It can be hard to keep track of things in the modding community. Unlike the multi-million dollar marketing campaigns of triple-A releases, us mappers have to rely on word-of-mouth or places like ModDB to have our creations discovered.

A result of this is that a lot of brilliant releases slip “under the radar” and fade into obscurity. To help rectify this, here is the first of what (we hope) will be a series of articles highlighting smaller maps and mods released recently which we think you should download and try out for yourself. They’re free!

What exactly is The Stanley Parable? It is an indie remake of a Half-Life 2 mod of the same name, but what was that? A story? A game? A serious commentary on the nature of free will, or just an amusing mod? Even the developers make a point of not explaining themselves, preferring to provide one whimsical contradiction after another. One thing that is certain about The Stanley Parable is that it is coming soon on Steam, and you can download a demo right now.

Man, I love Fridays. Not only is it the end of the week, it’s also when I get to share some awesome Fanart from you, the readers. Let’s get to it, shall we?

A while back, a series titled “The Freeman Chronicles” was announced and a fundraiser was started on Indiegogo. It raised close to a third of its $75,000 goal, and donations are still available on the official website. Apart from the “Escape From City-17” shorts, this is probably one of the closest thing we’ve had to a live action Half-Life series. However, less than a month ago, CoolBrosChannel uploaded a teaser for an upcoming project.

Let’s check it out.

Zombie Panic: Source will most certainly live on as its successor, Contagion, because its Kickstarter campaign has surpassed its goal! Thankfully, Contagion has joined the ranks of the 50% of campaigns that actually succeed on Kickstarter and should be ready for release this fall. But just because the game has reached its goal, doesn’t mean the adventure’s over.

Power station 17 is quite an old map, 5 years old to be exact, but you wouldn’t notice it from playing. There is a level of polish in the visuals and sound that seems wise beyond it’s years and all said and done, it’s just an incredibly fun level to play.

Something that stood out for me during my time with this map is that the pacing is very well implemented. You start off in a very low intensity situation, fighting off zombies and exploring smaller scale environments and the action builds very naturally from this point until at the end you are fighting what feels like the entire Combine army!

To play the level simply head over to the download page at PlanetPhillip and download the level. Extract the contents of the downloaded file into your steam/steamapps/sourcemods directory in steam and you are ready to go (be sure to exit and then reopen steam for the level to appear in your games list!). The level only requires that Half-Life 2 is installed, you will not need episode 1 or 2!

Hello and welcome to the first edition of Fanart Fridays! This is where we hope to showcase the awesome Fanart submitted by our dear readers and followers. And what do you know, we got some submissions to show off today, let’s jump to it!

As much as mods like No More Room In Hell and Zombie Panic: Source have captivated fans across the Half Life spectrum, and as much as I have put my support behind Contagion, it’s nice to see a multiplayer mod that doesn’t involve killing zombies. Hell, even something that’s not a first person shooter! …not that I have any problem with first person shooters. It would be quite ironic if I did. But still, it’s nice to see something different. There are a slew of Half Live 2 mods that have turned the first person genre on its head. From experiments in story telling that we’ve seen in Dear Esther and the Stanley Parable. To projects that can rival some triple A experiences like Black Mesa or Underhell. But there don’t seem to be enough Half Life 2 mods that break the ‘perspective mold’ and give us a different way to ‘view’ games.

I loaded up Estranged: Act One for the first time knowing nothing about it, and had no idea what to expect. Luckily I was surprised to find myself quickly captivated by the fantastic game that began to unfold before me.

Ever since developers got their hands on the Oculus Rift developer kits earlier this year there has been a steady stream of incredible videos appearing on the internet showing what this piece of technology can do for video games, it was only a matter of time before someone would start working on a Half-Life mod that utilised the new kit.

I’ve seen a couple of videos of people playing Half-Life 2 with the Rift but this latest show case by Nathan Andrews has some very important differences that really change the experience from simply playing Half-Life 2 with a Rift, to actually experiencing Rift VR in Half-Life 2.

We’re currently in the process of wrapping up the latest release of Half-Life VR, which will include HL2: episode 1 VR support. This video was made in a single playthrough with my oculus rift dev-kit and razer hydra, I cropped the video to make it easier to view for those who currently don’t have a rift so keep in mind that the vertical field of view is probably twice what is shown in the video when wearing the actual rift.

Interested in giving this a shot? Check out the official web page for the mod here.