Source Mod Mayhem!

[Pat]

For those you you who have bought a source game but don't play it often because you've finished it (single player games) or you suck at it (multiplayer games) there are 100's of so called "SourceMods" which use the source SDK to create an entirely new game (or modified HL2MP)! But theres so many, how do I know which ones to download. Well you've read this much, why not read some more? I'll go through some of the more popular source mods, high-lighting the pros and cons of them.


Synergy:
Developer: Synergy Development Team
Download: Steam
Website: http://synergymod.net/
Game Type: Multiplayer only
Requires: Any source game (optional) HL2: Ep1 and 2, Minerva, Riot Act, many many more
The main aim of synergy was to create a co-operative version of Half-life 2 where you work together and help eachother out to complete the campaign, but there are also other fun things to do. The game comes with a bunch of maps which have a certain theme to them. You have basic HL2 co-op in the synergy campaign, then you have the trials which is a bunch of puzzles you co-operate to complete and people have introduced new themes such as js_puzzle, where all players start in a lobby room and get a battery for completing numbered challenges then work together to complete the last challenge to win the level (these usually take a few hours to do and cause a lot of frustration). So whats so good about it? Why don't I just play some Counter-strike and some HL2? Co-operating through the maps in this game is a lot funner than it sounds. When you die you will respawn, the respawn time depends on how many times the people in the team have died. There is no score system, you can only see how many times you've died. You get a rank at the end of most maps that tell you how well you did. You can heal eachother, give eachother ammo and weapons and use voice commands, nothing is more funny than spamming the help command. You can play through HL2, EP1 and 2 in an hour or so each.

Personal Rating: 7/10 fun for hours, but can be so hard at times its depressing.



Age of Chivalry:
Developer: Team Chivalry
Download: Steam
Website: http://www.age-of-chivalry.com/
Game Type: Multiplayer only
Requires: Any source game
Age of Chivalry, there aren't many games like it. First person sword medieval sword fighting fun, Age of Chivalry takes you back to a simplier time, fortunately it is also a time of war! It's a class based team objective game, where you can be an archer, a swordsman and many many more classes. You move out with your team, or stay and defend the base together to complete a set objective (Usually seige maps where you have to break into a castle or such). With a melee weapon you can use a basic attack, a power attack, block (with shield or weapon) and parry attack, to poke people away. With a ranged weapon just aim and fire. There are also throwing knives, axes and fire bombs, to burn people with. It can be pretty fun when people work together, but its kind of annoying when you get shot in the back by a team mate or get your head cut off from a over-eager longswordman. On top of all that there are steam achievements which are mainly extremely hard to achieve, but its fun trying! So if you like Medieval sword fighting and heart pounding encounters, then Age of Chivalry is the game for you!

Personal Rating: 6/10 A little boring and slow paced, but when you get near an enemy it can be fun and challenging to pick the right moment to strike and take off their head.

Half-life 2: SMod!
Developer: Smod Development team
Download: http://www.fileplanet.com/180732/download/SMOD-3.9-Full
Website: N/A
Game Type: Single Player only
Requires: Half-Life 2
SMod is an extension of the original Half-life 2 campaign adding more weapons, more enemies and more fun. If you enjoyed Half-life 2 then prepare to enjoy it again with some awesome changes. First of all you can use the iron sights on weapons to aim, if you turn of the cross hair in the console this makes the game a lot more realistic. Corpses can be super gibbed by blowing them up, shooting them heaps, falling from heights or Gordon kick! Gordon kick makes this game really worth it. Assign it to a key and you can kick stuff with this powerful kick, nothing is more fun that kicking a head crab as it jumps at you, or fly kicking a combine from a ledge or kicking the hurt patients till they explode in a mist of blood and gibs. There are more placed enemies that use tougher weaponry such as the metropolice who use pistols along with M3A1 grease guns, combine soldiers and resistance on highway 17 that use Ak-47s and snipers who use Dragonuvs. There are also more enemies such as stalkers that shoot lasers at you, green tinted elite combine assassins that jump around with AR2s and more. There are plenty of weapons for you to enjoy such as the M1 Garand, Dragonuv Sniper rifle, shovel, grease gun, AK-47, Modified AR2 Laser gun, Super scissors and UMD launcher. The game also has a modified hud which you may like more than the old one.

Personal Rating: 7/10 Makes playing through HL2 a lot more fun and funnier, but it takes some things too far, like the laser gun and UMD launcher.


SMOD: tactical
Developer: Smod Development team
Download: http://www.moddb.com/mods/smod-tactical/downloads/smod-tactical-delta-556-full-install
Website: N/A
Game Type: Single Player only
Requires: Half-Life 2

Personal Rating: 6/10 Decent game, like how its all tactical and shit, but its really hard! Plus it seems very unprofessional, CT's as the combine... And the Gordon kick was about as cool as Dr Mossman.


Dragon Ball Source
Developer: Pre-known.com
Download: http://www.moddb.com/mods/dragonball-source/downloads/dragonballsource-v014-client-files
Website: http://www.immortalrespawn.com/dbsource/index.php
Game Type: Multiplayer only
Requires: Any source game

Personal Rating: 7/10 Very cool to see a game like this being made! The animations were poor and there is a lack of players, but it is a fun game!


Shotgun Sunrise
Developer: Impromptu Games
Download: http://www.moddb.com/mods/shotgun-sunrise/downloads/shotgun-sunrise-version-15
Website (Moddb profile): http://www.moddb.com/company/impromptu-games
Game Type: Multiplayer only
Requires: Any source game

Personal Rating: 6/10 Awesome game, but it has terrible models, textures and animations. The game is also lacking maps (It only has one) and theres a shortage of players.


D.I.P.R.I.P.
Developer: Exor studios
Download: Steam
Website: http://www.diprip.com/news.php5
Game Type: Multiplayer only
Requires: Any source game

Personal Rating: 7/10 Awesome game indeed! Theres not enough games like it, shooting stuff with a car is pretty cool and the game play is very high action.


Zombie Master
Developer: Zombie Master Development Team  
Download: Steam
Website: http://www.zombiemaster.org/
Game Type: Multiplayer only
Requires: Any source game

Personal Rating: 6/10 Fun game, if you have enough players, theres your problem. Terrible animations and models are pretty bad, plus the zombies are hl2 models.


Smash Ball
Developer: Smashball Labs LLC
Download: Steam
Website: http://www.smashball.tv/
Game Type: Multiplayer only
Requires: Any source game

Personal Rating: 8/10 Sport finally makes sense... Good graphics too.


Modular Combat
Developer: Mod Fidelity
Download: http://www.moddb.com/mods/modular-combat/downloads/modular-combat-v176-full-version-installer
Website (Moddb Profile): http://www.moddb.com/company/mod-fidelity
Game Type: Multiplayer only
Requires: Source SDK Base - Orange Box, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, and Half-Life 2: Episode Two.

Personal Rating: 7/10 The Combine, the resistance and Apeture science against BoSS, spells fun. RPG-ish gameplay make it extra fun!

Situation Outbreak
Developer: Agent Red Productions
Download: http://www.moddb.com/mods/situation-outbreak/downloads/situation-outbreak-v152-full-installer
Website: http://www.situationoutbreak.info/
Game Type: Multiplayer only
Requires: Any source game

Personal Rating: 7/10 Fun game, even with bots! The models and animations were pretty poor, but not terrible. Great zombie survival game.

Fortress Forever
Developer: Fortress Forever Development Team
Download: Steam
Website: http://www.fortress-forever.com
Game Type: Multiplayer only
Requires: Any source game

Personal Rating: 9/10 Awesomeeeeeee! Free TF2-ish game, lost a point for completely ripping it off though.


Dystopia
Developer: Dystopia Dev Team
Download: Steam
Website: http://www.dystopia-game.com
Game Type: Multiplayer only
Requires: Any source game

Personal Rating: 8/10 Good cyberpunk game. I enjoyed shooting people while my friends hacked cyber space, and when I when into there it was an epic experience. Lost points for being hard at times and lack of players + Too many empty servers, host other games stupid!

The Hidden
Developer: Ging
Download: http://www.moddb.com/mods/hidden-source/downloads/hidden-source-beta-4b
Website: http://www.hidden-source.com
Game Type: Multiplayer only
Requires: Any source game
Personal Rating: 9/10 Very fun, suspensful game and playing as the hidden can be very cool when you taunt them hehe. The graphics aren't fantastic but the game play makes up for it, and sometimes the rounds go to long.


Project Valkyrie
Developer: Blackened Interactive  
Download: http://www.moddb.com/mods/project-valkyrie/downloads/project-valkyrie-alpha-1-rc2
Patch: http://www.moddb.com/mods/project-valkyrie/downloads/project-valkryie-alpha-rc2-12-update
Website: http://www.project-valkyrie.com  
Game Type: Multiplayer only
Requires: Any source game

Personal Rating: 9/10 When I first downloaded it I was expecting a generic space age shooter, boy was I wrong. Ever played Metroid prime? Well this is pretty much exactly the same, except its online!!! Lack of players made it lose a 1, they don't publicise it as much as they should.


NEOTOKYO?
Developer: Radi-8
Download: http://www.moddb.com/mods/neotokyo/downloads/neotokyo-client-07032009
Patch: http://www.moddb.com/mods/neotokyo/downloads/nt-client-patch-10232009
Website: http://www.neotokyohq.com
Game Type: Multiplayer only
Requires: Any source game

Personal Rating: 10/10 This game does not disappoint! Its a great tactical shooter that was inspired by Ghost in the Shell. You can already see that its going to be a good game so go go go play it!


Eternal Silence
Developer: Crankshaft Games
Download: Steam
Website: http://www.eternal-silence.net
Game Type: Multiplayer only
Requires: Any source game

: 9/10 Fantastic game, I really love the space flying and ground fighting! Would be cool if there was another team just to make it a bit more interesting.


Zombie Panic!: Source
Developer: Zombie Panic! Team
Download: Steam
Website: www.zombiepanic.org
Game Type: Multiplayer only
Requires: Any source game

Personal Rating: 10/10 My most favourite game in the whole world :3 Its great because the zombies are players making it harder to survive! Theres a decent amount of weapons too. Every round of this game I play never disappoints.

I am working on writing descriptions for the rest of the games, come back and read them again. Will be posting others! Including: Insurgency, Mininerva, Riot Act and more! Found a game you feel sceptical about? Post it here and I'll give you some feed back after playing! Don't waste your bandwidth on a terrible game, thats what I'm here for

[Delicious]

So these modifications require you to first have the original game downloaded in order to play it? I really wanted to play that "Zombie Panic" game which looks oh-so delicious since I'm a sucker for zombie type games. Thank you for sharing.

[Lucifer]

I saw a few videos on most of these a while back, but I never actually got around to getting HL2 and trying them out. They look pretty amazing though, I'll be sure to give im a try.

[Pat]

So these modifications require you to first have the original game downloaded in order to play it? I really wanted to play that "Zombie Panic" game which looks oh-so delicious since I'm a sucker for zombie type games. Thank you for sharing.

Yes it is quite fun, spend 41 hours playing it last week and 91 hours in total (17 more hours than CSS which I have owned for 2 years).