This year’s publicly voted for crop (as with most year’s crops) was heavy on mods for old-school shooters, though mostly not too old-school for me to skip them. Second place was won by impressive S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call Of Pripyat overhaul Anomaly, while first place went to Half-Life 2 mod Entropy: Zero 2. Check ’em out below, along with the runner ups.
I won’t list all ten winners, so I’ll instead leave you to peruse ModDB’s full list, which includes a mod stuffed with Half-Life 2’s cut content and a CS:GO mod that makes it more like CS classic. Let’s hone in on the top two.
Dominic Tarason praised S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Anomaly to high heaven way back in 2019, but it’s earned its place on 2022’s list thanks to substantial and ongoing updates. It’s a huge and hugely detailed overhaul, combining environments from all three current S.T.A.L.K.E.R games into the irradiated wasteland of your dreams. Dominic called it the next best thing to a sequel, so it might well tide you over until the actual sequel hopefully arrives sometime later this year. You can download Anomaly here.
Entropy: Zero 2, meanwhile, is an overhaul mod for Half: Life 2, jazzing up the combat with new effects, enemies, weapons and enemy AI while dispatching you on a custom campaign as a combine officer. Being the bad guy also means you get to boss around “a small army of Combine synths and soldiers”, in a campaign the creators describe as “a narrative driven experience with a fully-voiced and choreographed cast”. You can download it straight from Steam.
Mods! Here’s to another year of ’em.
