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Articles related to Portal

Fanart Friday #001

Other

Hello and welcome to the first edition of Fanart Fridays! This is where we hope to showcase the awesome Fanart submitted by our dear readers and followers. And what do you know, we got some submissions to show off today, let’s jump to it!

Steamcast: The podcast about all things Valve is back!

Steam

Over a year has passed since the community-founded Valve-centric podcast, Steamcast, closed down. However during August this year, a countdown clock appeared on a sub-directory of the website with the title ‘2013’.

Steamcast was originally founded back in 2009 with the aim of supporting the Valve community by offering frequent and direct participation with listeners, however in 2012 the podcast closed indefinitely.

Fixing Half-Life 2 and Portal Mods on SteamPipe: A Quick Guide

Source

As described in our Roundup, due to SteamPipe a lot of Source mods are in a pretty dire state right now. Whilst there is a lot of information on the topic in various places, the aim of this post is to provide a general fix for Half-Life 2, Episode 2 and Portal 1 that you can use to easily patch up the majority of the casualties and get them limping back into action.

Calling All Artists

Other

Hello, and welcome to the new ‘Creations’ section of LambdaGeneration. With this new category we hope to establish a series of weekly articles rounding up the best fanart the Valve community has to offer, and you can help by submitting your own! Remember, fanart just doesn’t mean drawings and paintings, the term art can take many shapes and forms, here are some examples of what you can submit:

  • Your GlaDOS Sculpture
  • Your cool Half-Life 2 Computer Case Mod
  • Your Gmod Screenshots (Though you should be playing JB Mod)
  • A Cosplay you did
  • An SFM Poster you made
  • Your shrine to Gabe Newell
  • Your working Wheatley Puppet
  • And much more!

Creation images can be emailed to creations[-at-]lambdageneration.com or submitted to the LambdaGeneration Tumblr http://lambdageneration.tumblr.com/submit

I must state that we cannot accept any fanart that is not safe for work, it’s not that we don’t appreciate it, it’s just that we want LambdaGeneration to be accessible to Valve fans of all ages.

Thanks for reading, and get creating!

New “Portal Done Pro-er” Speedrun Smashes Previous Portal 1 World Record

Portal

A year and a half ago, in late 2010, Michael “DemonStrate” Yanni created a jaw-dropping 9-minute speedrun of the original Portal, titled “Portal Done Pro. It was the new world-record time for the fastest playthrough of Portal 1, and understandably, it was widely publicized at the time.

But you know what they say: records are made to be broken. And yesterday, PDP’s world record was not only broken, but smashed wide open. Read on!

Vic’s Thoughts On: The Portal 2’s Perpetual Testing Initiative DLC; Or Why Portal 2’s Future Is Looking Very Bright

Portal

As you may or may not know, I wasn’t exactly pleased with Portal 2’s first DLC outing – “Peer Review“. While the Challenge Mode added much-needed replay value to the game, it really should have been in the game from launch. The only other bit of content in there, the new “Art Therapy” co-op course, was rather disappointing, with poor writing and plot, as well as some meager and poorly balanced gameplay offerings.

I don’t subscribe to the school of thought that all free DLC is automatically good – you have to draw the line somewhere. And solid feedback will help make future releases better. For instance, the poor reactions to L4D1’s underwhelming “Crash Course” almost certainly helped Valve build better L4D DLC in the form of L4D2’s “The Passing” (although later on they did let us down again with “The Sacrifice“). So we needn’t be afraid to voice our opinions.

But enough about all that. Here we are, with Portal 2’s second, and perhaps final DLC release almost upon us. The Perpetual Testing Initiative promises to turn Portal 2 into a never-ending house of pure science, providing it with enough replayability and content to feed 5 full-priced Call of Duty games. But does it fulfill that promise?

Vic’s Thoughts On: Portal 2, the Unfaithful Sequel; Or Why I Think Portal 1 Will Always Be Better Than Portal 2

Portal

So, it’s been almost 5 months since Portal 2 was released. I know what you’re thinking – “what’s the point of making a review now?”. Well, first of all, it isn’t really a review. It’s more of a critique, or an analysis. And second, while I could have made a review a week or so after release, then, I would not have been able to go in depth with this review, and I would have to settle for avoiding the plot points and gameplay details, so as not to spoil the game, within what would be a shallow article. So, I decided to wait and use the time I had to perfect this thing. Besides, I think the main purpose of a review is to provide feedback to the developer. A month or two ago, P2 even had its first price cut – it’s now $30, so I think most of you guys have already bought and played it. However, just in case you haven’t – don’t read on. Spoilers everywhere. Also keep in mind that this critique is very, very long – almost 4000 words long.

I’ve tried to be a bit critical with the game. Make no mistake, I love the game, and I love Valve. But no game is perfect, and every game has its faults. Mostly, I’ve focused on the singleplayer component, because I consider that to be the actual “Portal 2”. That, and I don’t actually have that much against the co-op mode. In some ways, it’s better than the singleplayer mode.

I know it might seem like I hate the game, but I don’t. I love it, but in my opinion, it just doesn’t live up to Portal 1 as a sequel, and it doesn’t live up to Half-Life as a spin-off of the franchise. And that’s what this review is all about. I’m not trying to convince the gaming world that Portal 2 is some sort of disaster. Not at all. I am trying to illustrate why I believe Portal 2 is not as good as the original, and that Valve was wrong to hype Portal 2 up the way they did, by calling it their “best game ever”. So, read on if you’re interested… 

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