- Joined
- May 29, 2010
- Messages
- 35,660
There's a previous Shadowrun mod thread, but it's 90% toolset discussion, so anyone looking for user generated content assessments will have a difficult time of it. Hardly anyone talks about these things, and I think some of them could use some exposure.
Dead Man's Switch
Trivia Night Chapter One
Short and low in scope, but utterly hilarious writing.
Just Another Milk Run
Also short and low in scope, weird balance, too wordy for its own good.
The Price of Conviction - Coyotes Crusade
Short combat-oriented fan-fic with light role playing that determines which battles you face, decently mediocre.
Nightmare Harvest
Perhaps they patched it, but Roxor was wrong about the two mandatory fist fights; you get a pistol at the beginning. Decent scope with entertaining writing and moments, but it's somewhat-amateurishly scripted and bit crawly with poor spammy encounter design and weird AI behavior. The endgame is a bit too combat heavy. The ending is amusing, but will make serious people/canon purists flip.
From the Shadows, Run
Act 1 is but the rest is
Lot of different checks throughout, but it railroads you into playing a melee or spellcasting character if you want to take the path of least resistance at the beginning. Lot of combat, pretty decent writing though. The Shadowrun equivalent of Swordflight with its bad beginning and restrictive approach to resource management. The third act has a greater scope than the the previous acts combined, showing the author's growing confidence with the editor, though it's actually a bit too long. Amusingly enough, this is actually technically unfinished, since the mod author mentioned working on act 4 in the comments section of 3, but it has what could be considered an open ending.
Jacked-Up
Forces you to play as a default character (who's a black guy) which I'm sure quite a number of you won't like. Okay writing, a number of scripting bugs, sloppy use of "New Actor" NPCs, typos, and the second part is a series of fetch quests in a large hub with long loading times; the engine isn't suited for that kind of level design. Also features a dumb optional cannibal restaurant location. Starts out easy, but has a huge difficulty spike at the end with tons of mobs in narrow corridors. Its far-too-ambitious ideas are only hinted at, no actual ending.
Silver Angel
You're railroaded into fully speccing into pistols to survive a tough battle right at the start. Stealth section, pretty high difficulty, not-so-good writing. Lousy level design with few cover spots against high hp enemies. Unfinished, ends abruptly.
Food Fight
A quick adaptation of Baby's First Run with rather wonky-feeling scripting. The Nexus Mods version doesn't work, go fig.
Stuffer Shack
Another adaptation of baby's first run. Lower in scope, and as a result feels far more polished.
Razor's Edge
First two chapters Third chapter
Don't care for the plot that railroads you into stupidity or the obvious author self-insert, but the third chapter of this is a fantastic prison break that's worth going through the other parts. Unfinished though.
Antumbra
Chapter one is an okay-if-easy one-hour crawl with light role playing. The writing is okay, if a bit too wordy. Chapter two is four hours of more of the same, though it ramps up the difficulty by the end and gets a little too combat dense for my tastes. It's also frustrating how you keep meeting the final boss and he keeps running away even though killing him is well within your capabilities (at one point I got his health down to zero as he ran away, but he was flagged as immortal because the author had a particular climax in mind). Chapter three significantly increases the ambition (around 10-11 hours), sometimes to its detriment; one of the early levels has a bunch of NPCs that force you to wait minutes for them to finish their moving about. Nice time pressure mission that comes right after it though. Battles tend to be on the long side since the author has become incredibly fond of unlimited respawning enemies. The endgame once again goes for too long and ends with a dragon ex machina (though I can't blame the author, apparently this is Shadowrun canon).
February 29, 2020 Additions:
Seattle Blues
Between and
A simple, tough linear single-character combat crawl with okay writing. Given how amateurish the scripting is, it's a good thing the modder didn't try anything more ambitious.
Trivia Night Chapter Two (Incomplete)
Still hilarious, but just suddenly ends, unfortunately. Funny thing is that the modder could have just wrapped things up pretty quickly, but his ambitions got the better of him.
Hong Kong
The Enemy of My Enemy
Short combat-focused run, light role playing, pretty swell gay orc companion, decent writing from someone who sounds like he has experience with bad bosses at small places.
Good Intentions
Too-Wordy, too-expressive writing that comes across as ESL in places. Starts out as a non-combat puzzler, then turns into a regular run complete with mandatory stealth matrix. Several hours worth of content. Edit: I accidentally played an outdated version. The one on Steam has had updates that allegedly fix a lot of the ESL.
The Caldecott Caper
More from the author of Antumbra. Not thrilled with the plot, which involves your partner getting you deep into medical debt after saving your life. Combat-dense in the beginning, exacerbated by enemies having more health than in Antumbra. At least he doesn't bother with the stealth minigame for the matrix sections. The author comes across as too self-congratulatory in the commentary nodes, though he has improved. Obtaining the rigger for your heist also railroads you into stupidity, and she's a romance option despite being too dumb and impulsive. The romance lines are also incredibly cringey and I avoided taking them out of concern that the character would make fun of me for saying them (but apparently she does not, which says a lot about the modder). The Wire reference was amusing though, as is pulling off the heist itself. Falls into the usual trap of having an endgame that goes on for too long, though thankfully only one small map has the unlimited respawning enemies.
CalFree in Chains
Conclusion to the Antumbra/Caldecott Caper saga. As long if not longer than Dead Man's Switch. Feels like more of the same at first; the narrative is a remix of Antumbra 3 and The Caldecott Caper. Has the most interesting and unique builds when it comes to companions. Encounter design is often wave based like Dragon Age II (reinforcements don't pop out of nowhere though). There's an actual "Somehow, Shavarus has returned" moment because he needed a boss fight, though it comes with a big ramp in difficulty. Rolled my eyes a bit at the protec/attac reference. Finally has non-combat oriented missions which was a welcome change of pace though I ended up doing all three in a row. The run where you have to constantly open and close airlocks to proceed is also annoying with its tediousness, but at least the combat's optional. Too many long, drawn out Matrix sections. Features a sudden non-consensual kiss, though fortunately the one doing it is my type physically (personality-wise, an emotional wreck). The difficulty spikes hard near the end (though it tapers off) when it goes full Nazi Concentration Camps with the plot, though this is apparently canon to the setting (Thanks, Weisman). In the commentary nodes, the author reveals himself as an antifa sympathizer, a Disney shill who is both cynical and fabulously optimistic about their progressive agenda, and a dummy who thinks that gay people getting bad ends in fiction is "harmful and damaging." At least I finally got to fuck the supervillain-in-training dwarf after nearly three games, though it's inelegantly set up in an inappropriate spot, loser that the author remains (see what VD said about Witcher 2). For once, the endgame actually isn't a slog, bravo. Unfortunately, the fat loser who was run over by a car at that thing a few years ago is in the thanks section . I regret reading the commentary and paying attention to the credits, because otherwise this is some solid professional-quality work (though still flawed like professional-work often is). He could definitely be a professional game designer if he wanted to be (though he could use an editor to dial back the word count and a lead to dial back the combat density).
That's a month's worth of mods. I'm surprised at the number I liked, given that I disliked most of what I played from Neverwinter Nights. It's true I'm biased towards the setting, and the core gameplay being more to my tastes than NWN's doesn't hurt. There possibly might be a few more I could be interested in on the Steam Workshop that were never mirrored at the Nexus, but I have had my fill for the time being.
Dead Man's Switch
Trivia Night Chapter One
Short and low in scope, but utterly hilarious writing.
Just Another Milk Run
Also short and low in scope, weird balance, too wordy for its own good.
The Price of Conviction - Coyotes Crusade
Short combat-oriented fan-fic with light role playing that determines which battles you face, decently mediocre.
Nightmare Harvest
Perhaps they patched it, but Roxor was wrong about the two mandatory fist fights; you get a pistol at the beginning. Decent scope with entertaining writing and moments, but it's somewhat-amateurishly scripted and bit crawly with poor spammy encounter design and weird AI behavior. The endgame is a bit too combat heavy. The ending is amusing, but will make serious people/canon purists flip.
From the Shadows, Run
Act 1 is but the rest is
Lot of different checks throughout, but it railroads you into playing a melee or spellcasting character if you want to take the path of least resistance at the beginning. Lot of combat, pretty decent writing though. The Shadowrun equivalent of Swordflight with its bad beginning and restrictive approach to resource management. The third act has a greater scope than the the previous acts combined, showing the author's growing confidence with the editor, though it's actually a bit too long. Amusingly enough, this is actually technically unfinished, since the mod author mentioned working on act 4 in the comments section of 3, but it has what could be considered an open ending.
Jacked-Up
Forces you to play as a default character (who's a black guy) which I'm sure quite a number of you won't like. Okay writing, a number of scripting bugs, sloppy use of "New Actor" NPCs, typos, and the second part is a series of fetch quests in a large hub with long loading times; the engine isn't suited for that kind of level design. Also features a dumb optional cannibal restaurant location. Starts out easy, but has a huge difficulty spike at the end with tons of mobs in narrow corridors. Its far-too-ambitious ideas are only hinted at, no actual ending.
Silver Angel
You're railroaded into fully speccing into pistols to survive a tough battle right at the start. Stealth section, pretty high difficulty, not-so-good writing. Lousy level design with few cover spots against high hp enemies. Unfinished, ends abruptly.
Food Fight
A quick adaptation of Baby's First Run with rather wonky-feeling scripting. The Nexus Mods version doesn't work, go fig.
Stuffer Shack
Another adaptation of baby's first run. Lower in scope, and as a result feels far more polished.
Razor's Edge
First two chapters Third chapter
Don't care for the plot that railroads you into stupidity or the obvious author self-insert, but the third chapter of this is a fantastic prison break that's worth going through the other parts. Unfinished though.
Antumbra
Chapter one is an okay-if-easy one-hour crawl with light role playing. The writing is okay, if a bit too wordy. Chapter two is four hours of more of the same, though it ramps up the difficulty by the end and gets a little too combat dense for my tastes. It's also frustrating how you keep meeting the final boss and he keeps running away even though killing him is well within your capabilities (at one point I got his health down to zero as he ran away, but he was flagged as immortal because the author had a particular climax in mind). Chapter three significantly increases the ambition (around 10-11 hours), sometimes to its detriment; one of the early levels has a bunch of NPCs that force you to wait minutes for them to finish their moving about. Nice time pressure mission that comes right after it though. Battles tend to be on the long side since the author has become incredibly fond of unlimited respawning enemies. The endgame once again goes for too long and ends with a dragon ex machina (though I can't blame the author, apparently this is Shadowrun canon).
February 29, 2020 Additions:
Seattle Blues
Between and
A simple, tough linear single-character combat crawl with okay writing. Given how amateurish the scripting is, it's a good thing the modder didn't try anything more ambitious.
Trivia Night Chapter Two (Incomplete)
Still hilarious, but just suddenly ends, unfortunately. Funny thing is that the modder could have just wrapped things up pretty quickly, but his ambitions got the better of him.
Hong Kong
The Enemy of My Enemy
Short combat-focused run, light role playing, pretty swell gay orc companion, decent writing from someone who sounds like he has experience with bad bosses at small places.
Good Intentions
Too-Wordy, too-expressive writing that comes across as ESL in places. Starts out as a non-combat puzzler, then turns into a regular run complete with mandatory stealth matrix. Several hours worth of content. Edit: I accidentally played an outdated version. The one on Steam has had updates that allegedly fix a lot of the ESL.
The Caldecott Caper
More from the author of Antumbra. Not thrilled with the plot, which involves your partner getting you deep into medical debt after saving your life. Combat-dense in the beginning, exacerbated by enemies having more health than in Antumbra. At least he doesn't bother with the stealth minigame for the matrix sections. The author comes across as too self-congratulatory in the commentary nodes, though he has improved. Obtaining the rigger for your heist also railroads you into stupidity, and she's a romance option despite being too dumb and impulsive. The romance lines are also incredibly cringey and I avoided taking them out of concern that the character would make fun of me for saying them (but apparently she does not, which says a lot about the modder). The Wire reference was amusing though, as is pulling off the heist itself. Falls into the usual trap of having an endgame that goes on for too long, though thankfully only one small map has the unlimited respawning enemies.
CalFree in Chains
Conclusion to the Antumbra/Caldecott Caper saga. As long if not longer than Dead Man's Switch. Feels like more of the same at first; the narrative is a remix of Antumbra 3 and The Caldecott Caper. Has the most interesting and unique builds when it comes to companions. Encounter design is often wave based like Dragon Age II (reinforcements don't pop out of nowhere though). There's an actual "Somehow, Shavarus has returned" moment because he needed a boss fight, though it comes with a big ramp in difficulty. Rolled my eyes a bit at the protec/attac reference. Finally has non-combat oriented missions which was a welcome change of pace though I ended up doing all three in a row. The run where you have to constantly open and close airlocks to proceed is also annoying with its tediousness, but at least the combat's optional. Too many long, drawn out Matrix sections. Features a sudden non-consensual kiss, though fortunately the one doing it is my type physically (personality-wise, an emotional wreck). The difficulty spikes hard near the end (though it tapers off) when it goes full Nazi Concentration Camps with the plot, though this is apparently canon to the setting (Thanks, Weisman). In the commentary nodes, the author reveals himself as an antifa sympathizer, a Disney shill who is both cynical and fabulously optimistic about their progressive agenda, and a dummy who thinks that gay people getting bad ends in fiction is "harmful and damaging." At least I finally got to fuck the supervillain-in-training dwarf after nearly three games, though it's inelegantly set up in an inappropriate spot, loser that the author remains (see what VD said about Witcher 2). For once, the endgame actually isn't a slog, bravo. Unfortunately, the fat loser who was run over by a car at that thing a few years ago is in the thanks section . I regret reading the commentary and paying attention to the credits, because otherwise this is some solid professional-quality work (though still flawed like professional-work often is). He could definitely be a professional game designer if he wanted to be (though he could use an editor to dial back the word count and a lead to dial back the combat density).
That's a month's worth of mods. I'm surprised at the number I liked, given that I disliked most of what I played from Neverwinter Nights. It's true I'm biased towards the setting, and the core gameplay being more to my tastes than NWN's doesn't hurt. There possibly might be a few more I could be interested in on the Steam Workshop that were never mirrored at the Nexus, but I have had my fill for the time being.
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