Game modification

A Quick Introduction

Gaming has been an important part of my life, as it has shaped a number of my decisions and choices and helped expand my imagination. You could say that gaming can be a little bit like programming; you are presented with a problem or puzzle and you have to solve it and sometimes, the head-on approach isn’t exactly the best approach. A number of games encourage you to play tactically. For example, you shouldn’t rush into the battlefield head on in Call of Duty, or maybe you should consider crunching a few numbers to tune your cars in Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport. However, when it comes to gaming, the imagination factor is probably the best part of it.

The Beauty of Modding

Which is why I wanted to discuss modding. Take modding like going to a buffet or making yourself a hamburger; you essentially take as much as your plate (or your stomach in some cases) can handle. Sometimes it can be based off of your level of satisfaction, other times based on whether your hardware (i.e. CPU, GPU, Storage, etc.) can handle it. I feel like when you mod (or modify) a game to your likings, it helps immerse players into the environment that they explore. Sometimes they use mod files that people created, other times they mess around with the in-game graphics to have a mood that suits the situation. While it isn’t strictly a PC-only thing (at the time of this post, modding has been released on Xbox and PlayStation to some degree), it’s best experienced there. I’ve spent countless hours, finding the best filters and modifications, editing values, talking with fellow modders and so on to give Grand Theft Auto V a true California feel. Or maybe Fallout 4 that creepy feeling of living in a post-nuclear apocalypse.

A form of Gaming Art

A friend of mine described modding as a form of art. Maybe it isn’t the art that a lot of people are used to seeing, such as paintings or maybe messing around with camera values to acquire a perfect image on the focal point. However, it certainly is a unique form of art. There are those out there who are naturally gifted with the ability to draw and paint amazing pictures, but I’m not one of them. However, I can try and create my own works when playing games, turn something that was already great into something even better. Modding is what made me want to learn programming, to learn software engineering and game design, and it will continue to do so for as long as I live.