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Half-Life 2 - A Canvas for Original Works
Moe Napoli writes "Nearly six months since its release, Half-Life 2 is not only making
ripples for its being a great game, but also for the works being made
from the game itself. Garry's Mod
(aka GMod) is a extremely popular and fun "sandbox" modification for
Half-Life 2, that allows you to play with the game's exceptional
physics engine as well as pose characters, create Rube Goldberg-type
devices and other physics phun inside of HL2. Taking advantage of GMod's
character posing, the compelling and professionally produced Apostasy
is an online comic that follows 3 characters
from the HL2 universe and is interwoven within and around the game's original
narrative. Still
Seeing Breen
is an excellent machinima music video created by intercutting the game
events with a singing G-Man - ultimately displaying Valve's powerful
FacePoser software (which comes with the game's SDK) and HL2's capabilities
for machinima development (spoiler alert for those who haven't
completed the game yet).
It's really great stuff - I'm looking forward to what the next six months brings."
You're missing the point. The whole reason this is posted as "news" is because it is reporting on the status of the mod community, showing that it is hard at work. It isn't praising Half-Life 2 as a game, it is praising it as a canvas. It's news to me, because I don't follow the mod community religiously. It turns out to be kind of hard to find good mods that don't just modify core play in the original game. All I ever seem to be able to find is a swath of mods that are still making models of guns.
I beg to differ.