One of the two guys behind this mod posted about it on the Half-Life 2.net forums, it looks pretty interesting and well developed for five months of work. Kingdoms Collide is a fantasy themed total conversion mod for Half-Life 2. In the own words of one of the developers of this mod in their post on the forums:

The idea of the game is to have really fun and balanced online multilayer combat with a very high potential range of skill and is all found within a beautiful fantasy setting, the character using a third person camera (so the melee aspect makes sense, unlike FPS camera melee games where people run around like headless chickens unable to see their suroundings). Also, like most typical fantasy RPGs we wanted to have a good level of character customisation in choosing a unqiue weapon and skill set that suites you – as well as making each player able to have unique role within their team enabling incredible depth to teamwork, tactics and strategy!

Video of an early alpha below:

The Mod Squad has arrived on Steam which sees five of the leading mods for Source games arrive onto Valve’s digital distribution platform.

The first five members of the Mod Squad are: Age of Chivalry, D.I.P.R.I.P., Insurgency, Synergy, and Zombie Panic. These mods are available to download freely via Steam for any owners of a Source based game and will receive automatic updates as other Steam games do and they all make use of Steamworks.

Valve’s marketing guru Doug Lombardi hastily made the following statement after opening his Steam account and saw the mods ready to download:

“Valve has been supporting the MOD community since the company’s inception, offering updates to the SDK, holding MOD Expos and being the first to bring a MOD to retail with Counter-Strike in November 2000. The debut of these MODs on Steam marks the beginning of a new level of support for the MOD community by putting the leading MODs at the finger tips of over 15 million targeted gamers.”

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I remember playing through Decay, the co-op bonus mode found in the PS2 version of Half-Life back in the day. I found it interesting as you could either play it split-screen with a friend, or let the AI control the other character. You took the role of two female members of the Black Mesa staff and were charged with doing things such as sending that little piece of rock that caused all hell on Earth to break out into a lift for Gordon to use.

What is interesting is that a group of modders have recreated Decay as a port for the PC version of the classic Half-Life. It will be interesting to see how it all works on the PC, time to download it myself perhaps?

I have often thought, not seriously, but it has often come to mind that Steam does not make full use of potential. However it seems like this is about to change as it has been revealed that mods are making their way onto Steam. Soon mods such as Age of Chivalry, D.I.P.R.I.P., Insurgency, Synergy, and Zombie Panic will be available to download for free by any Steam users who own a Source based game.

These mods will make use of Steamworks and will receive automatic updates in much the same way as games do via Steam. This is really a great step forward for Steam, Valve and mod teams. I think one of the main reasons why I don’t play many mods for Source games is the lack of Steam integration. Now this is changing I think mods will become a hell of a lot more popular.

Portal: Prelude is alas not a new game from Valve, rather it is an ambitious mod that is nearing an end of September/early October release from a team of three French modders. Check the video below for just a taste of what to expect.

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Eternal Silence 3.0 has now been released, and by clicking on the above picture you will be taken to the download page for the mod.

For those of you who are new to this Cinematic Space Mod which is focused on teamplay and large battle entwined with a deep back story then take a look at the online manual for the basic lowdown on how to play Eternal Silence.

Hopefully I will get the chance to download this next week and give it a whirl, and of course provide some feedback on it.

Eternal Silence download page.

The Eternal Silence team have revealed that the latest version of the mod will be released on June 6th, to celebrate that fact there is a whole host of new information. First off we have this great new video for the mod. The trailer shows off some intense ground combat along with some stunning space based combat. Seriously, space combat in a Source based mod, how frikin awesome is that?

Secondly there is this in depth ModDB preview of Eternal Silence 3.0 which is well worth a read to get some idea of what to expect in version 3.0 of Eternal Silence. And just look at this shot of the flamethrower! That is how a flamer should look like, pure brilliance.

If anyone is interested in setting up a multiplayer server for ES 3.0 then simply head to this page to get all the details. The Dedicated Server files are already available there, while the 3.0 Beta Client will be available June 6th.

With just a few days left head to the Eternal Silence site to find out everything else about this mod. I personally hope to give this a download and experience the Eternal Silence.

Last week I talked about Dark Rock Games with Adam Griffiths.

Adam brought my attention to Dear Esther, a Half-Life 2 mod that Dark Rock was called in to work on by Dan Pinchbeck.

Dear Esther is now available here along with a movie here.

Dear Esther puts traditional game technologies to innovative new use. Rather than a story told through the medium of games; a 3D environment has been constructed to disperse a story throughout. The user navigates the environment, triggering audio fragments of a narrative which, together with visual clues and codes embedded in the world, build to create a story which is inherently constructed around the innate slippage of meaning and fragmentary nature of interactive experiences. It is a fusion of original text, music and world within an existing media framework.

Reading more information on Dear Esther is really quite interesting, I just wish my PC was working so I could check it out. I recommend you go out and give this a whirl and see what it is all about.

Word has reached me that Tide’s Reach has been officially unveiled! Being created by Pi Mu Rho and his small group of followers Tide’s Reach is an episodic mod based on the Source engine.

Space is a no man’s land; pirates, scavengers and private military roam the galaxy preying on a strewn and divided humanity. A living is made on the derelict freighters and cargo vessels, stripped to the bone by the needy and the desperate. For two brothers an innocuous salvage job turns out to be more than it appears and they are thrust into a growing conflict that see’s them pitted against vastly superior forces in an increasingly hostile galaxy.

Engage in a unique and innovative episodic adventure as a Terminal Operative. Work seamlessly with your brother’s combat support and use limitless systems to level the playing field in a growing conflict across the galaxy.

While the mod has been in development for quite a while now, it is only these past few days that Pi has come out and announced the name and launched the site a proper.

More on Tide’s Reach soon, and hopefully an interview with Pi too.

The lovely fellows at No Mutants Allowed have been busy working away down in their vaults on what they call the Fallout 2 Restoration Project which is pretty much an unofficial Fallout 2 expansion.

According to the creator ‘killap’ this work has taken him 2 years to complete and adds back in loads of content originally planned to be included in Fallout 2 by the original developers.

You will find about 6 new locations (some quite large, other smaller) as well as a few new areas to old locations. In addition, almost every town in the game has new content whether it is new characters, quests, or items. Playing this will definitely be a new experience.

There WILL be another release of this mod since I still plan on including the Shi submarine but am waiting on content.

If you enjoyed the original Fallout 2, then I recommend you check out this thread to find further details on what is included with this mod and information on how to download it.