Thursday, July 15, 2004

UT2004 Mod Roundup Part: Sports?

Yeah, so back to the UT2004 mods. This week it's sports, and if you know me, you know that I basically hate all but one sport. That sport, my friend, is paintball. Don't ask why I like it, I really don't know, it's just one of the funnest things I've ever done. When it comes to golf, I've always sort of admired a sport that has you driving little carts, drunk, carrying around a bunch of clubs. You may be wondering why I didn't wait to deal with Deathball in this post. Well, contrary to popular belief, Deathball is not a real sport, at least not yet.

Sure, Ultimate Survival is not really the peak of realism. It's super fast paced, plays a lot like a few standard UT2004 gametypes, and I've never seen a Skaarj or robot playing paintball. I suppose it could happen. Although, it sure would be nice to have some of that gigantic armor the next time I play paintball. In another ping to the back of realism's head, the ragdoll death animations from stock UT2004 are in place so, when hit, characters react like the paintballs are made of lead. Where it does totally nail the realism is the way the paint flies. When you shoot at an opponent you see where your paintball goes and, more often then not, it's a completely different direction than where you fired. Anybody whose actually played paintball will tell you right away that this is painfully realistic. This mod is pretty damn fun though, and it's a crying shame that there are no servers to play this baby online. Bots don't act like they're playing paintball, but I bet you could get people to.

Duffer's Golf is obviously a much more relaxed experience than the frenetic pace of the above mod. I have to admit it: for some reason, despite never having actually played the game, I am a sucker for golf videogames. This is a damn good one too. The beta only has one course so far, but it sure is a joy just whacking your way around it. The controls are really simple, you can play the whole game with just the mouse. Move the mouse to line up your shot, click once to start a power meter moving, click again to get the right amount of power, and click one more time as your golfer swings to let the shot go. As simple as it is right now in the beta stage: one course, one golfer, etc..., I have a total blast whenever I fire this mod up. Once this baby's got a few updates under it's belt it's definitely going to be one of my favorites.

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