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We Are The Lambda Generation. LambdaGeneration is a website dedicated to the video game Half-Life. ( We're basically really passionate about crowbars, headcrabs and anyone who has goatee with a PhD in theoretical physics… )

Combine OverWiki, The Original Half-Life and Portal Wiki, Turns 10

As of today, February 12th 2016, CombineOverwiki - The original Half-Life and Portal Wiki, turns 10 years old.

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Rare Russian/Ukrainian HL2 Leak Bubblegum

Half-Life Rare Russian/Ukrainian HL2 Leak Bubblegum

The 2003 Half-Life 2 leak caused ripples in not only the community, but the world as a whole. It shaped our community into what it is today, yadda yadda, and more importantly, it allowed the creation of the world’s first Half-Life bubblegum.

Using content and screenshots from the leak itself on its packaging, this Russian/Ukrainian bubblegum seems to have been created sometime in early-mid 2004. Check out a community-made video showing its ground-breaking opening, after the jump.

Happy Holidays From LambdaGeneration!

Other Happy Holidays From LambdaGeneration!

We here at LambdaGeneration would like to wish you season’s greetings, and very happy holidays! Best wishes, tidings of joy, peace on Earth… and maybe a copy of Half-Life 3.

Which reminds me – what would Christmas be without a celebratory LambdaGeneration Christmas short? Did you answer “probably just Christmas“? Then you’d probably be right. Except we won’t let it be just Christmas! So like we did last year, we have concocted a heart-warming holiday special for that express purpose. It’s animated and directed by our very own Jeff – if you’re interested in seeing some more of his work, hit up his production blog on Tumblr.

Enough with all the words! Let’s take a look, shall we?

Don’t forget to check out our retrospective look at the events of December 2011, when a single T-shirt drove us all mad.

Half-Life Alpha Dating From September 1997, Finds Its Way Online After 15 Years

Half-Life Half-Life Alpha Dating From September 1997, Finds Its Way Online After 15 Years

The original Half-Life was first announced in early 1997, initially set for that year’s holiday season. But one very impressive E3 1997 showing later, and suddenly Half-Life was on everyone’s radar – expectations were ramping up, and suddenly, Valve were in the center of the gaming world’s attention. And so, later that year, close to their projected release date, Valve decided that a delay was in order. Once they’d attained it, a lot of the pressure was off, and the team at Valve spent began to intensely evaluate every aspect of the game, and all of the content they had created in one year of development.

And while there had been a considerable amount of progress, and the game itself was in very good shape, it just seemed like there was something missing – as Valve engineer Ken Birdwell stated in The Final Hours of Half-Life, the game simply wouldn’t have gone “over the edge anywhere“. To Valve, it seemed like Half-Life could be a lot more revolutionary and a lot more groundbreaking. Thus, in late 1997, an entire game’s worth of content and design was completely scrapped, and Half-Life underwent a complete redesign, fully from the ground up.

What gamers eventually got one year later in November of 1998, amounts to an entirely new game (in fact, according to Ken Birdwell, it really is a Half-Life 2 of sorts). But what happened to the Half-Life that never was – the “Half-Life 0” that Valve unceremoniously threw out the door?

Community Spotlight: SteamDB

Steam Community Spotlight: SteamDB

For this week’s Community Spotlight we wanted to feature a project known as “Steam Database” or “SteamDB” for short.

Essentially, SteamDB is an online tool which catalogues information about games and applications on the Steam Store. It acts as a one-stop shop for pretty much everything and anything that you need to know about every single release on Steam, from technical data such as “AppIDs” and “depot configurations” to sales information such as DLC listings and worldwide pricing, it even gathers live player statistics.

Watch Gordon zoom through Black Mesa and Xen in almost 21 minutes!

Half-Life Watch Gordon zoom through Black Mesa and Xen in almost 21 minutes!

Despite the age, Half-Life is a game that many set their sights on, mainly for the challenge that is speedrunning. You know, the thing where people try to beat a game as fast as humanly possible, with or without scripts. And loads of bunny hops and grenade jumps. Loads of ’em.

Using a mod that restores Half-Life to its original 2001 version, a group of people has after 4 years of preparation and practice managed to beat the world record speedrun of 27 minutes, with a whopping 20 minutes and 41 seconds clear time.

Welcome to the New LambdaGeneration!

Other Welcome to the New LambdaGeneration!

Hello and welcome to the new LambdaGeneration!

It’s been a while since LambdaGeneration was last on your screens, but the good news is we’re back and ready to re-serve the Valve Community with a whole line of new features and fresh content.

You maybe asking: Why did LambdaGeneration go offline for so long?

Well the answer to that lies between two factors, one being our hosting expired, which would have cost a lot of money and time to renew and restore the previous site. The other, being that the site was already in a poor state due to the departure of Vic and the general lack of content at the time. It was therefore decided to hold the site and focus all efforts on creating the new one.

You may also be wondering: How come it took so long?

The answer to that is of course, Valve Time. (Or that making a bespoke WordPress theme from scratch is pretty damn hard!)

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