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'Aliens: Colonial Marines' mod may actually make the game fun
When it released in early 2013, Aliens: Colonial Marines was an absolute garbage fire of a video game. There was a lawsuit regarding the wide gulf in quality between what developer Gearbox Software (of Borderlands and upcoming Battleborn fame) and publisher Sega showed prior to release and what customers actually got, and Gearbox's CEO Randy Pitchford remains ambivalent about Colonial Marines' quality and development process. Gearbox was eventually dropped from the suit, but it was a whole thing. The modding community sounds like it might've fixed some of the most egregious sins on the PC version, though.
ModDB removes 'School Shooter' Half-Life 2 mod to quell building controversy
A mod for Half-Life 2 called "School Shooter: North American Tour 2012" has been pulled from its hosting site, ModDB, after picking up some attention for its controversial nature. The mod allowed the player to explore a school-like environment in a first-person shooter context, with the option of attacking various unarmed NPCs. ModDB has posted a short statement about why it pulled the code, saying that although it feels "people should have the right to be creative and share what they want on a community / developer run site," the "confusion and hate" surrounding the project led to the removal. As you can see from a video of the mod posted on YouTube, there's another reason people don't need to share it around, and that's because it's just not very well made. The "Boring" effects are pulled from Bulletstorm's "Duty Calls" parody, but they fit this one just fine, too.
Humble Bundle 2 adds Steam & Desura support, revenues top $1.17M
Somewhere in a dank Cold War-era bunker, a gathering of suits is plotting to use the "pay what you want" business model for evil. For now, the strategy continues to make the Humble Indie Bundle #2 initiative a startlingly good success -- for all! If you can't resist wrapping your bundle in a layer of Steam DRM (worth it for the achievements?), you can now redeem a registration code through your HumbleBundle.com download page that adds Braid, Machinarium and Osmosis to your Steam Library. (If and when Cortex Command and Revenge of the Titans are released on Steam, they'll automatically be added to your Library, as well.) Humble Bundle #2 purchasers will also notice a button on their download pages to redeem their games through Desura, the indie-focused digital distribution platform launched by ModDB earlier this year. Speaking of purchasers, the Humble Bundle #2 has been bought by more than 158,600 good Samaritans (and/or deal seekers) for an average cost of $7.41, as of this morning. Total revenues have topped $1,175,000 since the bundle's release on December 14 and appear poised to surpass the first bundle's contributions of $1,273,613. And speaking of contributions, Markus Persson's chart-topping $2,000 payment was recently bumped by a generous gift from "grflwitz," which came to a nice round number: $3,141.59. [Image credit: Paul Smith]
ModDB presents Desura: an indie take on digital distribution
As Steam shows no signs of slowing its dominance of digital distribution for PC (and Mac!), it's only natural that more niche services would arise; not really to oppose, but to compliment Valve's service. Enter Desura, a distribution platform similar to Steam, save for one important aspect: It's focused on independent game developers. Primarily, Desura will try to give a home to those games turned away by Steam. Though the service won't just open the floodgates to everything, its creator (and indie mod site) ModDB says it hopes to make acceptance or rejection much more transparent than Valve's process. Desura is described as a community-based service, intended to foster better, more symbiotic relationships between developer and fan. Desura isn't slated to go live until April, but you can get an early look over at Rock Paper Shotgun. [Thanks, Ramy]
Make Something Unreal winners announced
Epic has announced the winners of its Make Something Unreal contest, in which several teams competed to create the best mod of Unreal Tournament 3 using the recently released -- and free -- Unreal Development Kit. The winner of the contest of the contest is the team led by Michael 'Hegi' Hegemann for its title The Haunted. A third-person survival horror action game, The Haunted looks something like a Wild West version of Left 4 Dead. As the winner of the contest, the team will receive $50,000 and a commercial license for the Unreal Engine, meaning the team can actually release an Unreal Engine title as a commercial product. Assuming the team chooses to make The Haunted a retail product -- complete with what can only be described as a portable zombie blender -- consider us pumped. See the full list of Make Something Unreal winners, courtesy of Big Download, after the break. Also be sure to visit the Make Something Unreal website, where you can download all of the winning entries. Update: As some commenters have pointed out, the team responsible for The Haunted is not ModDB -- which hosts the mod -- but rather an unnamed team headed by Michael 'Hegi' Hegemann. The information has been corrected in the above post. The team's work can be seen at hells-reach.com. Joystiq apologizes for the error. %Gallery-85964%
