Every year thousands of PC gamers around the world sacrifice some of their play time in order to make the games they play even better that the original developers, and every year the community at modding hot spot ModDB choose the very best. Who made the grade this year?

This is the joy of PC gaming right here. Long after console gamers have shelved their old favorites for the next big thing, PC game modders are doing things like adding online multiplayer to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, creating new levels for Company of Heroes, or crafting an entirely new game from the code of another.

MOTY Players Choice - Mod of the Year - Mod DB

Hit up ModDB for the full list of this year's deserving nominees, and then dig out those scratched and dusty discs and have some fun.

Mod of the Year Players' Choice Awards [ModDB]

Oh please God let this be true.

The rumours section of the latest issue of PC Gamer magazine says that, in addition to its work on yet another Dawn of War game, THQ's Relic is also gearing up for something to do with Company of Heroes.

They don't explicitly say what that is, but the chances of it being an expansion to a 2006 game are, well, remote. So after I get down hoping this is true, I'm going to hope it's a sequel, and not some action game spin-off.

We've contacted THQ for comment and will update if we hear back.

PC Gamer January 2012 [PC Gamer]

Kim Jong-il, who has ruled the Communist state of North Korea since 1994, has passed away. Which means 2011 shooter Homefront was only two weeks off making one of the most timely (if accidental) fictional statements in video game history.

In Homefront, a game which takes the death of Kim as the catalyst for a series of North Korean actions which culminate in a Communist conquest of Northern Asia and subsequent occupation of much of the United States, his demise is listed as having taken place in 2012.

With North Korean authorities reporting that he died two days ago, on December 17, 2011, that's pretty damn close. Two more weeks and they'd have been right on the money.

Developed by Kaos Studios, Homefront's overall story was actually penned by John Milius, who not only co-wrote Apocalypse Now but, more poignantly, both wrote and directed Red Dawn, another tale of Communists invading the United States.

In the real world, it's expected that rule will pass to his third son, Kim Jong-un, otherwise known as "The Brilliant Comrade", who the BBC speculates is in his late-20s.

In Homefront (the above image is a screenshot from the game), Kim Jong-il is succeeded by...his third son Kim Jong-un, who quickly moves to unify North and South Korea before annexing Japan and South-East Asia. Then invading Hawaii. And then the continental United States.

According to Wikileaks reports made public last year, Kim Jong-il's second son, Kim Jong-chol, "is 'more interested in video games' than governing".

Kim's death was announced on North Korean State television earlier today, with the cause of his passing said to be due to "physical and mental over-work". It's reported he died while onboard a train outside the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.

Kim Jong-il suffered a series of health setbacks in 2008, including what was believed to be a stroke, while in 2009 it's suspected he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Homefront had to be edited for its Japanese release on the grounds that it portrayed Kim as having passed away, which at the time was not the case. Whether THQ bother re-editing the game now that it is true is unclear, given the game was released a while ago and wasn't exactly Japan's biggest-selling game of the year.

Few tears will be shed outside the Communist state over his passing. So let's take this opportunity to take one last look at the wonderful "Kim Looking at Things" site instead.

Back in March, PR firm TrashTalkFCM thought it'd be a good idea to promote upcoming shooter Homefront by releasing a ton of balloons. It wasn't.

Not only did the game stink, but when most of the balloons ended up in San Francisco Bay, it attracted the attention of Bay Area water control officials, who have decided to fine the company $7,000 for the stunt.

While publisher THQ initially defended the move, saying they were "soy-based, biodegradable balloons", San Fran officials said their landing on the water presented "a hazard to birds and aquatic life".

They did not comment on the hazards Homefront posed to people who paid money for it.

Red Balloon Marketing Ploy Gone Awry Ends In $7000 Fine [SF Appeal, via VG247]

I wasn't the biggest fan of the first Darksiders game, but even I'll admit, that's a pretty snappy tagline for its sequel.

This trailer was released over the weekend. It's short on gameplay, but long on soft focus and dripping blood.

Darksiders 2 is out on PC, PS3 and 360 sometime in 2012.

James Chadderton's take on Manchester in ruins hints at the apocalypse without bothering to identify its nature.

His artwork, amalgams of computer graphics, painting and photo, show the effect, but not the cause. It's a deliberate ploy to pull viewers into the scenes of devastation and then allow their imaginations to fill in the back-story.

You can check out Chaderton's work over on his Facebook artist page, or if you live in Manchester, at Incognito Gallery in the city's Northern Quarter. Incognito Gallery is at 5 Stevenson Square, Northern Quarter, City. M1 1DN. 0161 228 7999. The gallery has prints of the art ranging from £350 frames works all the way down to £2 postcards. The gallery is open Monday-Saturday 10am-5.30pm, Sunday noon-4pm.

If you go tell em Kotaku sent you, just to confuse everyone.

Special thanks to intern Chris for hunting down all of these before shots. And to the following photographers for their pictures: Exchange Center Ferris Wheel, Manchester Town Hall, Urbis, Palace Theatre, and The Print Works.

Manchester Apocalypse: Death Of Our City [Manchester Confidential]

A cottonopolis post-apocalypse: Artist displays images of Manchester skyline in a nightmarish future [The Manchester Evening News]

In pictures: Manchester after an apocalypse [BBC]

Music: Apocalyptic Zombie Credits by Cameron Mizell

Would you shoot someone responsible for America's horrible housing market? Would you like to? What if you met his wife and kid first?

How did we get here, and where are we going? What happens when the 99% rise up, and more to the point, how happy will you be to play a video game that casts you as one of them? Or what if you're playing as a police officer, an enforcer of the status quo?

The recent economic recession—and its fallout—looms over most everything these days, and video games are starting to reflect that. From Grand Theft Auto V to the newest Rainbow 6, it's looking as though amid the zombies, aliens, cops and foreign soldiers we'll be fighting, it's the economy that will be the next big video game bad guy.

Given the time it takes to make a modern video game (generally a year at the fastest, and often two or three), it makes sense that big-budget AAA games would be a little bit behind the curve when it comes to tackling relevant social topics. It wasn't until several years after 9/11 that we started seeing games referencing the "war on terror," placing Homeland Security and FEMA center stage, and sometimes openly referencing the attacks on the World Trade Center. (I should note that in this post, I'm discussing AAA games, not faster-to-make newsgames, though I don't doubt there are plenty of those that deal with the economy already.)

Big-budget game makers are often skittish about approaching topical material. Hot-button issues don't guarantee sales, and often they're more trouble than they're worth. Take, for example, the saga of Atomic Games' Six Days in Fallujah, a documentary-style war game that attempted to show aspects of the grisly human costs of the war in Iraq only to be dropped by its publisher and never see the light of day. Or, look at the foofaraw that erupted just last year over Medal of Honor naming one of its multiplayer teams "The Taliban," only to back off at the last minute and rename them "Opposing Force." Whether it's due to games' spotty history with controversial material, their interactive nature, or their presumed audience, topical AAA games can be a tough sell.

In the first trailer for Rockstar's just-announced Grand Theft Auto V, (among all the other things we noticed), we saw several signs of economic woes and general down-and-outness. An encampment of homeless people under an overpass, a guy begging for beer money on the street.

The most recent Grand Theft Auto, 2008's GTA IV, was an at-times scathingly topical game. Between the right-wing blabbermouths on "Weasel News," the constant looming threat of terrorism, and the internet-addled populace of Liberty City, I'd even go so far as to call it the most effective video game rendition of "America ca. 2007" anyone will ever make.

It wouldn't surprise me at all to see Rockstar capture the new American zeitgeist, four years later. And while it's likely that while the nation's economic woes will provide a backdrop for GTA V, it wouldn't surprise me to see it play a more integral role in the storytelling, as well. I can easily imagine the economy factoring into the protagonist's return to a life of crime, or a storyline revolving around helping out a homeless former banker, or a story about taking down a corrupt financial institution, or even a few missions poking fun at the Occupy movement.

In Take-Two's earnings call today, a spokesman described GTA V as a story of the "pursuit of the almighty dollar." For any other game, that would just sound like vague marketing language, but Rockstar tends to choose their words more carefully that most. GTA IV was described time and again as a story of the "pursuit of the American dream," and the finished game very emphatically focused on that theme. Hearing GTA V described as a story focused on the pursuit of money makes me think that the American economy will be front and center.

Kaos studio's Homefront dealt with the economy in its own twisted, interesting way. In the game's fiction (written by Apocalypse now co-author John Milius), America has lost its world standing due to economic imbalance and a shortage of oil, and as a result has become susceptible to foreign invasion. The main character is cast as an insurgent, the very same sort of "freedom fighter" that other war games label as terrorists. The game was a bit of a flop, but it's heartening to hear that acclaimed developer Crytek has assumed the reins of the franchise. Kaos was playing with some very compelling stuff: What makes an insurgent? What drives us to acts of terrorism? What does it mean to truly have nothing to lose? One can't help but hope that Crytek will explore those questions further.

Terrorists make for effective cannon fodder in games, but as villains, they can be difficult to write. One of the easiest ways to give a character or group of characters depth is by adding backstory—you know, "why did the chicken cross the road?" But with terrorists, it's a bit more difficult to write motivation. For various reasons, religious beliefs are generally off the table with big-budget games, so most video game terrorist groups are motivated by some sort of vague anger at America and the West for imperialistic tendencies. And most if not all modern-day military shooters are perfectly content to avoid these sorts of questions entirely, often by putting some sort of Bond-ian villain behind it all. How many games have crudely taped a megalomaniacal mastermind and an army of "Russian Ultranationalists" onto their story in an attempt to give Western gamers a more palatable enemy to kill?

Ubisoft's just-announced Rainbow 6: Patriots also features terrorists, but with a recession-flavored twist: they're fueled by rage at the nation's economic elite and have risen up and begun destroying national landmarks. At the start of a new video of prototype gameplay, a man and his family are taken hostage by terrorists who tell him, "You really did cash in on everyone else getting foreclosed, didn't you? Today you're going to make up for that."

In the game itself, players will be controlling law enforcers facing an armed uprising. It echoes real life in ways that may be uncomfortable to acknowledge—what will we do when pitted against an enemy with whose cause we may sympathize? As I imagine a law-enforcement or SWAT video game based on the recent Occupy Oakland protests, I have to wonder: would players be cast as beleaguered public servants trying to do their best or the jackbooted thugs who violently put down dissent?

Economic anger feels intense and relatable, and it can make games more believable, complex, and scary. It remains to be seen whether economic issues will merely be the latest window dressing for video game carnage, or whether some developers and writers will choose to go deeper.

I find myself expecting a lot of the former, but hoping for at least a little bit of the latter. The recession is here, and whether our on-screen characters are fighting around it, against it, or because of it, it's not going away anytime soon.

Remember that Darksiders statue that was first unveiled all the way back in July 2010? It's finally finished and ready to ship. In Q4 2011.

For fans of the game (rich fans, at least), it looks to be worth the wait, both War and his trusty steed Ruin looking great, especially with all those badass fire effects going on.

It's $500, though, so you've got to love Darksiders a lot to pick one up.

UPDATE - Seems that while Sideshow will be selling it for a princely sum, other retailers already have the piece available and for a lot less cash. Pays to shop around!

Thought I'd try something a little different with today's Fine Art. Instead of showing the art of a video game, I thought I'd show off some of the art of video game artists.

Which aren't always the same thing!

On the night of Friday, Sept. 23, Vigil Games—developers of the Darksiders series—will be hosting a party/concert/art exhibition at The Art Department in Austin, Texas. Despite carrying the label of the development studio, it's got nothing to do with video games; instead, it's a chance for the art team at Vigil (including comics star Joe Madureira) to show what they do outside of drawing big monsters and big swords.

In addition to the booze and music (Austin funk band Hard Proof will be playing), all the items on show will be on sale.

Entry is free, so if you're in the area, it sounds like an awesome way to spend a Friday night!

Vigil Nights [Vigil]

To see the larger pics in all their glory, either click the "expand" icon on the gallery screen or right click and "open link in new tab".

Is the new Homefront necessary? Pardon that imprudent question, but when a man is drowning in a sea of first-person shooters, may he question the next bucket?

This morning we got the non-surprise news that THQ will bring us a Homefront 2 coupled with the surprise news that the game will be made by Crytek, people who have made first-person shooters that people love.

There is a chance that this could turn out really well, if a few key things happen. And there's also one big problem that could render the project a big waste of time.

A year ago, the whole Homefront effort felt impressively bold. THQ was trying, as most game companies do, to have their own Call of Duty. But they were simultaneously doing something that felt fresh and edgy. That's how it seemed when Homefront was all tease and promise. It would be a shooter set in an America over-run by the invading force of a unified Korea. Players would fight through internment camps of Americans, liberate the parking lots of hardware stores and save at least part of the nation from invaders.

The game hobbled to its release, disappointing people who played it with its short and constricted storyline campaign. Its competitive multiplayer that, like most competitive multiplayer modes in most modern first-person-shooters could barely draw a small crowd. Too many potential Homefront customers were busy playing their 1000th match of Call of Duty, which is the self-defeating reason competing shooters like Homefront both exist and fail to catch on.

Today, THQ says Homefront was "commercially successful," and, hence we're getting a sequel. THe game wasn't successful enough to keep the studio that made it, Kaos, from being shut down in expensive New York City. The sequel was initially out-sourced to the tax-subsidized game-making mecca of Montreal, but now the future of Homefront will be taken even further from the country it portrays, to Crytek, a company that makes most of its games in Europe.

How does this path lead to an FPS sequel that we've got to play?

Crytek can fix a big Homefront problem. The best games that Crytek is known for, Far Cry and Crysis were beloved for their beautiful graphics and for their un-funnelled action. These games knocked the walls out of the standard corridors of the first-person shooter and broke down the invisible barriers that constrained much of the action in Call of Duty and other modern gun games. In Crytek's best games, players could more freely go where they wanted to, experimenting with tactics by approaching a combat zone from various angles, testing an array of weapons and exploring what worked best in a specific skirmish.

The point of Crytek's open approach to first-person shooter level design is to give players the freedom of a guerilla fighter, to let them get out of the marching lane of most FPSes and into the jungle sidelines of an insurgent combatant. The Homefront fiction calls for players to fight as a guerilla force, to sabotage and antagonize an occupier. That should suit the makers of Far Cry and Crysis perfectly.

If one of the problems with Homefront is that it felt to narrow and too linear, THQ couldn't do better than Crytek to open things up. Of course, graphics probably sell more than open-FPS-gameplay does and it is Crytek's formidable graphics tech that likely helped THQ sign Crytek for the sequel. But look at what Homefront is—or at least what I think it is: it's a game about America. America, as people who've traveled through it know, is big. It's defined by its expansiveness, its cities' broad streets, its vast plains, great lakes, its super-sized landscape. It doesn't seem right that a game about America would feel as constricted as the first Homefront did. If Crytek opens things up as only Crytek can, that would feel right.

This expansive-America approach could be a misreading of THQ's plans, mind you. Compare the American focus of THQ's description of Homefront back in March, when the game was brand-new…

2027. A once proud America has fallen, her infrastructure shattered and military in disarray. Crippled by a devastating EMP strike, the USA is powerless to resist the ever expanding occupation of a savage, nuclear armed Greater Korean Republic.
Abandoned by her former allies, the United States is a bleak landscape of walled towns and abandoned suburbs.  This is a police state where high school stadiums have become detention centers, and shopping malls shelter armored attack vehicles. A once-free people are now prisoners… or collaborators… or revolutionaries.

…to the more global description of the Homefront franchise in today's Crytek press release….

The year is 2027. The world as we know it is unraveling after fifteen years of economic meltdown and widespread global conflict over dwindling natural resources.
 
A once proud America has fallen, her infrastructure shattered and military in disarray. Crippled by a devastating EMP strike the USA is powerless to resist the ever expanding occupation of a savage, nuclear armed Greater Korean Republic.
 
Abandoned by her former allies, the United States is a bleak landscape of walled towns and abandoned suburbs.  This is a police state where high school stadiums have become detention centers, and shopping malls shelter armored attack vehicles. A once-free people are now prisoners … or collaborators … or revolutionaries.
 
Meanwhile, the splintered nations of Europe struggle to maintain peace at home, as the global economy continues its downward spiral, and civil order disintegrates. The world is teetering on the brink of ruin …

Are we simply in store for another multi-theater globe-trotting first-person shooter in Homefront 2? Been (Modern Warfare) there repeatedly, already about to (Battlefield 3) do that again.

Crytek could use a dose of Homefront. When many of us last had a chance to play a new Crytek game, we were playing Crysis 2, a game that, like Homefront was supposed to grab the FPS player during the Call of Duty off-season. It was a game that, like Homefront was set in an invaded America. Crysis 2's invaders were aliens who resisted the player in a partially-toppled New York. That scenario signaled Crytek's desire to tap gamers' zeal to defend an iconic American metropolis. It didn't, however, distinguish its enemies or its take on America in the process. These alien invasions and detonations of America blur into one.

We're at the precipice of subjectivity here, but a resistance against Korean occupiers in the American west feels fresher and more distinct than the repelling of another alien invasion of New York. Homefront's fiction therefore doesn't just suit the style of game Crytek excels in, but also could help make Crytek's new game feel more relevant and more special.

None of this matters without genius multiplayer. Modern first-person shooters don't sell millions because of their storyline campaigns. They don't stay in people's game consoles eight months after they were bought because people want to relive the narrative again.

Multiplayer is the draw. Multiplayer is the past-time. Multiplayer is what no Call of Duty competitor has been able to make much of a dent in. Battlefield 3 will try next month, but already this year, Homefront failed, Crysis 2 failed, F.E.A.R. 3 failed, Killzone 3 failed, Duke Nukem Forever failed and so on.

CoD is still king. Halo still hangs around, too. This is where the "why bother" question seems Quixotic to answer. To get Homefront 2 to be a hit, Crytek needs to figure out how to do multiplayer that matters and, well, uh….that's like asking someone to make a subscription MMO that can knock off World of Warcraft. Surely someone is going to do it some day?

The people who brought us Crysis could give us a terrific Homefront 2, one that could have an excellent and interesting big-sky-America adventure. There's just that multiplayer question…. Good luck, Crytek! Maybe make it free-to-play?