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.
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.
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.
Super Mario 64 that added lugi as co-op
Fallout UK
Does pokemon infinite count?
Even without the gimmick of merging any 2 mons to create new ones with some procedurally generated art and thousands of community created ones; it’s the best Pokemon game since black/white 2 in story and hg/ss in scope.
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.
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.
Otis_inf’s camera tools. Blows away any in-game photo mode. No restrictions on movement at all, can pause or frame-advance the game, there’s even a camera rails system I haven’t fucked with yet.
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 ;)
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)
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.
Star Trek New Horizons for Stellaris. Best Star Trek game I’ve played.
