Mod matters, with Ashton 'I ain't 'fraid no mod' Mills.
Game: Half Life 2Mod: Cinematic ModURL: www.cinematicmod.com
What can we say about the Cinematic Mod? Since a picture [i]is[/i] worth a thousand words, and we're tight on space here, look at the screenshots on this page.
Done looking? Indeed. Now you know why you wear undies. Of course, such graphical majesty does not come cheap. The Cinematic Mod is so titled for a reason, and comes with the following requirements: 64-bit Windows, 4GB of memory, a fast CPU and at least 9GB of your download cap. It [i]can[/i] run on 32-bit Windows, as a 'lite' version, but seriously if you're going to install a mod like this you want the whole hog, so you're going to need take advantage of that 64-bitness in your CPU.
While not explicitly stated on the homepage or forums, it goes without saying that fast cards with lots of onboard memory ([i]especially[/i] onboard memory, preferably 1G) will fare far better than lower-end cards. In order to properly utilise system memory, the mod comes with its own launchers that pass switches to Half Life to utilise larger heapsizes.
Once installed, it makes a tremendous difference. You will ogle and drool over Half Life 2 just like the first time you played it, only now you can enjoy it all over again with a full-on facelift. The mod covers all of Half Life 2, Episode 1, and Episode 2 so you can play the whole series in cinematic glory. It's not just new textures, either - new models, environments, and sound tracks complement the experience.
The mod has been in development for many years, and has hit various milestones over this time. Version 10 is nearing completion, but if you don't want to wait around you can grab the Cinematic Mod 9.5 right now. Note that there are no download links from the homepage for obvious reasons (the author, FakeFactory, would have immense bandwidth bills) instead head to the forums to find download links as individual files from Rapidshare or, better, a torrent link.
Game: TRINEMod: Ultra High QualityURL: www.filefront.com/13942717/UH_all_V2-Trine.zip
This one is special secret sauce. Special, because it's for the indie-made beautiful side-scrolling platformer TRINE; and secret because it's not publicised, in fact there isn't an official download or homepage for the mod. It's currently hosted at FileFront, so grab it while you can.
It's also in German. So you need to speak German. Or learn German. Or ask a hot German girl to set it up for you (*rawrr*). Or you could just wing it - it's actually not that hard.
The Ultra High Quality TRINE mod extends and expands the in-game graphics settings to include higher levels of resolution, anisotropy, antialiasing, particle effects, physics detail, and a lot more.
Because TRINE's ini setting files are tied to the menus, the author has included the locale directory (in German) necessary to toggle the extended options from the menus. However, if you don't have a German friend handy, all you need to do is browse the bundled 'default_game_options.txt' and 'launcher.txt' files from the mod, and copy the relevant parts to the files of the same name in the 'data/misc' directory of your TRINE install (yes, even if you purchased off STEAM).
It will take you maybe 15 minutes, but by comparing the Ultra High ini files versus your vanilla ones, you'll quickly see which sections have been extended. You won't be able to toggle options from the menus (your English menus won't be mapped to the new options) but TRINE isn't exactly a demanding game (although the mod does let you run it at 3360 x 2100!), so you can just paste the highest values as your 'default' settings and the game will load and use them.
Issue: 111 | April, 2010