Category: Source Mods

“MINERVA: Metastasis” Finally Polished Up, Re-Metastasized And Re-Released For Free Via Steamworks

May 1st, 2013 · By Vic · 14 Comments

The year was 2005 (you know it’s gotten bad when even 2005 has a quaint and nostalgic ring to it), and the first episode of a little Half-Life 2 mod series charmingly titled MINERVA: Metastasis was released. Metastasis itself only represented the first chapter in a planned MINERVA trilogy (the next chapter, Out of Time, never materialized, though creator Adam Foster isn’t afraid to hint at a possible return in the future), and it was a sequel to Foster’s earlier Half-Life 1 release, Someplace Else. Through exceptional level design, an intriguing narrative and remarkably well-paced gameplay, MINERVA was universally acclaimed and praised not just within the Half-Life community, but all around the greater gaming world.

The Metastasis “trilogy within a trilogy” concluded with the release of the last two episodes in October of 2007, and a year later, Foster began working at Valve, on a strange little game we used to call Half-Life 2: Episode Three. Since then, he’s done significant design work on Portal 2 (and god knows what that means about the aforementioned title), and presumably neglected little old MINERVA, which like many other HL2 mods, did not survive Valve’s May 2010 update for Mac support. Neglected, that is… until now!

Steam Greenlights Second Set Of 20 Community-Supported Games (Including A Source Mod Or Two)

October 16th, 2012 · By Vic · 10 Comments

Back in my day, you had to work hard to get yourself a video game! But these days, you whippersnappers… oh. Yes, apparently, you have to work to get games off Steam Greenlight, and onto Steam itself. Even if for the average Steam user, it’s as simple as clicking the big “Yes” button, for the project starters and supporters, it’s an undeniably complex and perhaps difficult process. But today, it seems to have paid off for 20 lucky Greenlight projects, which have been approved for official distribution on the Steam store. And surprisingly, there are a couple of Source-based projects nestled in there!

Analyzing the Pros and Cons of Black Mesa: Source

September 25th, 2012 · By Mimaz · 35 Comments

This is a review/critique of Black Mesa: Source (a free fan-made remake of Half-Life), co-written by Mimaz (editor here at LambdaGeneration, and former co-host of the Steamcast Podcast) and Vic (lead editor here at LambdaGeneration).

Black Mesa is a difficult game to judge.

Left 4 Dead 2 To Get Steam Workshop Integration, And Steam Linux Support Next Month, In Mid-October

September 21st, 2012 · By Vic · 8 Comments

An interesting move! To be honest, I figured most of Valve had simply forgotten L4D existed.

Podcast 17′s Let’s Play of Black Mesa: Source

September 18th, 2012 · By Vic · 16 Comments

Things have been a little quiet here – and I am sorry for that! Rest assured that I have been doing far more than simply playing Black Mesa during this time – together with my colleagues Mimaz and David, I am working on both an in-depth essay/review of BM:S, as well as a comprehensive video comparison between the original Half-Life and Black Mesa. And as Gabe Newell once said, these things take time (on a related note, work continues on that review of CS:GO, despite all the more important stuff getting in the way).

However, I won’t leave you guys hanging in the interim. As a matter of fact, I’d recommend you check out Podcast 17′s Let’s Play series of Black Mesa, on YouTube. While I am a part of the podcast staff, I haven’t participated in its creation, but I’ve got to say that it’s probably one of the best Let’s Plays of BM that I’ve seen thus far, since release. William has been a part of this community for a very long time, and is very much a Half-Life historian of sorts – and so, his commentary is constructive, positive, insightful and most importantly, very entertaining. He also demonstrates a lot of unique dialogue and environmental detail that I hadn’t actually picked up on.

Oh, and yes – as he had promised to do when Black Mesa is released, William is actually going to eat part of his beard, and he will do so on the next live episode: #206. I won’t be eating any of my facial hair – no, I’m saving that for when Gunman Chronicles 2 gets released. That’s a bet I can never possibly lose… unless someone at Valve somehow has a grudge on me. But apparently, they do visit once in a while, so let’s hope I’ve not sealed my doom (or rather, the doom of my facial hair) just now.

But if you’re looking for something to tide you over until I tell you all about our thoughts on the mod, then I highly recommend you read CVG’s review, Eurogamer’s, as well as BeefJack’s. They are all quite well-written, balanced, and insightful. And again, rest assured that our review is also on the way, and should drop relatively soon (yes, really)!

Absolutely Anyone Can Play Black Mesa: Source, Right Now!

September 14th, 2012 · By Vic · 80 Comments

I can’t believe I’m actually finally writing this article – but yes, the long-awaited Black Mesa: Source has just been released, as previously announced at the beginning of this month! Oh lord, call the fire department, because I am on fire.

Black Mesa: Source; Cry of Fear; No More Room in Hell; Have All Been Community Greenlit For Steam Distribution

September 11th, 2012 · By Vic · 19 Comments

Praise be to the Steam business development team, for they have blessed us all with some of the greatest news I’ve heard all year: among the first 10 games to pass through the Steam Greenlight crowd-sourced selection system are three amazing total conversion mods based on Valve’s games. The mods in question, which will soon be released officially on the Steam Store as free downloads are:

Cry of Fear, an incredible survival horror experience built on the GoldSource engine.
No More Room in Hell, an excellent co-op zombie survival game built on Source.
And, of course, the long-awaited Black Mesa: Source, an incredible reimagining of Valve’s first ever: Half-Life 1.

The most important thing worth mentioning here is that none of these games had gotten past the 50% voting mark, let alone the 100%. Black Mesa was on 49%; NMRIH was on 30%; while Cry of Fear was at 15%.

So what does this mean? Well, it means that my concerns, doubts, and worries, which I previously expressed in our article regarding Greenlight’s reveal, have all been shattered. And that’s actually great.

It’s really, really great to finally see Valve fully embracing their own modding community yet again, just as they used to in the old days (I was starting to get worried, quite frankly). Furthermore, simply having such great experiences available freely on the Steam Store is just amazing in itself, and I’m really happy all the hard work these dedicated modders have poured into their creations has finally paid off.

As a sinister, sociopathic artificial intelligence once said: it’s hard to overstate my satisfaction. Whoever made this decision is a saint on Earth, and should get their own country. Then again, they work at Valve, and that’s kind of a reward in and of itself.

In any case, this holy trinity, along with the other 7 greenlit games, will be moved to the Greenlit section of Steam Greenlight, where they will stay until they are officially released on the Steam Store, as free downloads (although some of the other 7 greenlits will obviously be paid games). Some of them are still months away from release, while others will be released very soon.

As we all know, Black Mesa is now only 3 days away from release, so let’s hope it will launch directly onto Steam. Both CoF and NMRIH have already been released previously, so hopefully it won’t take too long for them to reach the Store as well.

All 10 greenlit projects were in the top 11 most-rated projects on Greenlight (mysteriously, Slender: Source, which was the second most-rated project, has not been greenlit as of yet). And just in case you’re curious, the other 7 greenlit games are:

Less Than 2 Days Left For The Insurgency 2 Kickstarter!

September 6th, 2012 · By Vic · 11 Comments

Once upon a time, when the Source modsphere was a lot more active than it is today, a small team of modders created Insurgency, a hyper-realistic, super-tactical, and mega-something Source mod that put you in the combat boots of either a U.S. Marine, or an Iraqi insurgency fighter, smack dab in the middle of the Second Gulf War.

Then the dev team kind of fell apart, and then post-launch support abruptly came to a complete end. And these days, Insurgency isn’t quite as lively as it used to be – but it’s still just as fun as ever. Maybe that’s what original Insurgency founder Jeremy Blum was thinking when he decided it was time to start developing Insurgency 2.

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