ModDB

This is a great website with a humongous community, making modifications for download to add to video games that you have and also full stand-alone games for download, for free. There is a great rating system on the mods and files and the commenting system is also good. With a account you can also track and report mods, etc.

The forums on the website are also very helpful, if you ever have a problem or question about the mods, or just want to talk about random things, the forums is a good place.

Best website for mods,

Bored with your video game? Get a mod, start again. Especially if you have a classic first-person PC game such as Half Life, Half Life 2, Freelancer, GTA4, or the many others which are accessible to these guys with way too much time on their hands. Modding, in broad terms, is modifying an existing game, perhaps by small things such as adding new objects, or changing some rules, or at the other end of the scale, reworking the whole thing as a total conversion with entirely new characters, stories, weapons and environments.

Many game creators have released versions of their "game engines" too, which allow new games to be written and much more advanced mods than were possible a few years back. All mods are free, by the way, and may be a bit on the buggy side or may be polished to perfection. This is all fan stuff, nothing official and nothing commercial.

There are various ways to add mods to specific games, I'm going to leave that the to creators to explain. One way or another, though, if you're still playing a much-loved FPS, and it's much-loved by lots more folks than yourself, there's probably a mod or two out there for it. Even if it's only a new map to add something extra to a mission, or alterations to the game rules to make it more challenging or realistic, most of the classic games have their mods and ways to launch them. Look also for high-resolution mods to games which were made in the days when 800 x 600 x 24 colors was available only at the highest end of the hardware range, and Quake III had a setting that nobody could play because no graphics card was yet that good.

This is the easiest way to get a new game for free, and still play something you enjoy and know your way around.

The above refers to PC games, which take precedence on the site too, but I was surprised to find all the games consoles with a presence here, even the Wii, and now the iPhone is attracting the interest of the modding community too.

I am tempted to observe that modding older games to extend their lives and attract new audiences of players has become more useful over the years, as software houses have increasingly released commercial games that suck. I don't think I will, though. That would be cruel.