The ancient tradition of video games that still holds true today is this:If the game is overwhelmingly disappointing or falls short in some aspects, fans will come in and fix it themselves.
For the games lucky enough to have a functioning PC version with modding potential, or another way around that allows you to customize your experience, there will always be some improvements the devs didn’t make.
10 Best Terraria Mods of All Time
Terraria is one of the most modded games on Steam, but what are the best mods you can install?
I love it when fans go above and beyond for games they found to be unfinished, and I wanted to cover some ofthe best efforts to improve bad experiences, make games playable, and fix bad ports.
Any game with mods that is generally perceived as a bad game, or games with horrendous PC ports, can be included, and I mainly wanted to cover eight of my favorite efforts by dedicated fans.
8Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Slippery Slope
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
While I’m still a pretty big fan ofSuper Smash Bros. Brawl,the entire competitive community was genuinely outraged at how sluggish and odd it was, so it had to be fixed.
Project M is a very iconic mod that completely overhauls Brawl and turns it into something more akin to its predecessor, while keeping the new characters with some balance changes and reworking.
That isn’t the best mod for it nowadays, though, asProject+has become the definitive way to play Brawl, offering far improved physics on top of a hefty load of new content.
It’s very in-tune with the competitive community, and I’ve personally seen it run at locals and online tournaments alike, turning Brawl from a game unloved by competitive players to a genuinely brand-new experience.
7Sonic Adventure DX
Hastily Made
Sonic Adventure
You might be wondering why I, someone who putSonic Adventureasone of my favorite Sonic games, would put Sonic Adventure on this list. To put it simply, the PC port of Sonic Adventure is some hot garbage.
The two Adventure games got a half-decent port from the Dreamcast to the Gamecube, thenthat port got really buggy on the Xbox 360, and further degraded in quality on the move to the PC.
Best Risk of Rain 2 Mods You Need To Try
Risk of Rain 2 has one of the biggest, most dedicated modding communities ever, and these are some of the best.
Nowadays, the most accessible way to play these classic games is the absolute worst, but you can nab theDreamcast Restorationmod to convert the PC port back to a near-identical replica of the original experience.
On top of fixing a majority of the bugs introduced across the three ports, it changes back some of the weird decisions from the Gamecube versions, such as the weird model replacements they grandfathered in from SA2.
6The Sims 3
Ultimate Enhancement
The Sims 3
As an absolutely iconic series, I’m baffled with how well The Sims seems to perform despite the fact you can ask any dedicated fan of the series, and they’ll tell you the games are way better with mods.
The Sims 3is especially guilty of this, as it was made during an era where PC ports got churned out and weren’t great, and nowyou can’t even run that PC port on Windows 11 without a few modifications.
First of all, you needa fan-made patchfor the game to run at all, but while you’re at it, you might as well go down the list of the massivedocument detailing all the fixesyou could possibly want.
There’s way more than I can detail here, but modding will absolutely polish up all the flaws with the PC port on top of making your neighborhood feel alive, rather than everything staying stagnant.
5Garry’s Mod
Holding It Up
Garry’s Mod
This may be a hot take, butGarry’s Modwould be nothing without its modding community. It would be a small set of sandboxes to mess around in, and have no other value aside from that.
This isn’t a bad thing, but when people say Garry’s Mod is a great time, they mean it’s a great time when you shove a ton of mods into it and essentially turn it into an entirely new video game.
It was absolutely built to be modified to all hell, making it into a hub of tons of creative minigames, with some players being so creative they made the foundations for anentirely new game, Tower Unite, based off GMod Towers.
All the mods seem to barely hit the performance, and make for an incredible experience. This is almost definitely the reason the game has never seen a life outside the PC.
4Fallout: New Vegas
The Wasted Land
Fallout: New Vegas
If you disagree with this entry, I’d implore you to go boot up vanillaFallout: New Vegason modern PC hardware,count the amount of bugs, crashes, and frustrations within a few hours, then report back.
At least nowadays,the PC version of New Vegas is nigh unplayable without at the very least throwing on a modto prevent the endlessnumber of crashes, because Bethesda isn’t interested in patching the game ever.
But while you’re already getting mods, there’s no reason not to grab mods to make the textures look a whole lot nicer, make the characters not uncanny valley levels of janky, and a few gameplay tweaks.
In particular,Project Nevadaadds a ton of variety in weaponry, armor, and generally throws a ton of extra variety in to spice up the gameplay, all in service of making repeat playthroughs way more interesting.
The Wild West
While I have a nostalgic fondness for the ugly, janky gameSpore, it’s no doubt thatthis game had a huge well of potential that was left dried up by EA’s scummy business practices, which was always a bit tragic.
As an aside, I’m usually not a fan of when mods put “better” in the title, as they put themselves on a podium they’ll never actually live up to. Unless, of course, you’reBetterSpore, where they actually fulfill that promise.
This mod completely overhauls the UI and makes it a hell of a lot more intuitive, adds in unused creature creator parts, completely overhauls the Creature and Space stages, and improves the game drastically.
It feels like what the game could have been if it were given the development time it should have had, and while I wish the other stages got as much love as the two main overhauls, it makes the entire game way more fun.
2Pokémon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl
A Remake Remade
Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl
It’s no secret thatPokémonfans have had quite the distaste for the recent entries, and nowhere is that more evident than the reception towards Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, the Gen 4 remakes.
These games were done by an entirely separate team, going for the worst versions of the classic titles instead of the far superior Platinum, and doing it all in an art style that heavily divided opinion.
Luckily, there’s a bevy of mods out there to solve the biggest issues with these lackluster remakes, namelyLuminescent Platinum, a mod taking in features from Platinumas well as a ROM hackcalled Renegade Platinum.
That won’t be to everyone’s tastes, so even if you don’t want all that,you can still get drastic improvements, like 60 FPS, speed up for the incredibly slow battles, and mods to change the character models however you wish.
1Starbound
Underbaked Space
While on a first playthrough,Starboundis a flawed but fun game that still feels impressive, any other time you boot up the vanilla game you’ll immediately be bored by the terrible progression and monotonous planets.
This game is likeif every complaint from the first release of No Man’s Sky were implemented into a clone of Terrariathat felt really janky and is nowhere near as fun to play, but luckily, it has Steam Workshop support.
With this, you’re able to get mods to add tons of new species, new flora and fauna to the bland planets, completely rework the progression, and change up the movement to your liking, making the game feel entirely different.
It doesn’t feel like that mind-numbingly slow and boring experience when you have mods on, instead, there’s something new to see around the corner and it never gets old, especially because you’re able to always add more mods.
10 Old Games That Look Amazing With Graphics Mods
Have you ever wanted to play a game from your childhood, but the thought of staring at ancient graphics just turns you away?
