Gaming mods are like fan-fiction: painstakingly crafted alternate stories, features and transformations born out of sheer love for the source material. In some cases they breed entirely new games in themselves, such is their sheer amazingness. Here are the best ones we’ve seen…
1. Skyrim – Randy Savage
This newly launched Skyrim mod takes some of the po-facedness out of the Elder Scrolls epic by turning dragons into flying reincarnations of infamous wrestler Randy ‘Macho Man’ Savage.
We’re not sure what substances you’ve got to be ingesting to make you want to give over hours of your life to this noble cause, but it doesn’t matter: the result is full of win.
2. GTA IV – iCEnhance
The iCEhancer mod is coding magic. It takes the already very pretty GTA IV and smothers it in a layer of graphical realism that would make Rockstar blush. Just watch this video; it looks better than GTA 5.
Not only are real-life cars plonked in instead of their inspired impersonators, but every last texture in the game is buffed to a mirror sheen. Why can’t the actual game be this pretty out of the box? Probably because you’d need a PC with about 19 cores to run it.
3. GTA: San Andreas – Jurassic Park
We’re sure you’re au fait with the infamous Hot Coffee mod for San Andreas? Its sex game antics were splashed all over the papers at the time of release, but that’s not the only mod of note for the PS2’s finest hour.
The Jurassic Park mod does what you’d expect – dumps old CJ in the titular resort, leaving you free to drive around and make nice with the wildlife. “They’re moving in herds. They do move in herds!”
4. The Simpsons – Quake 3
Like Quake 3, this is years old, but it deserves note because of its high levels of incredibleness. The Simpsons mod is a deathmatch map set in the yellow ones’ house as well as some of the local landmarks around it.
That’s cool, but what’s really impressive is the sheer level of detail and accuracy. You won’t find a single misplaced pixel in that house – it’s all scarily to scale and with everything in its right place.
5. Half-Life – Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike is the success story of the mod world. It’s what modern day modders can only dream of achieving. It was made as a labour of love, hewn from the engine and innards of the original Half-Life by a couple of fans.
It was bought by Half-Life creators Valve and went on to be one of the most successful online multiplayer games ever, and is still the star of LAN tournaments to this day.
6. Half-Life 2 – Goldeneye: Source
In beta since 2005 until version 4.1 hit in 2010, Source uses the eponymous engine from Valve – the one used to make Half-Life 2 – to create a multiplayer-only remake of endearing classic Goldeneye.
The N64’s multiplayer maps have been accurately reproduced, but it hasn’t stopped there – new levels designed by the team are just as impressive as Rare’s original creations.
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