Ask Lemmy

stalker anomaly, though i'm not sure if it qualifies as a mod or its own game.

Caveat, I don't play a ton of modded games, but Dwarf Therapist for Dwarf Fortress is such a good mod. Makes the game playable, lol.

Young me (and current me too) was always blown away by the Game Genie on the NES. Simple piece of tech that could do so much with so many games.

Fall from Heaven II. It's a fantasy themed overhaul mod for Civ IV. Has extraordinarily deep lore and unique game mechanics. I've never actually played the unmodded version of Civ IV. I only bought the game to play this mod.

On the Switch 1(or emulated), a Mario kart standalone mod call CTGP.

It's basically all the maps from all the MarioKarts and even a bunch of fan made maps on 1 game.

https://www.ctgpdx.com/

Super Mario 64 that added lugi as co-op

Fallout UK

Does pokemon infinite count?

Even without the gimmick of merging any 2 mons to create new ones with some procedurally generated art and thousands of community created ones; it's the best Pokemon game since black/white 2 in story and hg/ss in scope.

Cursed Halo.

I believe it was a passion project by one guy that took 5 or 10 years but holy shit it's a masterpiece.

Counter Strike and Team Fortress. Both were Half Life mods when they started.

There are a TON of legit and amazing S.T.A.L.K.E.R mods like Misery, but my favorite is Anomaly. The mod team took assets across the three original Stalker releases, took alpha/beta builds, and combined all of these with a ton of other mods to make an ultimate OG stalker trilogy playground that is open and full of immersive experiences. Almost to the point where you can randomize starting characters and basically never play the same game again with how the NPCs have full independent routines.

Of course this means that a random quest giver can totally just get zeroed out and die before you ever even meet them, but that's part of the experience lol.

No love for Fallout: London?

It's not just a Fallout 4 mod—it's full-blown AAA experience—done so well that I'd believe it was made by the New Vegas devs if I didn't already know. If you're tired of waiting for Bethesda to make the next FO game, just play this instead.

Project Reality, a Battlefield 2 mod.

I think the Galactic Contention (Star Wars) mod for Squad looks very impressive, albeit I’ve never played it.

https://youtu.be/hl4m5HkRiUI

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines Unofficial Patch by Wesp5.

That game was already broken at launch, and has become more broken as operating systems advance. Furthermore, Activision shuttered Troika almost immediately after VTMB was released, so there has really never been any official support. But, Wesp5 has been working on the Unofficial Patch since shortly after the game came out in 2004.

It fixes the game to a completely playable state, which is a miracle for VTMB. He basically just finished the game for them.

Furthermore, there was some controversy over some of the changes that the patch started implementing, so he split the patch into two versions. You can download the True Patch, which fixes the game to a playable version of its release state, but Wesp5 also offers the Plus Patch, which restores all content cut from the game before release. He reimplemented character backgrounds, real-world weapon names, multiplayer, quests, locations, music, and the list goes on.

It's arguable if the Plus Patch actually represents the original vision of the creators, since we don't know why all of the content was cut. A good bit was cut for time, but there were some things that were dropped earlier in development. Either way, the Plus Patch went feature-complete last year, so what we have now is a fully working version of the game containing absolutely everything that was ever planned during its development.

I don't know if anything like that has happened before, and the only other thing like this that I can think of is the Saints Row 2 patch that IdolNinja was making before he died.

Mods that add stuff are great, but it's hard to beat a mod that lets you play one of the greats.

Mechwarrior Living Legends is a mod for crisis that builds a compltely new game ontop of it and had a thriving multiplayer community for many years (not sure how activity is these days)

Star Trek New Horizons for Stellaris. Best Star Trek game I've played.

The ACE mods have single-handedly kept Arma 3 alive for over a decade. They add so much complexity to the game with so many options for customization by both mission makers and players. It's amazing to me how much difference the ACE modset makes to the game.

Black mesa. Half life and half life 2 modder community is amazing.

Multiverse Mod for FTL

Its literally just a free sequel

Otis_inf's camera tools. Blows away any in-game photo mode. No restrictions on movement at all, can pause or frame-advance the game, there's even a camera rails system I haven't fucked with yet.

For me personally it has to be certain rom hacks from before the era of decomps and creation kit style tools.

I was fairly active in the gen 3 Pokemon hacking scene on the pokecommunity forums back in the day. And hex editing and trial and error was one thing but real wizards were the ASM hackers that could completely out of the box stuff like adding in new move effects or character customisation functionality or day and night systems, to games that had none of these.

Those were actually the trailblazers that led to all the decomps we have today that have made it so easy.

Inigo in Skyrim. Fully voiced follower who is funnier, more interesting and more authentic than any companion I’ve had in the last decade of games.

Simbin's GTR2002 was an amazing mod of EA's F1 game. Great online racing and the added hotlap ranking from Find the Limit.

Many hours invested and IRC friends made. Got to race Gregor Huttu and had some of his setups ;)

Surprised no one has said MyHouse.wad yet

Strawberry jam for celeste. It's a huge collaborative project that introduces 100+ levels (base game has 25) with a really wide range of difficulties, graphical styles, new mechanics, original music and ideas on par with the quality from the base game. Definitely a must play if you like 2d platformers

Dragon Genitals for Monster Hunter World. Gave each monster either a realistic cloaca or an incredibly well-crafted dong, tailored to the individual style of each monster. The details were amazing, like a monster called Bagel Goose has a rock dick, but when he transforms into B-52 bomber mode he glows red hot with lava… and his cock does, too.

Space Age for Factorio before their basically made it a full DLC for the game

Since someone already mentioned Fallout London, then I'll recommend Shutoko Revival Project for Asseto Corsa, a full blown open map in the speedways of japan with online support and even functioning traffic so the illegal racing isn't a breeze.

DSfix

Single-handedly made an awful PC port playable.

Gekokujo mount and blade.

They practically rewrote the game from scratch. There is a story-mode.

There was also a minecraft mod that functional programmimg based magic system but it was interesting more than impressive.

"The Last Days" for Mount & Blade. Intro

Mount & Blade was a medieval combat simulator where you're a wandering mercenary in a war torn region. The gameplay was somewhat innovative when it came out (originally 2008), but as far as story and setting, it was kinda meh. But the great thing about it were the mods, and by far the best mod was "The Last Days," a total conversion mod that lifted all the mechanics but put it in The Lord of the Rings.

These nerds put so much detail into that mod, it was incredible. I didn't know half the factions existed. The map goes beyond Gondor and Rohan and even Rivendell, it goes all the way out to the goblins of Mt. Gundabad fighting against the men of Dale. Each location has tons of detail, some of them are truly massive, and they pushed the limits of the base game with trolls and giant spiders and things like that. Each individual faction has their own faction strength, so you have to think strategically about where to reinforce. The differences between how each factions' units fight on the battlefield is more emphasized, and tbh the combat is a bit better balanced.

It really hit the nail on the head of what to do with the game engine, and then put real passion, creativity, and effort into making it work (seriously, the last update was in 2017, new stuff was being added after nearly a decade. And there's comments on the page I linked as recently as 10 days ago, so people are still playing it). Next to it, the base game feels a bit more like a proof of concept. The open world nature of the game really allows you to take in the setting and experience the story from a different perspective, rather than following the heroes from the books. It really made the setting come alive in a way I haven't found in really any other LotR game (although I'm not super into the setting and haven't played a ton of them).

The mod was for the original game at first but it update when they put out the sequel, Mount & Blade: Warband, so if anyone decides to check it out, get that one rather than the original.