For over a decade, PlanetPhillip.com has been a pillar of the Half-Life community, hosting the widest collection of single-player maps and mods available. Yesterday however, the site shut its proverbial doors for the last time…

Recent announcements of a possible TV series set in the Team Fortress 2 universe have made waves through the community, leaving many trying to figure out if it’s a joke or a hoax.

Freeman’s Mind is a long-running machinima comedy series which reveals the inner thoughts of Half-Life’s protagonist throughout the original game. After sixty-eight episodes the series has reached its much anticipated conclusion.

In a recent post on the Black Mesa forums, developer Chon “TEXTFAMGUY1” Kemp has posted a couple of screenshots of the maps Gasworks and Stalkyard from the game’s yet to be released multiplayer component.

So far, the adventures of Gordon Freeman have always been told from a first-person perspective (and should probably stay that way). But the Half-Life universe is full of opportunities, and who could pass on the chance of taking a bird’s eye view to command an army of resistance fighters or order a barrage of headcrab shells? Lambda Wars is a real time strategy game that makes all this possible.

So it’s been a little too long since our last instalment of In Development. Let’s rectify that, shall we?

This 1 year anniversary release builds right off of the 1.08 released back in August. National Guard zombies, animated medical items, and more await!

“Gamma Energy” is a mod for Portal which revisits the troubles of Aperture Science.

Originally released in 2010 by Christopher Dollard, the mod contains almost 30 Test Chamber levels which each feature unique and intricate puzzles, complete with turrets, acid pools and lazers.

The popular “XboxAhoy” YouTube channel, which is a member of the Machinima.com gaming network, just uploaded an excellent retrospective video analysis that explores Valve’s success with the original Half-Life.

Written by Stuart Brown, the video analysis highlights the early influences of Half-Life, such as Quake as well as the affect that Half-Life’s release had upon the FPS in genre, including the modding scene as well as Valve’s later developments with Team Fortress, Steam and the Source engine.

If you have a spare 20 minuets, it’s well worth a watch!

As Halloween approaches, PlanetPhillip.com has today announced a new single-player mapping challenge for Half-Life 2: Episode 2 entitled “HorrorVille”.

The challenge will run from 12:00am Friday 17th October to 12:00pm (GMT) on Monday 3rd November, lasting 17 days.

The theme is obviously horror orientated and entrants are encouraged to make their maps as creatively scary as possible. The rules also require submissions to feature at least one weapon and enemy or one puzzle scenario, using only assets from the Half-Life 2 series of games.

The winner will be decided by a public vote and all maps submitted to a decent standard will have the chance to be included in a free HorrorVille mod after the challenge ends.

HorrorVille follows PlanetPhillip.com’s series of “ville” mapping challenges and competitions which compile publicly submitted single-player maps into free mods.

For more information, check out PlanetPhillip.com’s announcement post.