“Lego Portal 2” is a stop motion animation created by Alex Kobbs of Kooberz Studios.

The animated video depicts various events from Portal 2 and follows Chell, ATLAS and P-body on a fan-influenced adventure through Aperture Science, leading partially into a scene from Half-Life 2 alongside Dr. Freeman and the Combine.

Under the Radar is a series of articles on LambdaGeneration featuring maps and mods in the Valve Community that you might have missed.

Okay, so the last Under the Radar article was approximately forever ago, but work with me here! Under the Radar is back to bring you some obscure, under-appreciated or just downright weird maps and mods…

Many of us will have played through most of Valve’s titles and enjoyed them. When we’re wrapped up in the action or the story however, the rules of the game we’re playing are almost invisible to us.

As a level designer it often pays to take a step back and look at the purpose of the content of a level. Why things are placed where they are, what do they add to the gameplay and what can we learn from them.

It has been over 15 years since Valve developed the GoldSrc engine. As a result of this, and the subsequent release of the Source Engine in 2004, there is an insane amount of community-created maps and mods out there, each showcasing amazing talent, ability and creativity.

We haven’t featured many modding projects yet on our weekly ‘Community Spotlight’ feature, so when it came to choosing a single project to feature, it was a difficult decision. However, even after completing so many different maps and mods over the years, there are always certain projects that stand out and Focalpoint by Dimitri Vujicic is certainly one of those.

Welcome to the first of our new Modding & Development Tutorials. In this installment we’ll help you take your first steps into creating a map in Valve’s Source SDK.

Creating levels can be challenging, fun and very rewarding (albeit sometimes frustrating) and you will be able to release your creations to thousands of players worldwide.

As a result of the tragic news about the recent death of Robin Williams, he’s being remembered all over the world as a comedian, actor and visionary.

But what many have forgotten is that he was also an ardent PC gamer, frequently showing up to major gaming events and proclaiming his love for the medium, even to the point of naming his daughter “Zelda”, after Nintendo’s oft-reincarnated princess.

But was he – along with other celebrities like fantasy-literature icon Terry Pratchett, British TV personality Jonathan Ross and nerd-darling director Guillermo del Toro, a Half-Life fan?

The lambda (λ) is an iconic symbol of the Half-Life series, forming part of the logo for all of the games to date, being displayed on the chest of the HEV suit, and signifying the resistance movement in Half-Life 2 and it’s episodes, not to mention being the main logo of a certain Valve fansite.

But what does this logo mean, exactly, outside of Half-Life?

Whilst many of us have been waiting very patiently (or not so patiently) for news on the next Half-Life sequel, web designer Tom Bennet has been busy putting together a rather stunningly designed retrospective in celebration of Half-Life 2’s 10th anniversary.

Half-Life: The Downfall of Evolution is an upcoming Half-Life live action fan film series.

We previously covered the same project in October last year when it was going under the name ‘Lambda Protocol’ with a slightly different team. It’s not quite clear what happened to the original crew or why the name changed apart from the mention of a copyright issue involving Machinima Prime.

Despite the branding changes, the movie still looks as visually epic as ever, check out the new teaser:

My name is Jim Partridge and I’m a modder primarily for Half-Life 2. My previous work includes Half-Life 2: Deep Down, Half-Life 2: Daylight and numerous PlanetPhillip competition entries. I decided to join LambdaGeneration this year as a contributor for the site’s Modding & Development section. My primary interest is in level design with a focus on gameplay, I’m a gameplay nerd in fact… Join me in my nerdiness!