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!

It’s been a while since the last trio of “Ville” mapping competitions ended over at PlanetPhillip.com (Beginning, Middle and End Ville) and Phillip has been busy collecting feedback about the events and making changes to enhance future competitions. The competitions charge level designers with creating a single player Half-Life 2 level in a set time period which Phillip then packs up into a handy mod for everyone to download and play. The freshly announced 3×10 mapping competition, with three separate competitions running for ten days each, will start on the 11th October 2013. Details after the jump…

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

Black Mesa is a difficult game to judge.

This started out as a part of my upcoming review of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, but I have decided to release it on its own, as a sort of prelude or companion piece, to the aforementioned review. I would like to thank my awesome colleagues here at LambdaGen: Erebus; Flamov; and Mimaz, for their invaluable assistance and input, during the creation of this article.

In order to properly discuss Global Offensive, we must first delve deep into the dark (okay, maybe not dark – slightly poorly lit) history of Counter-Strike, as a whole!

Learn how to install the Source SDK correctly and how to use Valve’s Hammer Editor.

Back on June 27, Phillip Marlowe wrote an article thanking William McMahon for all his work on Podcast 17 and in the Half-Life community. He spoke of his dedication and love for the game and the people who play it , and it was an extremely thoughtful thing for Phillip to do.

Phillip runs his own website, PlanetPhillip, where he reviews mods and maps for the Half-Life and Portal games along with providing download mirrors and forums. He doesn’t plaster his sites with ads nor demand attention to himself, something that we here at Lambda Generation love to do.