[author]Snowcone[/author][i]Editor’s Note[/i]: Mods are perhaps the one thing that will always give PC gaming an advantage over console gaming. User created mods breath new life into a game and allow the game to be taken in directions that the original developers never intended or thought about. Many mods are started and die lonely deaths as half-finished works of art, while others flirt with copyright issues and very often get shut down long before release. Some mods, on the other hand, are wildly successful. The blockbuster game [i]Counter Strike[/i] began as a mod. One thing is for certain and that is mods are here to stay. With the release of [i]Half-Life 2[/i] and the new Source engine, I was interested to see what the modding community would be able to accomplish. One of our newest writers set out to explore the extensive world of [i]HL2[/i] mods, and this is what he found.

[url=http://www.hl2mods.co.uk]HL2Mods.co.uk[/url] lists 153 multiplayer mods and 33 single-player mods as being currently in development, but only 15 of them are playable in any form. Are any of them worth your precious bandwidth, I hear you cry? In order to answer this question, I have downloaded, played, and rated all of the multiplayer mods that are currently available. Bear in mind, however, that many of them are still in alpha stages and may improve over time.

[b][u][size=18]Multiplayer Mods[/size][/u][/b]

[b][url=http://www.planethalflife.com/aoa/index.html]Art of Ascension[/url][/b]
According to its Web site, Art of Ascension is a mod that “combines the spirit of online role-playing games with the faster battling pace of classical first-person shooters.” This mod is really too early in its development to judge its worth. At the moment, it features no new maps or weapons, and the system for controlling your character’s advancement is command line-based. It is really impossible to tell at this stage whether or not this will ever develop into something worth playing.
[b][i]Verdict: Not worth it (yet).[/i][/b]

[b][url=http://www.dodgeball.xsystemmods.com]Dodgeball[/url][/b]
Dodgeball is (predictably) a mod that allows you to play everyone’s favorite playground humiliation game over the Internet on the Source engine. The maps are simple but well done, and the gameplay is fun and easy to get into. Needless to say, there isn’t much strategy involved, but once you get more than six people in a game, it becomes very entertaining trying to dodge the barrage of balls thrown at you and watching your opponents fly backwards when they are hit.
[b][i]Verdict: Worth a try, but won’t occupy you for long.[/i][/b]

[b][url=http://www.cityseventeen.com/fl3x/]FL3X DM[/url][/b]
FL3X DM is not a massively innovative or exciting mod. It is virtually identical to the [i]Half-Life 2[/i] death match but with the addition of turrets which players can place and get kill credits. This small change is perfectly well implemented, but it really doesn’t alter the fundamental gameplay enough for it to be worthwhile.
[b][i]Verdict: Don’t bother.[/i][/b]

[b][url=http://www.hl2ctf.com]Half-Life 2 CTF[/url][/b]
[i]Half-Life 2[/i] CTF does exactly what it says on the tin: it is a mod that allows you to play capture the flag in [i]Half-Life 2[/i]. Veterans of the Quake or Unreal Tournament series will be familiar with this type and just how fun it can be, and this iteration is no exception. The maps are well designed and easy to learn, which is critical in this type. This mod’s only letdown is the fact that there aren’t really enough people playing it, so it’s hard to get a good match going. Despite this, the [i]Half-Life 2[/i] CTF mod really is a must-have, especially for anyone who has never experienced this thrilling game type.
[b][i]Verdict: Get it. Now.[/i][/b]

[b][url=http://www.planofattackgame.com]Plan of Attack[/url][/b]
Plan of Attack is a mod in which a team of American do-gooders takes on a team of terrorists, and in which individual players earn money to buy better weapons every time they make a kill. Sounds familiar? Plan of Attack isn’t a [i]total[/i] Counterstrike clone, but it’s so close that it really isn’t worth the bother. In theory, Plan of Attack is ldblquotecf2 a multiplayer first-person shooter that highlights strategy[i], [/i]teamwork[i],[/i] and out-thinking your enemy,” but in reality, most rounds quickly descend into a team death match, and the concept of capturing or defending objectives (which the game is supposedly built around) is ignored. This mod does have solid new maps, character models, and weapons, but none of them is unique enough to make a difference.
[b][i]Verdict: If you have CS:S, don’t bother. If you don’t have CS:S, get CS:S instead of this.[/i][/b]

[b][url=http://www.sourcefortsmod.com]Sourceforts[/url][/b]
Sourceforts is a mod of two halves. In the first half, each team is unable to attack each other and must use the gravity gun and a pile of barriers to create a fort. In the second half, the two teams attempt to use their forts to give them an advantage in a game of team death match. This mod shows a lot of promise and has an interesting core concept, but it is really too buggy at the moment to be any fun. The tools to build your fort are very hard to use, and the shield that is supposed to prevent combat in the building phase doesn’t work properly, making it very likely that just as you are about to finish positioning a particularly tricky barrier, you will get a crowbar to the back of the head.
[b][i]Verdict: Wait and see.[/i][/b]

[b][url=http://halflife2.filefront.com/file/HalfLife_2_Source_Racer_Mod;36076]Source Racer[/url][/b]
Source Racer is a mod with a simple premise: it allows you to race your friends around a variety of tracks using [i]Half-Life 2[/i]’s airboat vehicle. The airboat handles just as it does in the game, and the tracks are all well designed and good fun to race around. The only problem with this mod is that no one plays it. I tried on several occasions including peak weekend times and never found any Internet games.
[b][i]Verdict: Get it, but only if you have a lot of other HL2 users on your LAN.[/i][/b]

[b][url=http://strider.hl2spain.com]Strider Mod[/url][/b]
Strider Mod is a mod that spices up the ordinary death match by letting players drive the strider and combine tank vehicles from [i]HL2[/i]’s single-player game. There are several reasonably well-designed maps in this mod, and each of them features one tank and one strider. The strider is surprisingly well implemented: the animation is smooth, and it doesn’t clip through objects very much at all, and controlling it is straightforward once you get the hang of it. As for how it plays, I really can’t say. As with Source Racer, I never found a single game to join.
[b][i]Verdict: See above.[/i][/b]

[b][url=http://www.hidden-source.com]The Hidden: Source[/url][/b]
The Hidden is a new take on the old idea of having all but one of the players in a game going after a single player who has special abilities. In this case, the lone player is almost completely invisible but can only attack with knives and grenades. The Hidden features solid maps and character models, and it is played by enough people. So finding a game with enough players will be easy. My only beef with The Hidden is that the lone player is really too hard to see. Most rounds consist of wandering around the map in small groups for several minutes until you hear the sound of a swishing knife, and then spinning around while emptying your SMG until you see blood splattering from midair.
[b][i]Verdict: Definitely worth a go.[/i][/b]

[b][url=http://www.rawmeat.be/timcoop/index.php]Tim Coop[/url][/b]
Tim Coop pits a team of players against waves of super-tough [i]Half-Life 2[/i] monsters; and, if you find a good server that is running a good map and has four or five good people on it, it is easily the most fun of all the multiplayer mods. There is nothing quite like crouching at the end of a hallway with three of your friends and blazing away with all you have against the oncoming hordes of head crabs that simply [i]refuse to die.[/i] Unfortunately, finding the aforementioned good server, map, and people can be frustratingly difficult, but it is well worth persevering until you do.
[b][i]Verdict: Best thing since sliced bread (some of the time).[/i][/b]

Maybe comparing snipers to Terrell Owens is a bit farfetched, but calling them selfish is not. I knew that when [i]Battlefield 2[/i] introduced stat tracking, you would see gamesmanship go out the window like litter on the freeway. I knew that you would have point farmers (which I have seen) and people looking out for number one. People looking out for number one is not entirely new, but now that you get awards for it makes everything just a whole lot worse. This article however is about the sniper. Allow me to explain.

The sniper is not just the person who picks the sniper class and hides about. The sniper is a “look-out-for-me-only” type of cat. You know, the one that will join your squad and then just perch the whole game. The sniper has been around since online FPS has been out, and you just learn to deal with him on the field of play. Even I have come to just accept the fact that people love racking up kills (one-shot kills, mind you) and perching somewhere. They do not feel the need to help capture flags or put a rush on the opposition. They care about one thing: kills. I do understand the mentalityA

Alright, you can start yelling at me now. You can yell anything you want. Get it out of your system now. Done? Good. Now proceed with the article.

New game journalism is “all the rage” these days. It is being passed off as this new and revolutionary style of writing. For all of you out there who are asking yourselves “Just what is this new game journalism?” I will tell you. It is the style of writing in which the author reviews or talks about a game from his or her point of view. In other words, tells his experience in game play. This is where I come across my first problem with this revolutionary style of writing, the “new” part. I can sum it up in one word; storytelling. Yeah, you know that thing that people have been doing since the beginning of mankind. There is nothing revolutionary about talking about something you have experienced from your point of view. That actually, believe it or not, has a name for it that they teach you in school. It is called First Person Point of View. And if I were so inclined to talk about my buddy playing a video game and my watching him that one is called Third Person Point of View. So, nothing revolutionary to see here folks.

Oh, I can hear it now. “Dots, you don’t understand. It isn’t necessarily that this is a new writing style, but it is new to the world of [i]journalism[/i].” I say, “Really?” You mean to tell me if I pull an archive of any newspaper in any town I won’t find any article told by someone about their experience that reads like a story? Wrong again. I bet I will. (Aren’t you glad I made you yell at the beginning of this article?) Let us take one type of reviewing in particular for our case example on this one – restaurant reviews. A good critique will read like a story; about how the wait staff treated you to the way the steaming pile of hot pasta hit your tongue and made your taste buds tingle. Yeah, that might read like a story.

In actuality, there is nothing really all that new and fascinating about new game journalism. “Dots, you forgot one key part to this – the [i]game[/i] aspect of it.” Ah, I am getting there. Here is where I just want to jump up and down and scream, but I won’t. I don’t think that there is anything great and wonderful about this particular style of game reviewing. It starts off with the fact that if I wanted to know what it was like to see you play a videogame I would come to your house. Trust me, no one cares. I don’t even want to hear what it is like for Brad Pitt to play video games. I want to know what it was like to play, like how the music set the mood or the graphics were phenomenal, but I don’t want to hear about how “totally freaking awesome I am at [i]Halo 2[/i] when I busted through that door grenades flying and took out everyone of those SOB’s.” I think that there is a nice way to incorporate your personal experiences into the actual discussing of the content of a game. Most of the articles/reviews that I have come across read like bragging rights. [i]I killed this many people in this many seconds. Or I killed all of those losers with one carefully place grenade and there was nothing they could do about it. I rule. I am the best. I should be given an award for being the best thing to happen to the world of live gaming.[/i] Yikes. I DON’T CARE. And how do I know if you are telling the truth? Have you noticed that everyone seems to be exceptionally good at playing video games when they do their review in the new game journalism form? No one admits that they suck. Here is an excerpt of my review on [i]Star Wars: Battlefront[/i].

[quote]I was running, running as fast as I could get my Wookie ass to run. I was running because there was an AT AT on my tail. I ducked behind a tree and got blown up. I respawn. I ran around shooting at a Storm Trooper. No, that wasn’t a storm trooper, that was a tree. I really wish that they wouldn’t make trees look so much like people. I just got shot to death. I respawn. Crap, dead again.[/quote]

I mean, come on, how cool of a gamer do I look now? That wasn’t even the whole truth. Let me tell you how the thing should read.

[quote]I was running, running as fast as I could get my Wookie ass to run. I paused and changed the baby’s diaper. I sit down and unpause. I was running because there was an AT AT on my tail. I pause and pull the leaf that the dog drug in out of the baby’s mouth. Unpause. I pause. Where does this kid find all these leaves??? Unpause. I ducked behind a tree and got blown up. I only blew up because the baby pulled my controller out of the Xbox. I respawn. I ran around shooting at a Storm Trooper. No, that wasn’t a Storm Trooper, that was a tree. Man, when is Cone going to get home from work? I really wish that they wouldn’t make trees look so much like people. I just got shot to death. I respawn. Crap, dead again because when I threw my control it bounced up and hit the baby. Oops.[/quote]

Yeah, exciting huh? If you read anyone else’s take on [i]Battlefront[/i] all you hear is how dominate they are and how they never die. I have a way better idea. Why don’t you all pull out your penises and I’ll measure them and see who really wins? No? I’m not surprised. Then we would know the truth.

I don’t think that you can call new game journalism anything but a fad. I will be surprised if its popularity lasts more than a month of two. Why? Simply for the fact that people who visit gaming sites want to hear whether or not they should buy a game and what makes a particular game stand out from another one. If you want to brag about how good you are, do it in a forum. Of course, I could always be wrong. I thought for sure that VHS was the way to go and that DVDs were on their way out as soon as their shadow filled the doorway and that legwarmers were here to stay.

Oftentimes when the idea that violence is somehow related to video games comes up in the media, our initial reaction is a defensive one. We get irritated that someone would blame an inanimate object (albeit an interactive one) for a crime perpetrated by a whack job. I admit that I am up there on the frontlines hurling insults at people who love to pass the buck. What I want to do is approach the idea that video games somehow contribute to the problem as an outsider, as someone who didn’t grow up in this industry. I know it will be a tad difficult, and I expect it to be a little controversial-but hey, that is what we are here for, right?

To start off, I want to note that there has never been a successful study that has directly linked violent behavior to violence in video games. A recent [i]Boston Globe[/i] [url=http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2005/02/20/what_are_video_games_turning_us_into?pg=full]article[/url] about the effects of gaming noted:

[quote]Murray, a visiting scholar at the Center on Media and Child Health at Children’s Hospital in Boston, uses MRI technology to map the brains of children as they experience violent media images. He found that though children consciously know they’re being entertained, their brains store those violent images in the area reserved for significant events, the same place where events that can trigger post-traumatic stress disorders are stored.[/quote]

In a nutshell, running over a hooker in the newest [i]GTA[/i] game has a similar effect on our brain that actually running over a hooker might. Obviously, this is my speculation, and I am totally not a doctor, but that does raise some interesting questions. Does video game violence desensitize kids to violence? I will wholeheartedly concede that point because I honestly think it does. You can’t argue that seeing lifelike interactive death on a regular basis doesn’t make the shock value wear off. Likewise, you could say that learning positive principles through gaming would have an effect that was that much greater compared to a different form of learning.

My overall take on kids that bust out guns and then point the finger at video games is this: Certain people are going to have a predisposition to violence. People have predispositions to alcohol addition, gambling, etc., so it would be a safe assumption to say that violence would fit into that same mold. Just about anything can be applied to that line of thinking. Saying I have a predisposition to being a programmer would be a true statement, while Pickle or Pretzel would definitely not share that same trait. With that being said, exposing someone who is already prone to violent behavior to something that, as far as the brain is concerned, is a traumatic violent event just might be the catalyst that they need to invoke a psychotic fit. Does this excuse the behavior? Hell no. Does this mean the video game industry in any way is responsible for what this person did? I think not. All that it means is that the parents of this child or person, in general, need to take a proactive role in preventing their own exposure to this kind of experience. Obviously, that is an ideal situation because you will never know who is predisposed to violence and who isn’t.

Where does that leave us? As a new parent, I can safely say that the burden is on the parents and guardians. If you are an adult and you kill someone, you will stand trial and probably go to jail. Americans have set a nasty precedence that they can blame big businesses for their actions, and that is a problem with the American legal system and so we just have to deal with it. When I see parents, however, that don’t bother to regulate the games their kids play, the movies they watch, or the activities they engage in, I wonder why the parents wouldn’t blame the media forms? After all, parents like that are hiring a babysitter in digital form, right?

I firmly believe that there will probably never be a direct link between video games and behavior, but to think it doesn’t at least mildly influence someone is asinine. The ESRB has recently introduced a new E10+ rating in an effort to help parents know which games are appropriate for their kids. The retailers are also going out of their way to check IDs for games carrying the M rating, but all too often parents are willing to buy whatever game it is without even looking at it. Then they wonder why their nine-year-old son thinks it is funny that someone got run over by a car on the news. Mix in paying a little attention to your kids, guys. You had them, now it’s time to raise them.

In closing, I can’t even begin to know what I would do if I were to get a phone call that my son committed a heinous crime like we have seen in recent years. My first reaction might even be to blame anyone and everyone else. The bottom line is that as parents it is our job to regulate what our children are exposed to, and if I see another seven-year-old playing [i]GTA[/i] , then I just might bust a vein. My son is currently just shy of one year old, and the future holds a rocky path for us, but you can bet that as a parent and an avid gamer, I will only allow him to play the games of which I approve. For all you parents out there that have taken that step to get educated on the rating system and following what your kids play, I applaud you. Keep up the good work.