I’m sometimes by the quality of some mods people create and distribute for free. Every gamer knows Far Cry, a shoot ’em up which received a lot of success at a time when everybody was waiting for Halflife 2, a very linear game in comparison. But everybody doesn’t know you can find free but nevertheless excellent quality extensions for it, excellent for their lasting appeal and quality, and not just for multiplayer mode. I’ve Matto 3 and Matto 4, the firs one is already beautiful but the second one is purely exceptional : even though the hero is still the same, they made up a totally new story compared to the original game, with a lot of humor (a bit like No One Lives Forever 2) and with a lot of references to movies and other video games. Yes I have said story, Not only there is a story but there also are a lot of kinematics and very good dialogue (with good actor playing too, it really seems professional). Graphically it’s beautiful, many very different levels from each other, no island as in the original game (but you do get outside parts, and very beautiful ones too, with sun rays going through leaves…) Technically it’s impressive, for example you can see some bullet shots through which light passes in man sized air vents (a Call of Duty 2 reference), gas bottles become uncontrollable missiles when you shoot their valve, low motion effects… I hardly understand how they could make such a jewel for free…
Matto 4
other mods

Another Farcry mod which deserves being discovered is Tuesday and Ark. Even this one uses CryEngine, it’s completely different to the original game, in terms of game-play (its’s an adventure game) and graphically. I didn’t stick to it too much, maybe because too many things don’t work just quite as they should, it’s an end of studies project, which wasn’t initially planned to be published, and you feel that, even though it’s finalized, it could have “pushed boundaries” more. Nevertheless graphically, and through the ambiance it creates, it’s a superb mod. Especially when you know only one person worked on it. That’s a good thing because ambiance was the project’s aim, a very innovative kind of game with a story but without dialogues. I hope the creator has had a well deserved success.
Tuesday & Ark