There are mods and then there are mods. Sure the general definition, say the wikipedia one, of the term mod fits a lot of them out there. Whether it is something like Counter-Strike which started off as a mod and introduces new gameplay styles or something like Minerva which is a single player mod for Half-Life 2 that could fairly easily fit into the world of Half-Life. Then there are unofficial patches like those for Vampire The Masquerade – Bloodlines. One one hand we have the creation of new content and on the other we have the fixing of content.
Recently, however, I ran into something that is somewhere in between. I bought Resident Evil 4 for PC a few months ago but only started playing it recently. I took so long to play it because I had heard that it was an inferior port from the console versions. However, then I ran across a website for Resident Evil 4 mods.
Now they call them mods but are they really? What I downloaded was a texture pack with textures from the Gamecube version but also a few newly made textures. Is it fixing the game like an unofficial patch? Is it creating new content? I don’t know.
I’m also curious as to why they go to this trouble. I’m glad they do so I can get a better experience playing the game but I’m just not sure what is in it for them?
I would write some more about it but I’ve got to go play some more…