Photo Credit: DOMINIK KLIMCZAK

The Gm_construct map seen from the two towers.

Garry’s Mod, or Gmod for short, is a fun and addictive game found on the PC. Players can get this physics game for only $9.99 off of Steam. Steam (http://store.steampowered.com/about)  is a downloadable computer game shop that is free and uses only a single megabyte of memory on a computer. After making an account, you can get games for free or for a small fee. $20.00 gift cards can be found at Walgreens and other shops that sell gift cards. Within the game there are multiple tools or weapons a player can use to survive – a tool, physic, or gravity gun, a camera, other characters, props, weapons and vehicles. The player can also download other games to give them more characters and props. The game comes with two maps; one map is the GM_Constuct and the other is the GM_flatgrass.

The first map, Construct, is a tiny city with a small lake, a tiny dock area, two towers, a mini apartment building, a garage connected to the apartment building through a path, and a garage connected to an underground tunnel system.  There are also places you can only reach by flying. The apartment building has a top floor; perfect for stockpiling anything you can desire. The roofs are good places to put down enemies. For example, one tower has 5 floors and balconies everywhere, and there is a secret hidden room somewhere in the side of one of the buildings.

Flatgrass is a rather large and almost completely flat world. Only a single building rests upon the grass. The building is a tunnel with a roof, two bulky sides and a hidden chamber (try to find it if you can). There is enough room for any player to do what he can imagine -fill the world with civilians and make your own types of buildings, fight off hordes of  zombies with your finite resources, or fill the roof, the room and the grass with a multitude of props, characters, and vehicles.

The game uses many controls:

• WASD is used for movement.
• V is used to fly and move through objects.
• Z is used to delete.
• Q is used to open the spawn menu.
• C is used to open the player menu.
• Left Shift is to run, and Left Control is to crouch.
• Space is to jump.
• E is to use or grab objects. It can also be used to move objects with the physics tool.

The spawn lists include multiple tabs and categories. The first tab is the Spawnlists. It contains construction and comic props, a half-life category with ragdolls and props, a builder category, a counter strike category with ragdolls and props, and a utility tab with all your add-ons and materials from other games. The other tabs are weapons, entities, NPC’s, vehicles, post process, dupes and saves. To save, go to the Saves tab and hit save game. This may not always wok. There is also a workshop filled with player submitted, maps, vehicles, NPC’s, etc.

While most people would consider this a game for everyone, it really isn’t. While an open world aspect is a fun idea, as represented by the GTA series, Gmod does not have any goals or story line. Some people might be disappointed. However, with your building power, you can create your own story. Players can save their society from the enemy metro police, stop the combine armies, or fight zombies. In the end, if a player really wants to, they can make a world all their own.