Lo and behold, it is the 1st of January, 2011! It seems like it’s been so long since we launched back in July.

As we all know, Game Informer and Valve are bros.

What gaming publication had exclusive information and screenshots of Portal 2 way back in April on one of its issues, and had their own Portal 2 Hub through which they continued to release Portal 2 info on their website? Game Informer, of course.

What gaming publication came forward with the exclusive announcement of DotA 2, and has done plenty of interviews with Valve in the past? Game Informer.

What gaming publication said, at the beginning of 2010 that there would be no Half-Life during that year (which they got spot on), and even implied the next Half-Life may be “Half-Life 3?” Game Informer.

You get the idea.

Those among you who are… “members of the underground Portal community” (don’t pay too much attention to that quote, I made it up to make the article sound cool) may have heard of the “Portal: Project Beta” mod.

It’s a mod that essentially tries to replicate the “Portal beta”. That means you get stuff like fancy color correction, brand new portal effects, and so on, and so forth.

After quite a few years in development, the mod is finally out.

Some of you might have read our previous article on the subject.

Well, even if you have, even if you haven’t, Lambda is a fanfilm mini-series that was unveiled back in the summer with a great-looking teaser trailer.

After a small delay, the first episode is finally here.

The Citizen is a HL2 mod released way back in 2007, taking place during the City 17 Uprising, perhaps in the week that Gordon and Alyx missed due to their delayed teleportation.

You play as a disgruntled citizen who becomes a member of the Resistance after his home is raided by Civil Protection. He is left beaten in what’s left of his apartment.

At the end of the Citizen, you took over a relay station responsible for transmitting the Breencasts to the public. Soon after, you attemped to escape on a train, but a pursuing Advisor manages to catch up to the train. Thankfully, the G-Man intervenes, killing the Advisor, but somehow, the train is destroyed anyway.

While it wasn’t quite perfect, it may be one of the finest HL2 mods ever released.

Boxarts. Some of you might have forgotten all about them in this fancy age of digital distribution and whatnot, but as you may have gathered from the recent Portal 2 retail distrbution agreement between Valve and EA, there’s still some fight (and money) left in the retail market.

And since we’re fairly close to the release of Portal 2, EA has revealed the boxart for Portal 2, in both PC/Mac and console variations.

You can apparently find them online at some god-forsaken registration-only EA webpage, but with the help of the one and only Flamov (whom you might know from Steamcast), we’ve got them right here.