23:13, 26 October 2009 | 10 Comments | [ Add comment]

It's now been quite a while since the close of the Millionth Member Competition for Fallout 3 Nexus. While the competition blurb stated that the judging would be done by myself and a panel of judges I decided a while ago that I wanted to do it myself; several authors spent a lot of time to create community mods for Fallout 3 Nexus that I really wanted to play through thoroughly myself and give them the time and attention they deserved.

First of all let me say it was a real pleasure and an honour to play through all the mods that had been specifically made for this site. It was clear a good deal of thought and effort had been put in to the mods and I had the hard task of trying to rank them in order to hand out tiered prizes. Remember, first gets $125 in Amazon vouchers, second gets $75 and third gets $50. Without further ado, I'll list the winners, with the top prize winner at the top and I'll provide a little blurb with each one.



Top prize winner - Banished by Barrenzye
Banished wasn't a particularly long mod. Banished wasn't a particularly deep, technical or hard mod. But from the start to the finish I can honestly say I had fun throughout, from the ease of the install and the conveniently provided save file all the way through to the amusing end the mod made me laugh, grin and smile. The precursor story provided was entertaining to read and set the background well, the mod itself (played from the save file) kept you going and was straight forward and nothing hard. Perfectly short and concise, the mod ends amusingly, never making you jump through tedious hoops or over stepping its pre-set bounds.





Second prize winner - JaySus Commonwealth of Modders by JaySus
Clearly JaySuS put a hell of a lot of time in to this mod creating a whole new landmass with lots of buildings, interesting NPCs and quests. Obviously of particular interest to me were the NPCs based off of community members, including myself as an amusing "The Fly" style bug suited man! Sure enough I had fun on the troll hunt, finally attacking the troll queen with my band of moderators. As a minor criticism, and one that's a testament to the sheer amount of work JaySuS put in to this mod, it almost feels like too much has been put in to the mod, it's quite overbearing! A great piece of work, it was a real pleasure (if not quite time consuming endeavour) playing through this mod.





Third prize winner - The Magnetic War 2 by FrankSlimski
This mod was probably one of the most combat focused and intense mods I've played to date for Fallout 3. Chock block of enemies to kill from the three major Fallout 3 factions (Brotherhood, Enclave, Talons) this was a veritable shoot 'em up. Unfortunately the mod did feel like it had been made with the concept of the community, what the mod competition was for, in the background, playing a supporting role to that of the initial purpose of the mod. While mentions of the community are made, it wasn't until right at the end when I saw Dark0ne chasing Buddah that I had a slight giggle as I watched the two fight away. Feeling the need to help myself I started shooting Buddah which turned them both on me. A very entertaining mod (minus the fact if you missed a key for a locked door you had to spend 10 minutes going back through each level searching for it!) and very well made.




Congratulations to all the winners, you will be contacted by forum PM soon to discuss the delivery of your prizes. I want to thank them all again for spending the time to create these brilliant mods, and give a special shout out to ralf1234's "The League of the Nexus". Ralf had some lofty ambitions for his mod and I think it could be absolutely brilliant with a bit more work and a bit more time. I really admire his desire to learn through creating that mod. He'll also be receiving a $10 Amazon voucher for taking part and being patient while waiting for me to judge the competition.