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We Are The Lambda Generation. LambdaGeneration is a website dedicated to the video game Half-Life. ( We're basically really passionate about crowbars, headcrabs and anyone who has goatee with a PhD in theoretical physics… )

Date:

Wednesday, September 25th, 2013

Articles posted during Wednesday September 25th 2013

Introductions, Steam Pipes and Surface Tension: A Modding News Roundup

Half-Life

Hello! Welcome to the Modding and Development section, where we hope to bring you more news, reviews and discussion about the latest maps and mods than you can shake a Hammer at.

I’m MisterAddy, one of the new editors at LambdaGeneration. You may recognise me as a regular at PlanetPhillip.com and this very site, as well as being a long-time lurker on the Steam Forums. I am mostly a single-player gamer so I love everything Half-Life and Portal, and will help keep you up to date with community content to help ease the SP drought.

And I, hscsguy – co-editor of Modding and Development here at Lambda Generation – am assisting in the development of this monster of an article. Like MisterAddy, I too am a fan of single player games and mods alike with a fascination of Half Life 2 multiplayer mods on the side. I am pretty active over at the forums on Steam and avidly watch over the Source modding community to an embarrassing degree. And without further ado, I leave you with that exceedingly cliché phrase as we move on to the news you came here to read.

“Escape From City-17 Part 3” Teaser Released, IndieGoGo Campaign Launched

Half-Life

Over the years we’ve seen some truly stunning fan-made movies, based on pretty much every major Valve game. Everything from low budget Counter-Strike videos in first person to live action masterpieces like “Portal: Outside Aperture”. One of the more famous ones, when it comes to Half-Life related films, is the Purchase Brothers’ “Escape From City 17”, a guerrilla styled short released back in 2009 as the first of two episodes, both made on a $500 budget.

Now the creators have surprised us, with a teaser for a new episode.

The Problem with Steam Trading Cards

Steam

With Valve having recently released the full version of their new ‘Steam Trading Cards’ feature, after a surprisingly short beta period, there has been much discussion around the Internet about the purpose and usefulness of the system. Some have praised the system as another way for allowing users to get more involved in the Steam Community, and rewarding dedicated Steam users; others, however, have criticized the system as being gimmicky and even exploitative, and nothing more than a money-making scheme on Valve’s part.

A quick run-down for those of you who are unfamiliar with the system: Steam Trading Cards allows users to receive random trading cards for playing various games, which they can then craft into ‘badges’ in order to increase their ‘Steam level,’ a new, RPG-like feature added to Steam. Higher Steam levels grant users additional Steam features, such as the ability to customize their Steam profiles further, or have larger friends lists. Trading cards can obviously be traded with other users, and can also be sold for money. At first glance, the system seems like a fantastic idea: it rewards you for playing games you like, which you can then use to unlock additional features; meanwhile, people not interested can simply ignore the system altogether. Thus, everybody is happy. The truth is not that simple, however.

Calling All Artists

Other

Hello, and welcome to the new ‘Creations’ section of LambdaGeneration. With this new category we hope to establish a series of weekly articles rounding up the best fanart the Valve community has to offer, and you can help by submitting your own! Remember, fanart just doesn’t mean drawings and paintings, the term art can take many shapes and forms, here are some examples of what you can submit:

  • Your GlaDOS Sculpture
  • Your cool Half-Life 2 Computer Case Mod
  • Your Gmod Screenshots (Though you should be playing JB Mod)
  • A Cosplay you did
  • An SFM Poster you made
  • Your shrine to Gabe Newell
  • Your working Wheatley Puppet
  • And much more!

Creation images can be emailed to creations[-at-]lambdageneration.com or submitted to the LambdaGeneration Tumblr http://lambdageneration.tumblr.com/submit

I must state that we cannot accept any fanart that is not safe for work, it’s not that we don’t appreciate it, it’s just that we want LambdaGeneration to be accessible to Valve fans of all ages.

Thanks for reading, and get creating!