Garry's Mod Review

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Garry's Mod Review

A review of Garry's Mod, the Source mod that went "gold" after Garry upgraded from version 9 to 10. As a result of the transition, the name became simply "Garry's Mod," and Valve officially published it. It can be purchased for $10 over Steam, Valve's digital distribution program.


System Requirements/Recommended Specs:

Minimum:

1.7 GHz Processor, 512MB RAM, DirectX® 8 level Graphics Card, Windows® Vista/XP/2000, Mouse, Keyboard, Internet Connection and a Source engine game with SDK (Almost any Source engine game, such as Counter-Strike Source or Half-Life 2, comes with SDK and will allow you to install and play Garry's Mod)

Recommended:

Pentium 4 processor (3.0GHz, or better), 1GB RAM, DirectX® 9 level Graphics Card, Windows® Vista/XP/2000, Mouse, Keyboard, Internet Connection


Who’s Garry, what’s so great about his 3rd party game, and why should I spend money on some mod made by some guy who lives in his basement?



Garry is the maker of Garry’s Mod, often abbreviated as Gmod, an award-winning sandbox game using Valve’s highly esteemed 3D game engine: Source. Garry’s Mod allows players to use the flexible and realistic engine in any way they like; they can use props to construct buildings or contraptions, they can spawn NPCs and use them as guinea pigs for hilarious and gruesome traps, they can pose ragdolls (a ragdoll is an NPC that is basically "dead"; you can throw it around and play with it like a doll) of Source game characters in complex ways by manipulating their joints and facial features, and much, much more. You can also choose to play single-player or online, with other players. It only costs $10 over Steam. Once you purchase it and see all you can do, you may actually be surprised it’s as cheap as it is.

Okay, so, what’s the point?

Garry’s Mod does not provide players with a set goal; it allows them to create their own world, environments, and stories with an easy-to-use interface. As Garry himself said: "Unlike normal games there aren't any predefined aims or goals."

If you crave a “point” very badly though, there are many player-made game modes, including Zombie Survival, Custom Weapon Deathmatch, Role-Playing, Fort Wars, and a hilarious hide-and-seek mode called Prop Hunt, in which the players are split into two teams, the props and the hunters. The props get a 30 second head start and can transform into any prop they see by targeting it and pressing the E key. Watching a group of shotgun-wielding police officers pumping lead into chairs, cups, and orange hazard cones to see if they’re actually hidden players is very entertaining. These are only a handful of custom game modes; there are dozens of other interesting and creative ones.

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This poorly hidden player disguised as a propane can is on the run from the police.

What if I just want to build stuff?

That’s what Garry’s Mod is all about! There are plenty of build-only servers where you can vent your imagination into the world around you for all other players to see. And if you just want to pose/create things for humorous screenshots or videos, you can simply play single-player. Limbs, joints, fingers, and even faces of ragdolls can be manipulated and placed into almost any pose you can think of. And to those of you with dirty minds: the answer to the question you are undoubtedly asking is yes.


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In contrast to his cool and carefree exterior, a player shows how Dr. Breen really feels inside as he talks to Gordon Freeman.

How much can I customize it? Do I have to use all of Garry’s and Valve’s props, or can I make my own?

Garry’s Mod is easily customizable. Players can create scripts, props, weapons, game modes, custom GUIs, all in Lua. They often come in the form of addons, which can be used simply by downloading them and sticking them into your Addons folder, like with World of Warcraft. The only problem with this is that if another player has an addon or a game that you don’t have, things that they spawn from that game or addon will show up as a red flashing 3D error sign to you. It’s a nuisance that you have to download a variety of player-made addons to play the game to its fullest on online servers, but you’ll eventually come to respect the amazing amount of work players put into those addons, and will have no problem downloading their new updates every month or so.

Also, items (props and ragdolls), weapons, NPCs, sounds/music, and effects can be imported from any other Source game you have, assuming the server (or the computer hosting the server) has those games as well. Want to annoy people with the “Still Alive” Salsa dance remix found in Portal? No problem! While in-game, just press “Q” (the button that opens up the Gmod spawning menu), go to the Portal folder, select the little Portal radio, hook up a speaker to it, and give that speaker the sound file you want. Now, anyone who also has Portal will hear the music when they are in vicinity of your radio.

Want to re-enact the Civil War, except with Team Fortress 2 characters? It takes but a moment to spawn all the red and blue ragdolls of the TF2 classes, as well as their respective weapons. Posing them may take some time, but it’s worth it in the end when you pose a Spy holding a knife above the back of a Heavy who is innocently browsing the Internet, in a realistic-looking room full of chairs, desks, a computer, and a monitor. And it’s even more fun (or heartbreaking, depending on how much time you spent on it) when you forget to make your props invincible to damage and some guy drives over your masterpiece in a red Ferrari and destroys your wooden objects and leaves your computer props in pieces.

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These two giant robots are about to battle to the death. I hope the server they're on has a good connection...

These are just a small number of the things you can create in Gmod. Make giant robot fights. Make a fort, get inside with a few friends, wield only shotguns, and spawn a horde of zombies outside. Make a speed course with ramps and such and then spawn a car and drive through it. Split into two teams and build citadels on each side of the map with destructible material, then build cannons and try to destroy the other team's building by shooting random objects like bricks, dolls, TVs, radios, plants, and monitors at high speed. Go on a water-based map, split into groups of 3, build pirate ships made of wood, and then destroy eachother with cannons. Spawn a big red button on a wall that says "DO NOT PRESS" in big red letters, and then make it so that a laser vaporizes anyone who presses it. Or even better, place a giant rock or antlion guard ragdoll or something above the button in the sky, then make it drop when the button is pressed.

There are endless possibilities.

Also, you can save your contraptions/constructions/buildings/traps/bizarre lizard fetish toys and spawn them again in-game (even when it's all done online and with other players) on a later day at the press of a button. Some people actually spend hours, days, or even weeks on their creations. The Dupe tool allows them to save their work and spawn them with ease. And, if you are very uncreative, you can actually download other people's creations off of the Internet, and spawn them in-game using the Dupe tool.

It all sounds kind of boring to me.

Although some of it may sound boring; for example, you may not be that interested in building contraptions, there are so many different things to see and do. I would recommend that everyone who has a decent amount of Source games, or even just one (which is the requirement), tries out Garry’s Mod, even if you typically aren’t that interested in sandbox games. You can have fun in the medley of combat game modes, you can build contraptions, or you can make a picture, a comic strip, or even a movie. Source is an innovative engine with very realistic physics; the amount of things you can do it with it are incredible.

Yes, you may get bored of it after a point. Most game modes are fairly shallow, and it can be difficult to find a good, mature, and full server for an in-depth mod that you enjoy playing. Why sit around all day throwing things around with the gravity gun in Half-Life 2, though, when you can play a game that’s based around just having free-range fun with Source?


Final Thoughts and Ratings

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Considering Garry's Mod uses Source, and that Source is a very realistic and visually appealing, it's impossible to give this a low score. However, I also took into account the fact that Garry's Mod mainly uses graphics of games or player-made addons. In fact, when you first start it up with a clean slate, most everything that can be spawned is simply an item, ragdoll, weapon, or NPC from Half-Life 2. Although Garry did implement a few Gmod-specific things (such as the bouncy ball, a few custom weapons, and a few other props), it mostly takes from other games, thus it is difficult to give it a static rating. Nonetheless, if you play with a hearty amount of Source games and well-designed addons, and keep all the settings on high, everything looks amazing.

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You can import almost any sound or music you like into Garry's Mod. I've had an amazing time creating radio towers on build servers and having them blast music from other games. There is a lot of sound mixing and overall audio potential in Garry's Mod.

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Some may think that this rating is a bit low. I had a tough time with it, but finally settled on an 8.5. Garry's Mod simply does not and typically cannot provide the level of action that you will find in an FPS like Call of Duty 4 or Halo 3. It is a sandbox mod, and there will be times where you will be bored with it. Many game modes typically seem exciting at a first glance, but once you get into them, you soon see that they lack depth, and it is difficult to play them for extended periods of time. New gamemodes are coming out every week, though, and there are hundreds of them, so it's hard to make a blanket statement regarding them (or any aspect of Gmod, really). I know I've had a lot of fun times in Garry's Mod, though, and you probably will too.

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Garry's Mod is a great game. It started out in 2005 as a very basic mod that allowed you to spawn props, create very basic contraptions, and use basic custom weapons. Over the years, it has advanced enormously, and what used to be a mod can now be called and sold as a retail game. Yes, it is made by a 3rd party, but Garry is a coding genius. In fact, you can talk to Garry at any time through IRC or on Facepunch, his forum (Facepunch link is below). Also, he did not make the game completely by himself; he had a lot of help from a dedicated team known simply as "Team Garry." You can find the people behind Garry's Mod here: [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]


As linked above, garrysmod.com is the official Gmod website: [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] If you are interested specifically in what you can do in Gmod, read this: [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

The official forum, which contains a lot of useful tips and all the Addons you'll ever need, is called Facepunch Studios: [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

For a bit of comic relief, and to show you an example, here's a Team Fortress 2 comic, made in Gmod.


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I also recommend you check out (and read every page of) the famous comic Concerned, detailing the life and adventures of Gordon Frohman, who bears no relation to Gordon Freeman. Here's the link: [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]