Posts Tagged: fanmade
Fan-made mod turns ‘Half-Life 2’ into a fully playable VR game
If Half-Life: Alyx left you with an itch to revisit its seminal 2004 predecessor, now you can do so in virtual reality. On Friday, a group of fans known as the Source VR Mod Team released Half-Life 2: VR Mod. As long as you own the original, you can download and play the mod free through Steam.
While it’s currently in public beta, the mod allows you to play through Half-Life 2’s single-player story from start to finish. The Source VR Mod Team integrated a handful of features found in Half-Life: Alyx to modernize the experience and make it playable in VR. For instance, you switch between weapons using the same selection grid found in Valve’s 2020 game.
Other VR-minded tweaks include the addition of optional laser sights, over-the-shoulder ammo storage, manual reloading and two-handed weapon handling. There’s even support for room-scale movement. The Source VR Mod Team says the project isn’t finished, but that hasn’t stopped people from enjoying the experience, with the mod currently holding an Overwhelmingly Positive rating on 732 reviews.
Like Black Mesa before it, Half-Life 2: VR Mod has been a long time coming. As Eurogamer notes, the project was first announced in 2017 and went through development hell before remerging in 2021. The fact you can play it today is thanks to a recent influx of new team members who "revitalized" development.
Elden Ring’s most famous player immortalized in fan-made mod
Over the last week, the Elden Ring community has been entranced by Let Me Solo Her, a player whose skill at the tough-as-nails game is matched only by their fashion sense. The legend of LMSH was born when a Reddit user recently shared their experience of battling Malenia, an optional boss you can find toward the end of FromSoftware’s latest game.
The Blade of Miquella is a tough challenge even for the most seasoned Soulsborne veterans. She’s agile with an expansive moveset that becomes more deadly when she enters her second stage. After falling to her katana dozens of times, Reddit user Sazed813 turned to the game’s summoning functionality to call for help.
Like with most of FromSoftware’s recent titles, you can invite other players to assist you with the game’s most challenging boss fights. And when Sazed813 used that feature, Let Me Solo Her answered. For a series known for its fashion police, LMSH immediately stood out. They came into Sazed813’s game with nothing but a pot on his head, two katanas and a loincloth. But what they then went on to do was even more impressive. True to their name, Let Me Solo Her took on Malenia on his own and did so flawlessly.
Let me solo her. pic.twitter.com/yEOz9zH6km
— Hanz (@hanzkilla) April 16, 2022
Since becoming famous, Let Me Solo Her has inspired no shortage of fan art, including a piece that Berzerk creatorKentaro Miura would surely approve of if he were still alive today. And now there’s even a mod for players who want to bring the swordmaster on their adventures.
As Polygon notes, Elden Ring modder Garden of Eyes has created an addon that tweaks the Lone Wolf Ashes, an early-game item you can use to summon a trio of spectral wolves to your side, to instead call forth a computer-controlled version of Let Me Solo Her. You’re not getting the legend himself, but the beauty of the mod is that you can use it almost anywhere where it’s possible to use spirit summons, including fights out in Elden Ring’s open world. The catch is that Garden of Eyes is currently only offering the mod to those who subscribe to their Patreon for $ 5 per month. But if you ask us, that’s a small price to get a taste of Let Me Solo Her.