humanity they re most proud of. The approach I ve taken here is to suggest three games that are deeply representative of what there is to love about PC gaming as it exists right now. I don t know if I can say that these are absolutely, individually the best games ever made and I remember you mentioning not being particularly interested in MOBAs, so I ll omit those but as a group I think that these games form some good kindling for what ll hopefully be a passionate relationship with PC gaming going forward.

Play these games:


Civilization V
Civ is two things to me: the best board game in the world (that you can happen to play alone) and history, reverently presented in an elegant, entertaining form. The care with which Firaxis animates its tiny, tiled Earth and digital figurines does so much to make its subject matter vibrant. Beyond that, it s a wonderfully arranged set of rules that sets up meaningful decisions around how you develop your civilization. You have to zero-in on short-term and long-term goals while bumping up against the cultural, political, and territorial ambitions of the other civs in your world; it s one of the few experiences where I can drop a dozen-some hours into a game, lose, and enthusiastically start a new game the next second, certain in my new, improved plan to achieve a science victory.

My best advice, if you aren t big on history, would be to dig up a mod for whatever your favorite fandom might be LOTR, Game of Thrones, The Elder Scrolls Avatar: The Last Airbender? A weird amalgamation of Blizzard properties? My Little Pony? I don t know what you want. Perhaps your lifelong dream was to found a civilization dedicated to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Play as the Geth for all I care.


Papers, Please
A lot of the publishing friction that used to exist for individual and small game creators has been removed over the past few years, and it s a trend that s invited more weird, thoughtful, emotional narrative and systems-driven games. Papers, Please is my favorite from the past year; Lucas Pope takes a depressing setting (a fictionalized stand-in for a post-USSR Europe) and an uncomfortable subject (poverty and totalitarianism) and molds it into dystopian Oregon Trail told through rubber stamps and passport photos.

You play an immigration checkpoint officer, reporting into work each day to check over documents for errors. Each person processed correctly earns you money that goes towards maintaining the survival of your family (expressed as an end-of-day score screen where you pay to heat your squalid apartment, for example), but there s only so much time in each day to earn this money, so there s a real pressure to analyze quickly. Without spoiling anything the mundanity of all that is undercut by a series of moral decisions you have to make; in my review, I described it as the intersection of efficiency and intrigue. The need to focus on paperwork to detect forgeries while weighing your conscience and the need to collect your meager paycheck to support your family. The confluence of all that is brilliant. Another quote: A paperwork sim might sound mundane, but spotting a mislabeled gender or a forged stamp produces real pride, and Papers, Please keeps boredom at bay by gradually introducing incentives for bending or breaking the rules.

When you re done, do Kentucky Route Zero, The Castle Doctrine, The Stanley Parable, Gone Home, and The Swapper.



S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat + the CoP Complete mod
Despite being our designated shooter guy, I made the mistake of waiting years to try STALKER. Pripyat is the third expansion, and the Complete mod dials up the production quality of the game s skyboxes, textures, and other assets to modern standards without altering the story or gameplay. Complete is what I d recommend for a first playthrough, but feel free to give Misery a look if you re feeling especially masochistic.

Other than Arma, and with FEAR as a close second, the most memorable firefights I ve had in video games have been in STALKER. Imagine fighting on open terrain, in the dark, with limited ammo, against an unknown number of bandits that are crawling around in some beat-up, abandoned factory. Pripyat prompts you to play with a ton of spontaneity, and that scrappy quality of its firefights distinguishes it from anything else in gaming. The closest approximation might be clearing out a dangerous, random bandit camp in Skyrim, but that s always felt more like an exercise in picking apart an outpost at my own pace rather than being forced to fight on the fly.

STALKER isn't afraid to leave itself unexplained, and you realize how rare the experience of encountering enemies with zero introduction to how they operate is in modern gaming. In other words, without the heavy-handed explanation and focus-tested tutorialization you d get from many Western shooters. That doesn t mean STALKER is tough per se I d describe it more as a game that trusts you enough to feel around in its (haunted, radioactive) world with your arms extended, make mistakes, and learn through that experience. This approach to design is also part of the DNA of DayZ and Arma. Have fun fighting invisible radioactive monstrosities in swamps during a lightning storm!

Mechanically, too, STALKER mixes fidelity with playability in some nice ways; guns degrade and require specific types of ammunition, but every rifle and pistol feels as comfortable as a Call of Duty weapon.

Also:

FTL, the pinnacle of the current roguelike craze. I suppose it s out on iPad, too.

Skyrim + mods, most of which are single-click installs these days through Steam Workshop (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/browse/?appid=72850&browsesort=toprated)

Something like Skyrim Unbound is especially good for a second playthrough, as it makes how you enter the world selectable from the outset. You can cut the Dragonborn aspect of the game out completely I wanted to play as a completely martial, magicless atheist, so this was especially helpful.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/10/27/mod-of-the-week-skyrim-unbound/

Video games,

Evan Lahti
Editor-in-Chief, PC GAMER
evan@pcgamer.com
twitter.com/elahti

//

From: James Videogames
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2014 7:01 AM
To: Evan Lahti
Subject: Re: ARMA WONDERS

Heya Evan,

Great catching dinner with you too, man. It's a rare treat to pick someone's brain who's deeply ensconced in granular PC gaming. I know folks who experiment with ArmA and EVE Online, etc. but no one who plays seriously. These videos are fascinating especially the half hour one. I don't necessarily know if I'm tempted to play now, but it's certainly reinforced my fascination.

Your selection of highlights did, however, inspire me to purchase components to build my very first PC since ye olde Packard Bell I had back in '97. Pretty excited about it to be honest. My question for you: What are the three PC-only games I missed in the last 15 years that I absolutely have to play? Archaic mechanics and aesthetics don't frighten me, so don't hold back. Fallout 2, The Longest Journey, and Deus Ex are already at the top of my list.

Best,
James

//

On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 10:55 PM, Evan Lahti wrote:
Hey! Great having dinner with you. Here's a few Arma videos that'll give you a sense of why folks get into it:

Some gritty, tough, guerrilla-style PvP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI7fxwy0Llo

A sizzle reel of moments
http://youtu.be/iylW68mwYIg

A longer video that shows a large-scale infantry battle with a bunch of new (but relatively experienced) players, basically like a training mission for recruits against AI
http://youtu.be/BguGRjPqCtM?t=5m6s

Every Friday the PC Gamer team shines a torch into the dilated pupils of the week that was. As usual, read about the good stuff first, and then the not so good stuff on the second page

THE HIGHS

Samuel Roberts: Our first proper look at The Vanishing Of Ethan Carter made my week. I feel like I m looking at a hit in the making, and as a fan of almost any game that uses a Pacific Northwest-like backdrop the source of which is my ongoing obsession with Twin Peaks, as well as a strong liking for Alan Wake and Deadly Premonition and the richness of the environmental design and intriguing story, will no doubt find it an audience. It s so far from Bulletstorm in tone and pacing, and no doubt the ex-People Can Fly staff at The Astronauts are enjoying that difference.

Cory Banks: Ludum Dare 29 took place this past weekend, and it was the largest competition yet. Almost 2,500 games were created by some sleepless devs, an all-time high for the event. Take a second and think about that: Developers made 2,500 games over a weekend. I was just happy I got my laundry done.

Even better: all of these games are free. You can scroll through the entire list, but we ve picked out a few of our early favorites. Phil was fascinated by Beneath The City, a Thief-inspired, turn-based stealth game that challenges you to save your sister from a prison. Ian s early favorites are Beneath The Trolls, where you have to escape from a troll-filled cavern, and Atomical, which shrinks the escape theme of the game jam down to the atomic level. Even if these don t grab you, there are plenty more to choose from. If you re somehow out of games to play this weekend, you ll surely find something in this list.



Evan Lahti: Cheating is nothing to celebrate, of course, but we got loads of positive feedback on our investigation of hacking in multiplayer PC games this week. After the months of research that our writer Emanuel Maiberg dedicated to the story, we learned that the battle between cheating manufacturers and game developers is a constant one, and that the users of cheats themselves aren t universally the villains that we think they are.

An interesting fact that didn t make it into the final feature, Emanuel noted on Reddit, is that apparently games ported from Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 like Homefront were some of the most hackable because they were designed for a closed system.

Phil Savage: The mod scene is in an interesting place these days. On some level, you could argue that it had declined that the rise of accessible game engines like Unity means would-be developers have a better platform for hobby projects. Even where this isn't the case, the biggest projects are more likely to be released as standalone games as seen with The Dark Mod or Black Mesa.

Really, mods are just outgrowing the games they were once attached to. But even as this process continues, there are still plenty of people dedicated to expanding and improving the games that they love. We saw that plenty of times this week: the standalone Stalker: Lost Alpha introducing cut content back to Shadow of Chernobyl, Deus Ex: Revision bringing a new style to the immersive classic, Supreme Battlefeel beautifully retexturing Supreme Commander, and Morrowind Rebirth going back into labour. I wish mods were declining. That way I'd have more spare time.



Chris Thursten: The Dota 2 patch notes dropped at about two in the morning on a weeknight, which was actually pretty convenient given that I was still up and playing Dota at the time. I spent the next half hour going over the changes with my team on Skype. These bursts of social theorycrafting are one of my favourite things about a new patch even though Reddit will be reliably ahead of us in terms of unpicking the implications of every single change, there s something special about doing it ourselves. Now that the worst of the new bugs have been nixed (nyxed?), it s a great patch. I really like the changes to Axe moving Counter Helix to pseudo-random distribution might reduce the chances of a infini-spin rampage, but it raises the skill ceiling of the hero. He now plays a little more like Lone Druid, in that you re encouraged to keep an eye on your proc rates to ensure that you get those Counter Helix spins when you need them.

I m less in love with the changes to Phoenix, who has become one of my favourite heroes since he was introduced in January. Fire Spirits definitely needed a nerf I m not too fussed about that part but the massively increased cast point on Icarus Dive makes the hero a little bit less fun. His old hair-trigger escape-or-chase button meant that you could really push your luck with dives, whereas now you need to make sure you give yourself space to dive back if anything goes wrong. He feels less ballsy, now, which is a shame. I appreciate that a large number of people will have no idea what I m talking about. That s because you weren t up at 2am reading patch notes! Seriously, what s wrong with you.

Ben Griffin: Praise be, the Star Wars canon is being reined in. To prepare for the upcoming trilogy, it has been announced that the bloated, heaving Expanded Universe that stretches 36,000 years before The Phantom Menace and 130 years after Return of the Jedi is largely being jettisoned. That includes each and every Star Wars game, too. Will that give Visceral and EA a little bit more creative licence with the franchise in the future? Here s hoping.





THE LOWS

Cory Banks: I m pretty disappointed that Bungie isn t planning to bring Destiny to the PC. I m not a Halo fan by any means (though the series insistence on constraining your choice of weapons is one of my favorite FPS design choices), but a shooter MMO with Destiny s scope could surely find an audience on our platform. I applaud Bungie for at least being open enough to explain why it s holding off on the port, but I still think the studio is making a mistake. Prioritizing the PlayStation 3 version over the PC? Doesn t seem very forward thinking to me. Good luck with that.

Samuel Roberts: I echo Cory s disappointment over Destiny not coming to PC any time in the near future. I m sure the project, as it stands, is complicated for Bungie to pull off on the PlayStation and Xbox formats already, but skipping the PC is puzzling to me, particularly as the game's roots seem to draw heavily on many games that made their name on the platform. Destiny is arriving on two formats that can surely only have a year left in lifespan for a series that Bungie can potentially run for a decade, it s baffling to still not have that commitment to PC. I m sure it will happen eventually, though.



Phil Savage: I really liked Stealth Bastard. It skilfully combined puzzles, platforming and deadly robots, making for a well-paced campaign with some memorable levels. The developers have now announced Stealth Inc 2 having long since dropped the Bastard to appeal to family-friendly console markets. Normally, news of a sequel to a game that I like would be good news. Not this time: it's a Wii U exclusive.

I don't own a Wii U. Not many people do. At the end of 2013, Nintendo announced that it had shipped (not sold) 5.86 million units. For comparison, 5.35 million users are logged into Steam right now. Overall? Around 75 million. Stealth Inc 2's developers do have a reason for using Wii U, and if you squint a bit it almost makes sense. To paraphrase: Nintendo s console doesn't have many games, so it s easier to be noticed by the users it does have.

I kind of see what they're getting at, but limiting your potential audience seems crazy. If you're worried about people discovering your game, we can help. Email me and, if your game is good, I'll write about it. I'd rather do that than post a thirty-second trailer for a DLC map-pack.

Evan Lahti: Last week s Highs & Lows was published just as Dark Souls 2 was released, so we didn t get a chance to fully scold From Software for the issues the game experienced at launch. Though a 4/28 patch addressed a start-up crash affecting some players, the latest word from Namco on the VAC bans being wrongly issued by the game is that they ll have more information in the coming days.



Chris Thursten: I m not sure I ve disagreed with Ben this much since he killed an innocent backpacker with an axe for no reason. LucasArts distancing themselves from the Star Wars Expanded Universe feels like the final nail in a coffin that has been steadily building around the series since 1998. Like many others I used to love Star Wars it s one of the few fandoms I ve ever really belonged to - and the Expanded Universe was integral to that. It's what made Star Wars a world rather than just a series of movies and it s what protected the enthusiasm of its fans when the first shit movies started to appear, then the crappy cartoons, the awful games, and so on. The notion was this: that LucasArts could turn out bad products, but they d be drawn from a good place. Star Wars has been growing steadily more facile since LucasArts started to downplay the EU, and now that they re not bound to it at all there s nothing stop it from becoming a jumped-up firework display of a toy advert in earnest.

This is particularly true of the games. The best Star Wars games X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, Star Wars Galaxies, the Jedi Knight series are completely embedded in the EU not only in terms of their subject matter but also their philosophy. X-Wing is a simulator, for crying out loud it s founded on the notion that this is a coherent universe which can be simulated with a degree of accuracy. Throwing out the EU is a big FU to the fans, and an abdication of responsibility to present Star Wars with any degree of coherence in the future. I d be furious if the prequel trilogy hadn t already burned out my capacity to have feelings.

Ben Griffin: So this guy asks for my thoughts on episode one of The Wolf Among Us. It s good but really short, I tell him. Like half an hour long. Really? he says, surprised. Yeah, the whole thing is set in a bar. Turns out this is complete bollocks. The episode is actually several hours long and traverses a number of locations I was just playing on a friend s save file. I wondered why nothing made sense...

Usually, to make a STALKER mod, it's required that you make everything 700% harder, possibly while pouring homebrewed vodka into any available orifice and glueing beard-extending bear fur directly to your face. Lost Alpha is a little more subtle. It started life as a pure restoration of Shadow of Chernobyl's cut levels, but later expanded into a more expansive project: creating a new parallel story that takes place across these restored and recreated zones.

The mod has now been officially released, after an unfortunate leak dashed the creators chances of having their work become an official paid-for expansion to the series. Now, it's instead a great, free excuse to dig the oldest Stalker out from its bunker.

"It was a hard decision to release the game in such a quick, and unplanned way," writes Lost Alpha modder "CrommCruac". "I have to say, I'm very proud to our active team members, because we created something which is beyond our imagination. It looks awesome, it plays just fine, but somehow its still not perfect."

"We will try to update the game whenever we can to make it even better than it is now. Keep in mind, we made all of this in our free time, and mainly for free to play, we did our best to make it very close to our dream game. We feel we succeeded in that, now the question remains: Is it close to what You have dreamed of? Let's find it out together in the Zone!"

You can download Lost Alpha now from ModDB.

A couple of months ago we wrote about Stalker: Lost Alpha, a mod that aimed to revive an early version of the game teased prior to release, which included more, bigger areas, and other features that didn't make into Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl. Yesterday, the Hungarian team behind the mod, Dez0wave announced that some testers leaked a beta build of the mod, and the mod makers are understandably pretty upset about it.
The team is upset, first of all, because the beta build of the game dates back to November 5, 2013, and does not at all represent the progress the team has made. It contains render bugs and other issues that they've been working on since last year.
Worse yet, the team said that the leak killed any chance of Lost Alpha being released as an official, paid add-on for Stalker, which Dez0wave claims that original Stalker developer CSG Game World signed off on last year, if the mod was of a high enough quality. That doesn't mean it was necessarily going to happen, but it sucks either way. The mod is clearly product of the team s passion and some beta testers mucked it up for them.
The silver lining here, maybe, is that Dez0wave decided to release an official version of Lost Alpha on April 26. While it s better than the leaked version, Dez0wave said we should think about it as early access, meaning it will keep patching and updating after release.
If you want to support the team, you can donate to them on Dez0wave s official website.

Around seven months after the release of Misery 2.0, its team are back with a new update. Misery 2.1 might not be a big change numerically, but the STALKER: Call of Pripyat mod has received some major revisions to AI, weapons, gear, economy, interface and difficulty. It's such a dramatic overhaul that the creators now consider it to be "a completed modding project", and, as such, are moving on to something else.

That something else is a Kickstarter project for The Seed: a post-apocalyptic interactive novel set in Eastern Europe. They're looking for 15,000 to finish their 2D psychological story.

For Misery, the team have produced a typically gloomy trailer.



You can see the full mod patch list over at the Misery site, and download version 2.1 at ModDB. And, if you want to know more about The Seed, head over to the team's Kickstarter page.

Survarium's unstoppable "green apocalypse" is creeping towards a closed beta development phase, according to a new dev diary from the folks at Vostok Games. An MMO/FPS hybrid set in a world of collapsing societies and strange anomolies, Survarium's latest update features new public footage from the shooter, as well as some details about the ways players can find an invite to help test the game.

"Right now we want to focus on purely gameplay, start working with the balance, the in-game economy, as well as increase the server workload to test how the servers behave under really heavy loads with a large number of players," said the game's project lead Ruslan Didenko in the video diary below.

Survarium has been in alpha testing through the summer and the team's planning a variety of options for those of you who want to take part in the beta. Given the subject matter of the game, it seems fitting that Vostok is planning a lottery system through its website to hand out entries to the closed beta. Once implemented, the lottery will randomly hand out a new beta invite every three hours, according to Vostok marketing director Oleg Yavorsky.

Of course, it's not completely random, as Yavorsky reports that registered users of the game's website as well as active forum members will see a better chance of scoring an invite.

For a refresher on how Vostok Games emerged from the collapse of the Stalker series, check out this interview with Survarium lead designer Alexei Sytyanov from earlier this year. Want to get on radar of Vostok Games early-testing program? Sign up here.

Thanks, VG24/7.

This latest Survarium trailer is a pretty good showcase for the game's lovingly rendered ruined world, but it's also one of the more exciting 'let's show off one of our game maps' videos I've watched. It has a narrative and everything, telling the story of a sniper perched on top of an abandoned church, and some dude who tries to take him down. What is Survarium again? It's the free-to-play multiplayer shooter from former Stalker 2 devs, and you can still sign up for the alpha over here.



Snipers. Why'd it have to be snipers? Although it looks like a straightforward Call of Duty-style shooter in this video, Survarium, like Stalker, will feature various anomalies - which appear to add various buffs and power-ups to your character - along with co-op missions and an intriguing "free play" mode where anything goes. The beta and launch (for ex-USSR territories at least) is still on track for later this year, with the international one happening next year.

Thanks, PCGamesN.

Remember when buying a game didn’t feel like a guarantee of seeing the ending? There are still hard games out there, Dark Souls flying the flag most recently, but increasingly, the challenge has dripped out or at least softened, often leading to sadly wasted opportunities. What would Skyrim be like, for instance, if its ice and snow wasn’t simply cosmetic, but actually punished you for going mountain climbing in your underpants?

With a quick mod – Frostfall in this case – you’re forced to dress up warm before facing the elements, and things become much more interesting. That’s just one example, and over the next couple of pages you’ll find plenty more. These aren’t mods that just do something cheap like double your enemy’s hit-points, they’re full rebalances and total conversions. Face their challenge, and they’ll reward you with both a whole new experience and the satisfaction of going above and beyond the call of duty.

Misery
Game: Stalker: Call of Pripyat
Link: ModDB



All those weapons scattered around? Gone. Anomalies? Now more dangerous. Magic mini-map? Forget it. Valuable quest rewards? Good luck. Things you do get: thirsty, and factions who send goons after you if you anger them. On the plus side Pripyat is much more active, with a complete sound overhaul, and new NPCs to meet – who all have to play by the rules too, with no more infinite ammo. If you can survive here, you’ve got a good chance when the actual apocalypse comes.

Project Nevada
Fallout: New Vegas
Link: Nexus Mods



Nevada is a good example of making things more difficult without being openly psychotic. Levelling is slower, players and NPCs get less health, and obvious features are now in, such as armour only being a factor in headshots if the target actually has head protection. It’s also possible to toggle some extra-hardcore options, such as food no longer healing and taking care of hunger/thirst/ sleep on the move. There’s a sack of new content, and an Extra Options mod is also available, offering even more control.

Brutal Doom
Game: Doom
Link: ModDB



Despite what modern ‘old-school’ shooters would have you think, Doom was a relatively sedate experience – fast running speed, yes, but lots of skulking in the dark and going slow. Not any more! Brutal Doom cranks everything up to 11, then yawns and goes right for 25.6. We’re talking extra shrapnel, execution attacks, tougher and faster monsters, metal music, and blood, blood, blood as far as your exploding eyes can see. It’s compatible with just about any level you can throw at it, turning even E1M1 into charnel house devastation. The enemies don’t get it all their own way, as Doomguy now starts with an assault rifle rather than simply a pistol, and a whole arsenal of new guns has been added to the Doom collection – including the BFG’s big brother.



Full Combat Rebalance 2
Game: The Witcher 2
Link: RedKit



This streamlines the combat and makes the action closer to how Geralt’s adventure might have played out in the books. He’s more responsive, can automatically parry incoming attacks, begins with his Witcher skills unlocked, and no longer has to spend most fights rolling around like a circus acrobat. But he’s in a tougher world, with monsters now figuring out counterattacks much faster, enemies balanced based on equipment rather than levels, and experience only gained from quests, not combat. Be warned this is a 1.5GB file, not the megabyte Hotfix that’s claimed.

Requiem
Game: Skyrim
Link: Nexus



Elder Scrolls games get ever more streamlined, and further from the classic RPG experience. Requiem drags Skyrim back, kicking and screaming. The world is no longer levelled for your convenience. Bandits deliver one-hit kills from the start. The undead mock arrows, quietly pointing out their lack of internal organs with a quick bonk to your head. Gods hold back their favour from those who displease them. Most importantly, stamina is now practically a curse. Heavy armour and no training can drain it even if you’re standing still, and running out in battle is Very Bad News. Combine this with Frostfall, and Skyrim finally becomes the cold, unforgiving place it claims to be.

Radious
Total War: Shogun 2
Link: TWCenter



Not only is this one of the most comprehensive mods any Total War game has ever seen, its modular nature makes it easy to pick and choose the changes that work best for the experience you want. Together, the campaign AI is reworked, as are the skills and experience systems, diplomacy and technology trees. There are over 100 new units. Campaigns are also longer, providing more time to play with all this, with easier access to the good stuff early on in the name of variety. There’s even a sound module that adds oomph to rifles. Add everything, or only the bits you want. It’s as much of a tactical decision as anything else on the road to conquering Japan.

Game of Thrones
Game: Crusader Kings II
Link: ModDB



Real history doesn’t have enough bite for you? Recast the whole thing with Starks, Lannisters, Freys and the rest and it will. This doesn’t simply swap a few names around, but works with the engine to recreate specific scenarios in the war for the Iron Throne. Individual characters’ traits are pushed into the foreground, especially when duels break out. Wildlings care little about who your daddy was. It’s best to know a fair amount about the world before jumping in, and the scenarios themselves contain spoilers, but you’re absolutely not restricted to just following the story laid down in the books.



Realistic Weapons
Game: Grand Theft Auto IV
Link: GTAGarage



Guess what this one does. A bowling league for Roman? Cars that drive themselves? A character who appears to tell Niko “You have $30,000 in your pocket, you don’t need to goon for assholes” after Act 2? No, of course not. These guns put a little reality back into the cartoon that is GTA. The missions weren’t written with that in mind, obviously, but there’s nothing stopping you from giving it a shot. Worst case: murdering random civilians on the street is much quicker, easier and more satisfying. At least until the cops show up to spoil the fun. Range, accuracy, damage, ammo and fire rate are all covered, though be warned that you shouldn’t expect perfect accuracy from your upgraded hardware. This is GTA after all. Realism is not baked into its combat engine.

The Long War
Game: XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Link: NexusMods



You’re looking at eight soldier classes, many more missions, invaders as focused on upgrades as your own science team, and a much longer path to victory. Research is slow, not least to make early weapon upgrades more useful, while the aliens are constantly getting more powerful. Their ships are better, their terror missions are more regular, and more of them show up for battle. In exchange, you get to field more Interceptors, the council is easier to appease, and the ETs don’t cheat as much.

Ziggy's Mod
Game: Far Cry 3
Link: NexusMods



Ziggy makes Rook Island a more natural place, removing mission requirements for skills, cutting some of the easier ways to earn XP, increasing spawn rates to make the island busier, and throwing away the magic mini-map in favour of a compass. The second island is also unlocked from the start. Smaller changes include randomised ammo from dropped weapons, being able to climb hills that you should realistically be able to, and wingsuit abilities made available earlier to get more out of them.

Terrafirmacraft
Game: Minecraft
Link: Terrafirmacraft



Minecraft has a Survival mode, but it’s not desperately challenging. Terrafirmacraft takes it seriously, with hunger and thirst that must be dealt with at all times, and key elements added such as the need to construct support beams while mining to prevent cave-ins, and a seasonal cycle that determines whether or not trees will produce fruit. Many more features are to be added, but there’s enough here already to make survival about much more than throwing together a Creeper-proof fort.



Synergies Mod
Game: Torchlight II
Link: Synergies Mod



This adds a new act to the game, over a hundred monsters, new rare bosses, a new class – the Necromancer – more and tougher monsters and the gear to take them on. There are also endgame raids to add challenge once the world is saved yet again, and more on the way – including two new classes (Paladin and Warlock). It’s the top-ranked Torchlight II mod on Steam Workshop, and easily the most popular. Be aware that it’s still in development, and has a few rough edges.

Civilization Nights
Game: Civilization V
Link: Steam Workshop



While Brave New World has officially given Civ V a big shake up, for many players Nights remains its most popular add-on. It’s a comprehensive upgrade, adding new buildings, wonders, technologies and units, with a heavy focus on policies and making the AI better. The single biggest change is how it calculates happiness, citizens adding cheer simply by existing, but the slow march of war and other miseries detracting from the good times. Annexed a city? Don’t expect too many ticker-tape parades. Yet keeping happiness up is crucial, as it’s also the core of a strong military. This rebalancing completely changes how you play, while the other additions offer plenty of scope for new tactics and even more carefully designed civilisations.

Ultimate Difficulty Mod
Game: Dishonored
Link: TTLG Forums



This makes Dishonored’s enemies more attentive, faster and able to hear a pin drop from the other side of the map. When you get into a fight, it quickly becomes an all-out street war. The biggest change is to Dishonored’s second most abusable ability: the Lean (Blink of course being #1). Corvo can no longer sit behind scenery, lean out into an enemy’s face and be politely ignored. He’s now much more likely to be spotted – especially in ghost runs, where his advantages are now limited to the Outsider’s gifts rather than the Overseers’ continued lack of a local Specsavers.

Hardcore
Game: Deus Ex
Link: ModDB



New augmentations! Altered AI! Randomised inventories! Also a few time-savers: instead of separate keys and multitools for instance, a special keyring has both, while upgrades are used automatically if necessary. Difficulty also changes the balance considerably, from the standard game to ‘Realistic’ mode where you only get nine inventory slots, to ‘Unrealistic’, which makes JC Denton the cyborg killing machine he’s meant to be, but at the cost of facing opponents who warrant it. In this mode he gets double-jumping powers, and automatically gobbles health items when he gets badly wounded. Good luck though, I still got nowhere.

For those of you who found the Exclusion Zone of STALKER: Call of Pripyat a bit too warm ‘n cuddly, take heart! Misery Mod 2.0 is here to kick you in the teeth, knock you to the ground, and fill your bleeding mouth with irradiated soil. Misery 2.0 features tons of gameplay adjustments and additions, new visuals and sounds, and a more harrowing and challenging experience for you to enjoy in the brief time before your brutal and lonely death. Get in here, Stalker!
Begin your short, miserable life by choosing one of three classes to inhabit before you are killed. You can pick from the Assaulter, the Recon, and the Sniper class, which give close-range, mid-range, and long-range combat options. Each class has its own little perks and drawbacks, and comes with a different set of starter gear.


Don't forget binoculars! They let you see danger 3 seconds before it eats you instead of 1 second before it eats you.
I started as a sniper, figuring the best way to approach the new even-less-forgiving Zone was by peering at it from a safe distance through a scope. This worked great until the Zone was like, "Uh, we see you over there, and now we're going to run over to you in a big scary furry rush of teeth and radioactive blood!"
At least I heard those dog monsters before they killed me. After restarting, I was peering around again when a bloodsucker, one those invisible nightmares, crept up and slashed me to death before I even knew he was there. In vanilla mode, you can hear the labored breathing of the bloodsuckers. Not so in Misery. Snorks are still snorks, but when they attack you during a midnight thunderstorm, and you can only see them when lightning illuminates the countryside, they're somehow worse than snorks. Anyway, they killed me too.


At least he seems as surprised and frantic as I am.
So, combat with mutants generally lasts about as long as it took you to reach the word “generally” earlier in this sentence. Combat against other stalkers, initially, proved just as brutal, mainly because I kept winding up in firefights before I even knew there were other stalkers in my vicinity. This is because Misery removes the HUD radar, and with it, the little beep that would indicate there was another human nearby in the original game.


At night, this is about as good as the view gets.
This makes sense: there’s nothing particularly realistic about a bunch of illegal scavengers and murderers walking around in the Exclusion Zone with tracking devices that lets everyone else know exactly where they are. Still, since the radar is no longer there, I keep forgetting it's no longer there. The absence of beeps still registers in my brain as an all-clear for other stalkers, and so I kept blundering into the path of bandits and other ne'er-do-wells who would fill me with bullets as I strolled obliviously in front of their crosshairs.


Once in a while, it's actually a nice day to die! And then you die.
So. DEATH. A lot of death. A pack of pseudodogs chased me onto a boulder at dusk, and even after getting a night's rest in my sleeping bag, they were still circling in the morning. I ran for it, but they chased me down. Radiation poisoning while collecting an artifact is nothing new, but it acts much quicker than it used to, and despite flooding my veins with anti-rad meds, I expired a few minutes later. While searching for cover before an Emission, I ran smack into a pack of Burers coming out of a building. One raised his arms into the air, waved them like he just didn't care, and I dropped stone dead on the spot.


Just before you die, your vision blurs, so you get to see horrifying things twice.
But let's say, hypothetically, you've survived an encounter, and you're wounded. Let Misery pour some salt on that for you! Bandages will stop your wounds from bleeding, as in the vanilla version, but they do nothing to actually heal you; plus, your weapon will be auto-holstered while you frantically wrap up your boo-boo. Maybe a bite to eat will help? It’ll fill your belly but do nothing for your wounds, and the game makes you stop for a few moments to listen to yourself eat (and it'll even auto-remove your protective helmet while you chow down, leaving you even more vulnerable).
Medkits heal you, but not instantly: your health will slowly creep back up over several long, tense seconds. In other words, no more ducking behind cover, hammering your bandage hotkey, instantaneously ingesting a handful of diet sausages, then sauntering out at full health. Those days are over, like your fragile little existence.


Emissions kill everything: birds, mutants, and any Stalker who thought this crummy old bridge would provide cover.
Obviously, I haven’t been able to check out the full scope of the mod, as I spend most of my time dying or creeping around at a snail’s pace because I’m so scared of dying. From what I've seen, though, if the goal was to make the Exclusion Zone even more daunting, more horrifying, and more unforgiving, well done! And, for STALKER purists (if there are any), there’s still plenty that hasn't changed. You still get to play Inventory Tetris, the map is still junky (but I would expect a decent map of the Zone would logically be hard to come by), and, as always, you can still find comfort squatting in front of a fire with some fellow weary wanderers.


Anyone got a guitar? I can join in: I play a mean bolt.
Unfortunately, I can’t entirely speak to the improved visuals (as my screenshots no doubt attest) because Misery is designed for PCs quite a bit heartier than mine, but even on my aging computer it looks quite nice, runs fairly smoothly, and I didn't experience a single crash with the latest version of the mod. The sound is quite stellar as well. Mutants are scarier sounding, and being out in a heavy storm with the driving rain and booming thunder is absolutely thrilling.


Take only pictures, leave only a submerged corpse after dying of radiation poisoning within sight of a trading outpost.
Installation: There are only a few steps, just make sure you follow the installation and "Starting the Game" instructions on this page, including launching the game with admin privileges. Moddb is hosting the full file, otherwise you might have to merge a couple files from a mirror (which I had trouble with last week). It’s a massive download, 2.6 gigs, and extracting and installing takes a good ten minutes or so.

Major STALKER: Call of Pripryat mod Misery has a new trailer that runs through the additions planned for its v2.0 update. It's nine minutes long, which should give you an idea of just how much has been packed into this revisit. Wait, what's that, YouTube description? "Not all features of MISERY 2.0 are mentioned in this trailer." Yikes. In that case, this giant overhaul promises to be one seriously miserable time. In the best possible way.



To précis the giant feature list: Misery 2.0 further overhauls Call of Pripyat with newly enhanced audio and visuals - covering every detail from textures to scope design, and ambient sounds to real-world radio music. More dramatically, it aims to repurpose every location with some form of life - including faction zones, boss lairs and 'light' and 'hardcore' hunting grounds.

Then there are improvements to items, weapons, loot, props, NPCs, armour, UI... As they say, Misery loves company. You can see the full list of changes at the mod's ModDB page. And remember that these are all additions to the even bigger changelist from the original 1.0 release.

For those who didn't make it to the video's end: Misery is due for release on July 31st.