There's an HD texture pack mod for Shenmue I & 2

Dreamcast classics Shenmue I & II were finally released on PC this month, and in his review Andy wrote: "This solid PC version is, happily, incredibly faithful to the source material. I’m glad Sega chose not to dramatically overhaul the visuals, because they’re a vital part of the game’s distinct character. But it has been prettied up a little, with a crisp HD interface, anti-aliasing, and some bloom lighting."

If you would like to overhaul those visuals though, prettying things up even more, modders are already here for you. Drogean, who was also responsible for one of our favorite Stardew Valley mods, has created this HD environmental texture overhaul. So far it's mostly roads and grass that have been improved, and you can see a comparison here. Drogean also has a mod for giving Ryo a sweet HD leather jacket, and another one that transforms the drink machines from generic soda dispensers to branded Coca-Cola machines like they were in the original version. To install any of these you'll first need to grab Special K's texture filtering fixes.

Thanks, DSOG.

Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.