Korin Hasegawa-John
- 2002.07.16
Here are my picks for favorite mods and what games they work on.
Enjoy!
File sizes and system requirements are included as well, since
mods can be hefty.
Absolute Favorite That I Play All The Time
That would be Infiltration. It
remakes Unreal or Unreal Tournament into a highly realistic modern
war simulator. The new release, 2.87 (out soon, hopefully) includes
lots more weapons (all modeled on real-life weapons) and new maps
and gameplay styles.
The installer weighs in at around 75 MB, and you need a boatload
of RAM - I recommend 192 MB minimum, as well as a good graphics
card. Not low-end, but worth it.
Pros
- New motion physics. This allows you to lean around corners and
takes into account the bulk of your gear in how fast you can move.
It also lets you crawl, walk, jog, run, and sprint - as well as go
prone and slither like a snake. Very cool. Also includes stamina,
so if you run the whole time you'll find yourself moving very
slowly quite soon.
- Realistic weapons. It's more fun to carry around a PSG-1 sniper
rifle or a FAMAS assault rifle than the original Unreal
Tournament's non-real arsenal.
- Cool maps. Allows more cover and stealthy movement, as well as
strategy, than the original Unreal Tourney maps.
- Attention to detail. For instance, when someone is aiming a
sniper rifle and holding their breath (for better accuracy), one of
their eyes closes. Wow. Also, in the dark you can flick on
glow-in-the-dark scope lines and when you look through a scope, the
scope becomes partially transparent (like sticking your finger
about a foot from your face and focusing on something beyond).
Cons
- Big.
- Needs a beefy Mac.
- Takes a while to launch (a little over 2 minutes).
A Cool Idea that Makes Marathon 2/Infinity Looks Great
Aleph One. If you have
Marathon 2 or Marathon Infinity and a GL-capable graphics card
(anything from ATI or 3dfx), you should get this. For Infinity, the
installation is simple: Just drag the contents of the Aleph One
folder to the Marathon Infinity folder, then launch Aleph One. It
allows a sight - very handy - and makes all the graphics OpenGL
accelerated.
Requires a Mac with a copy of Marathon 2 or Infinity and some
sort of OpenGL acceleration board. 40 MB RAM and PCI Power Mac
recommended. 500k download.
Pros
- Brings graphics up a couple notches. Textures look smoother,
and there's now a sight, making it a lot easier to hit things. (The
sight can be turned on and off with a key)
- Fast and small. Can run on a 7500
with 40 MB of RAM and a 4 MB ATI XClaim 3D card. Does one
thing and does it well.
- Easy to install on Marathon Infinity.
- Customizable. Many many options. Easy to customize and optimize
graphics settings.
Cons
- Difficult install on Marathon 2. Involves changing the creators
of the Shapes and Sounds files from shp2 and snd2 to shpÉ
and sndÉ, respectively. Use ResEdit to do this.
- Doesn't change anything about gameplay. It just adds OpenGL
acceleration.
If neither one of my choices really appeals to you, there are
plenty of places to find more mods. Best places are:
MacGameFiles.com (under
Add-ons): In addition to an extensive library of mods for almost
every game on the Mac that allows customization, demos and
shareware/freeware games are available as well. A neat feature
allows you to sort by OS: Classic or X.
Download.com:
Harder to use (search for Unreal Tournament Mods, for instance) but
still has quite a few good mods.
PlanetQuake and
PlanetUnreal:
Both sites are PC-centric, but there are Mac-compatible mods
available as well. PlanetQuake is dedicated to Quake III Arena, and
PlanetUnreal is dedicated to Unreal and Unreal Tournament.
Ambrosia
Software has listings of plug-ins for all the EV series
games. Just look under the game and find the Add-ons link on the
main page of the game you're interested in.
If you still haven't found a mod that you like, well, build your
own! Of course, you'll need programming skills, 3D modeling skills,
texture mapping skills, and maybe plot design skills (depending on
how extensive your mod is). Still, you could do it, and if you do,
please email me a copy!
Mods are a great way to add life to an old game. They're also
cost effective, since most mods are free. It's a lot better than
buying new games at $50 a pop, and I think they're at least as much
fun. Happy gaming!
