www.fistful-of-frags.com

I think I can count on one hand every single game or mod ever released that deals with the Wild West. They're few and far between, which is surprising because the Wild West is one of the most common themes in most other American media.

 

At any rate, Fistful of Frags is here. What is it? It's a treasure-hunting mod with gunplay and explosions mixed in. There are stashes of valuable items scattered around the map, and whichever side finds and cashes in the most of them wins the round. There are several catches; it takes a long time to “capture” each stash and a similarly long time during which players have to remain alive before they can cash in on their finds.  The key is to keep moving and protect those with the bags of money while simultaneously watching the enemy and knocking him flat on his back if you see that little coin icon above his head indicating that he's making off with some money.

 

Also unique in this mod is the renown system.  Players gain renown by killing others and gathering money from the map, and they can use it to buy weapons, ammo and accessories (scarves, purses, and makeup).  You lose renown for killing teammates or committing suicide.

 

Combat is mainly projectile-based, as the most popular weapons are six-shooters, rifles, and bows, but there are also knives (which can be thrown as well as used to stab) and explosives.  For my part, I roll with a six-shooter and as many sticks of dynamite as I can afford.  My friendly:enemy kill ratio is about even, but I have much more fun doing it.  Combat is less frantic because players move slower, and it takes a long time to reload most weapons, but this is never really an obstacle.  Firefights are serious fun.  Nailing someone with a thrown knife or a stick of dynamite or an exploding arrow is the height of giddy amusement. 

 

The maps are the normal western cliches; a dusty town with banks and saloons and stables, a mine, and a southwestern town with a Catholic chapel and houses with stucco walls.  The maps are mostly bare and sometimes appear lifeless, but when shots are cracking and blood is staining the sand and the walls, it doesn't really matter.

 

The bottom line is that this mod is blessed with a great setting, fun combat, and some novel ideas.  It’s definitely worth the time.

 

  

www.age-of-chivalry.com

Age of Chivalry is basically a medieval combat mod, and it has all the trappings to recommend it; swords, shields, crossbows, even catapults, and these weapons are used on the battlements of gleaming castles, in the dark recesses of underground tunnels, on beaches, in streets, in bubbling brooks, and on ornate stone bridges.  It looks gorgeous and plays even better.

 

The real interesting thing here, though, isn't the combat – though it is very satisfying and deals competently with the issue of melee on the Source engine, which is something that I didn't think could be done.  The unique aspect of this mod is the fact that it has levels and something resembling a plot.  Of course, the plot in most cases is simply an excuse for a fight, but the mod advances across a set series of maps which challenge both sides to complete a diverse array of objectives.  There's always a lever to be pulled to lower the gate, or a section of wall to be smashed to bits, or a flag to be captured, or, in some cases, a cow (a cow?) to defend.  The mod plays more like a co-operative adventure game at some points than a straight-up brawler, which is a refreshing change from what we're used to.

 

On particularly good servers, battles over a single level can take hours and hours, and to be honest there are so many tactical options, so many classes, and so much detail in all of the maps that it never really gets old.  Playing as an archer with a bow is a radically different experience compared to playing with a crossbow, which is in turn radically different from playing with a mace or a longsword and shield.  Certain classes move slowly and do tremendous damage, others can move quickly but will be hard pressed to win a close-in fight.  There are balance issues – there have to be, with so many things to balance – but for the most part things fit together.

 

This is a very well done mod with riveting, original gameplay, and beautiful models and textures.  Get it.

 

 

 

www.bgmod.com

I've been playing the Battle Grounds series of mods for longer than I'm comfortable with admitting in public.  The first one was for the original Half-Life engine and was set during the Revolutionary War.  Players picked a side, Brits or Yanks, picked a class (sharpshooter, regular, officer), and joined the battle.  The unique aspect of the mod was that it took very long to reload the guns, they were inaccurate, and almost everyone had a bayonet or a knife or a sword to stab people with.  This resulted in a situation that promoted seeking cover or having others protect you while you reloaded, and also made things more fluid, in that one person couldn't camp a single choke point and hold up an entire team.  It was great fun.  The Battle Grounds 2 is more or less the same thing on the Source engine.

In fact, the early versions of BG2 were basically ports of the BG1 content to the new engine.  Since that time the team has added tons of new maps, most developed by the very active community, reworked the bullet physics and melee system, improved the models and textures, and made the interface less taxing on the eyes.

It's important to note that this mod is probably the most idiosyncratic of all Source mods.  It has a very unique set of rules that make for much slower-paced, somewhat strategic mod and can turn off lots of players almost instantly.  It's still worth a try, though.  I love it and I can't be all wrong, can I?

 

 

www.pvkii.com

Have you ever wondered how knights would fare against pistol-wielding buccaneers and rapacious Vikings?  Neither have I, but it's a fun mod we've got here, nonetheless.

 

The three sides start in different locations on each map and attempt to either capture points or steal treasure from each other.  Each side has a number of classes – pirates can either hurl lit barrels of gunpowder or send parrots to peck the eyes out of their enemies, knights can swing huge swords or wield bows and arrows, and the Vikings can spam the shit out of the Attack key and hack everyone to pieces with axes and swords.

 

It's nice to take a break from head-to-head mods and try something that's closer to a free-for-all for once.  The smaller size of teams means that you can work closely with one another and strategize easier, and the fact that there are three sides instead of just two presents interesting dilemmas.  There's a battle up ahead between four knights and five Vikings – do you as a pirate leap in and get slaughtered or wait until they're mostly dead and then finish all of them off?  Easy decision in this case, but it symbolizes the kind of situations which a three-way contest presents.

 

The maps, models, effects and sounds are very well-done, and even if there are some nagging balance issues between certain classes, the mod is undergoing constant improvement and is far from finished. It's quickly become one of my favorite mods on the Source engine, which is saying something now that the field is growing especially crowded.

 

 

 

www.diprip.com

Dip rip. It stands for “die in pain, rest in peace.”  It's about vehicles.  It's on the Source engine.  We have a problem here.

This mod is like Twisted Metal or Carmageddon or even Streets of SimCity, in that it drops you into a hectic battle with other cars using machine guns, missiles, mines, lasers, mortars, and the sheer concussive force of your own front bumper.  There are several maps, one at the docks, one in a city, etc.  All of them use stock Half-life 2 art and objects, which looks a bit jarring next to the outlandish car models.  There are several cars, each with a different tradeoff between speed, armor, and firepower, and scattered across the map are several different types of power-ups.  That's more or less the long and short of it.  It's a vehicle combat mod.

The strange thing about this mod is that it's on the Source engine, which is probably the worst of all modern game engines in terms of handling vehicles competently.  Half-Life 2's dune buggy will go down in history as the most awkward, skittish vehicle ever shoe-horned into a video game, and, regretfully, the vehicles in this mod are its direct descendants.  The awful vehicle physics wouldn't be quite so awful if the control scheme were more accommodating, but in this mod the steering uses the W-A-S-D model instead of the mouse, and it sinks the entire experience below playability.  The response time of the steering is so abysmal that I kept running into buildings and other players even after an hour of trying not to, and kills were rare because no one could really line up a decent shot except by accident.  I wanted to enjoy this mod because blowing things up with cars is fun for obvious reasons, but until the controls are fixed I literally cannot play it.