stalker anomaly, though i’m not sure if it qualifies as a mod or its own game.
Caveat, I don’t play a ton of modded games, but Dwarf Therapist for Dwarf Fortress is such a good mod. Makes the game playable, lol.
Fall from Heaven II. It’s a fantasy themed overhaul mod for Civ IV. Has extraordinarily deep lore and unique game mechanics. I’ve never actually played the unmodded version of Civ IV. I only bought the game to play this mod.
On the Switch 1(or emulated), a Mario kart standalone mod call CTGP.
It’s basically all the maps from all the MarioKarts and even a bunch of fan made maps on 1 game.
Young me (and current me too) was always blown away by the Game Genie on the NES. Simple piece of tech that could do so much with so many games.
Fallout UK
There are a TON of legit and amazing S.T.A.L.K.E.R mods like Misery, but my favorite is Anomaly. The mod team took assets across the three original Stalker releases, took alpha/beta builds, and combined all of these with a ton of other mods to make an ultimate OG stalker trilogy playground that is open and full of immersive experiences. Almost to the point where you can randomize starting characters and basically never play the same game again with how the NPCs have full independent routines.
Of course this means that a random quest giver can totally just get zeroed out and die before you ever even meet them, but that’s part of the experience lol.
Simbin’s GTR2002 was an amazing mod of EA’s F1 game. Great online racing and the added hotlap ranking from Find the Limit.
Many hours invested and IRC friends made. Got to race Gregor Huttu and had some of his setups ;)
Cursed Halo.
I believe it was a passion project by one guy that took 5 or 10 years but holy shit it’s a masterpiece.
Counter Strike and Team Fortress. Both were Half Life mods when they started.
As well as DOTA (for Warcraft 3) and PUBG (Arma 2/DayZ mod).
I have a theory that the all the best multiplayer games do spawn from community efforts since they know better how to balance things.
We played Quake World Team Fortress on the high school LAN. It blew my mind.
Project Reality, a Battlefield 2 mod.
I think the Galactic Contention (Star Wars) mod for Squad looks very impressive, albeit I’ve never played it.
Mechwarrior Living Legends is a mod for crisis that builds a compltely new game ontop of it and had a thriving multiplayer community for many years (not sure how activity is these days)
Star Trek New Horizons for Stellaris. Best Star Trek game I’ve played.
No love for Fallout: London?
It’s not just a Fallout 4 mod—it’s full-blown AAA experience—done so well that I’d believe it was made by the New Vegas devs if I didn’t already know. If you’re tired of waiting for Bethesda to make the next FO game, just play this instead.
Strawberry jam for celeste. It’s a huge collaborative project that introduces 100+ levels (base game has 25) with a really wide range of difficulties, graphical styles, new mechanics, original music and ideas on par with the quality from the base game. Definitely a must play if you like 2d platformers
