Mods are the communities way of showing their appreciation of a video game and want to contribute their own vision of how it could be improved.
Here are eight mods for games that were done so well, they, quite simply, made the game better.
Star Wars: Galactic Warfare – Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Mod Link
Star Wars: Galactic Warfare takes Call of Duty 4, arguably the best of the series and the Star Wars universe and combines them.
Players will take on the role of a stormtrooper or rebel soldier (no Jedi’s are involved in this mod) and fight it out COD style on customized maps with new weapons and classic game abilities.
The Sith Lords Restored – Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2
Mod Link
Star Wars: The Old Republic was a phenomenal success and one of the best RPGs ever made. It’s sequel, unfortunately, couldn’t live up to the success of the original and had a few flaws that made fans of the series quite unhappy. The developers of The Sith Restored were a few of those people and created a mod that added new content and “filled in” the plot holes that existed in it.
DotA – Warcraft III
Mod Link
DotA or Defense of the Ancients is a Warcraft III is an online battleground mod that allows you to take control of Warcraft heroes while you and your summoned minions duke it out on a map and try to destroy the others’ fortress.
It was so popular that Valve hired the lead developer of the mod and created its Sequel in a Free-2-Play version with Valves support.
DayZ – ArmA2: Combined Operations
Mod Link
Because Zombie mods are always fun, DayZ adds the Zombie fun to one of the best combat sim games one can play. Zombies and multiplayer are always a fun combination.
As with many super popular mods, DayZ went retail, however, the community reviews for the retail version are less than stellar. Until they fix it up, I would suggest sticking with the mod.
Summerset Isle – Skyrim
Mod Link
Summerset Isle is a major expansion of the Skyrim world with dozens of new cities and towns, hundreds of new NPCs, a plethora of new, unique creatures, quests and a storyline based out of Winterhold. It’s well worth the download with hours of extra fun.
Black Mesa – Half-Life 2
Mod Link
What started as a Half-Life 2 mod has turned into something far more interesting. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen when a developer gave the green light to a mod developer that recreated an original game. Black Mesa recreates the original Half-Life using the source engine that updates the graphics and physics. When it was released it was in such high demand that almost ever site that hosted it crashed due to the sheer volume of people trying to download it.
Now available on Steam, it can be purchased for an affordable $20 and one of the times that I would ever condone paying money for something that was once a mod. It’s worth supporting these folks for everything they’ve done.
Just Cause 2 Multiplayer – Just Cause 2
Mod Link
Just… just watch the video. If you’re not convinced by how awesome it is, then you don’t like action games.
Falskaar – Skyrim
Mod Link
An entirely new realm to explore that’s fully voiced with new quests, storyline and more! The new area looks so incredible that one could easily confuse it with DLC from Bethesda. The mod is so good that the mod developer landed a job at Bungie after its creation.
