One complaint I always hear from people trying to get into modding games on PC is how difficult it can be. I wouldn’t personally say that modding is difficult, but I will admit that it can be pretty involved. Luckily, there is an easier way! Introducing the Steam Workshop.

The Steam Workshop allows PC players easy and safe access to mods. There are limitations to what workshop mods can be. Most mods reuse or replace assets that are already in the games you are modding. Entirely new content on the scale of externally sourced mods or ROM hacks is uncommon on the workshop, but the convenience of using workshop mods makes it worth it. Installing a mod from the Steam Workshop is super easy!

To install a mod from the workshop, first you must pick a game in your library that has workshop support. Then you must find that game’s workshop page. Finally just select a mod you want and press the green button.

It’s that easy.

Any mods you subscribe to will be automatically installed or updated next time you play the game they are for. Most workshop supported games have an in-game page that will let you manage the mods you have installed. To get familiar with this system again for this blog I dusted off my copy of Left 4 Dead 2 and fired it up.

Left 4 Dead 2 is a perfect example of how such a convenient system can go a bit wrong. With such easy installation, its easy for the number of mods to get out of hand. So a lot of the time workshop supported games devolve into a mess of over 100 mods, with almost no mods meant to go together. Just coming back to Left 4 Dead 2 today I was greeted with a few error messages for my trouble.

This is an inconvenience, sure. But don’t mistake having a chaotic mod library as an entirely bad thing. This can make your games a total mess, but it can also make your games a total mess!

Mod destruction is a weird and wonderful way to breath new life into a game and Left 4 Dead 2 does this very well. As standard the game is a fun zombie shooter but the appeal runs out after a bit. With a few dozen mods Left 4 Dead 2 becomes a surreal horror game about killing hoards of fish as Princess Peach. On top of that every special enemy in the game is something different. Half of the time I don’t know what is coming after me and its pure chaos. The other half of the time I’m fighting the Heavy Weapons Guy from Team Fortress 2.

Also, yes. He has his Sandvich.

The audio is also all over the place, the music is a mishmash of pop culture music. The main menu has the titular music of Rick Astley playing in the background. Left 4 Dead 2’s Tanks, the Heavy in my game, are accompanied with Country Roads by John Denver. The voices are also a total mess. For example the Witches (some of the strongest enemies in the game) are now voiced by Dora the Explorer. This somehow only serves to make that enemy more intimidating, even with a mismatched model from Pokémon.

There were also other characters in play that I couldn’t get decent shots of such as Baby Mario and Peter Griffin. Those were the few characters with correct sound effects. There was also a tub of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream (voiced by Crash Bandicoot, obviously) that I couldn’t get a good picture of either, The last enemy is some dragon that replaces the Spitter, I have no idea where it came from.

The other players seen throughout these pictures are players found in online matchmaking. I have no idea who they really are.

By now I think the point is clear. Mods can spiral out of control until games are barely recognizable. I’ve only talked about the changed enemies and this post is at 641 words. Weapons and friendly characters are also changed mostly beyond recognition.

With Steam Workshop you can install mods to your heart’s content and then some. The mods can spiral out of hand with how easy they are to install, but that is not always a bad thing. Destroying a game with mods is stupid fun and is always a different experience for everyone. You can keep mods tasteful, but that is a blog for another time.

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Some time ago I talked briefly about ROM hacks in a blog talking about emulators. ROM hacks are an incredible creative medium for aspiring developers, as well as a content goldmine for players. With a bit of digging you can find anything from satisfying new stories to meatier challenges for experienced players. What about the people that enjoy banging their head against the wall?

It turns out that this niche is filled in the form of Super Mario 64 Chaos Edition. At some point a few years ago the content creator Kaze Emanuar came up with the Chaos Edition hack. The way it works is simple on paper. The base game is unchanged in terms of map design, but a variety of effects are applied at random. This ranges from graphics, to gravity, to controls. The full list of effects can be found here.

What isn’t simple is how this translates to the game. The effects applied can be more than one at a time, the most I have ever been able to count at once is 6. But I would not be surprised if there could be more at once. This could make for a nice fun time with just moon gravity applied. Or you could be a signpost that can’t turn left running around in corrupted texture hell while Mario sings you a jaunty tune and also coins are now exploding ghosts. Either scenario is not an exaggeration either, Super Mario 64 Chaos Edition can go from 0-100 out of nowhere.

Before writing this I took a few minutes to give Chaos Edition another shot and refresh my memory. Once I had the game up and running everything seemed a bit calmer than I remembered. I was able to get all the way into a level with nothing happening.

Never mind.

Chaos Edition’s true colors started to shine through the moment I let my guard down. The game was in full chaos swing out of nowhere and I was just along for the ride. What are you even supposed to do when the entire map is flipping out?

After a few minutes of pain, I moved over to Bob-omb Battlefield. The situation there was a bit more manageable. The only problem at first was some odd gravity and exploding Goombas.

That calm hardly lasted. Most of my time in the level looked more like this.

This was still more manageable than the previous stage I had tried. Even with the camera in another zip code and sideways, I still nearly managed to beat Footrace with Koopa the Quick.

At the end of the race every object in the level came to me all at once. This messed up the spawn of the Power Star and soft-locked the game. At that point my refresher on Super Mario 64 Chaos Edition was over.

Super Mario 64 Chaos Edition can be a thrill to play. This ROM hack can be brutal to try to beat a few challenges casually. However, there are people that have collected all 120 stars in the game. That alone is a feat in itself, but there are people that speedrun Super Mario 64 Chaos Edition! This hack is well worth checking out whether you are a casual player looking for a laugh, or a hardened player looking for a challenge. Everything you need to know about getting this hack can be found on Kaze Emanuar’s YouTube Channel.

While you are at his channel, you can also take a look at some other hacks he has come up with. There are a lot of really good Super Mario 64 hacks that are a lot of fun. If you want more chaos, Emanuar has also done a chaos edition for The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. But that is a blog for another time.

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