Archives for August 2010

• Please note that these are publication date on this site, NOT the actual release date of the maps and mods

I’m not the smartest person in the world nor the dumbest but I’ve just noticed that Episode Two has motion blur. This could have been included weeks or even months ago but I only noticed it a couple of days ago.

Makes me wonder what other features I’ve missed.

Nightmare House 2 is a free, horror-themed first person shooter modification, and the direct successor of “Nightmare House”.

The story resumes with the player lost and confused in a hospital known as “Never Lose Hope”. With no understanding of how you came to be there, there’s only a vague memory of the mysterious, haunting girl from Nightmare House. Soon it will be difficult to determine between a dream and reality. How long will it take you to realize that escape is not an option?

Hello and welcome to another community round up. Not so much this week, but still some great items.

Please remember, I am not responsible for the content of other websites.

Don’t forget to send me your news by email and your URL if you want a credit link.

You’ve probably seen the recent Portal 2 videos and news about the voice of Wheatley; the companion in Portal 2.

When they first released a video it apparently had one of Valve workers voicing the part and , at least for me, I thought he did a great job. However, then came the announcement that Stephen Merchant was doing the voice.

This was the winning entry in a recent FacePunch.Com mapping competition. Using the buggy, drive through the dry canals and stop when you need to.

Let’s hope you are not scared of heights!

In shock news today we hear that Brad Pitt has been dumped by Angelina Jolie, but the news doesn’t stop there, oh no!

Apparently Angelina has been having an affair behind Brad’s well oiled and muscular back, with none other than City 17′s incredible Dr. Breen.

This was an entry for a competition at FacePunch.com.

Work your way up the mountain path and then through the caves until you reach…..well, let’s see how far you get.

I sat down and chatted with Christopher Dollard, the author of Gamma Energy and you can hear the whole thing below.

We chat about a number of different things and I challenge him on why those last two chambers are so freaking hard!

Enjoy.

I originally used to believe that the bigger mods should release demos. I viewed things from the perspective of retail sales. A player is a customer and a mod a product. Players “pay” for their mod by the time and effort of downloading and keeping up to date.

To convince players that they should play a particular mod, a demo could be used to show how good a mod is. I no longer believe that’s true.

Hello and welcome to another community round up. My apologies for being 2 days late this week. Seems like it’s more videos than anything this week.

Please remember, I am not responsible for the content of other websites.

Don’t forget to send me your news by email and your URL if you want a credit link.

When patrolling through the streets of our beautiful city, I often hear the mumbling and grumbling of ungrateful citizens. The most common question I hear is “What have the Combine ever done for us?”. I can’t help but think back to our decadent days and ways and the first thing that springs to mind is Monty Python’s scene from the Life of Brian.

So, let’s take a moment a think about what the Universal Union have done for us.

Hello and welcome to another community round up. A few new mods and some other stuff this week.

Please remember, I am not responsible for the content of other websites.

Don’t forget to send me your news by email and your URL if you want a credit link.

I read quite a lot but recently I haven’t had access to new books, so I have had to start re-reading some old ones. Some I remember very well and stop reading almost before the end of the first chapter, others seemed to have faded from memory and only some things are familiar.

At first i thought it was simply the amount of time between each reading but now I don’t think it’s that simple. I then thought it was how much I enjoyed the book the first time, and again, I now don’t. To be honest I’m not sure exactly what it is, but it’s interesting.

This is the second chapter and takes place in a central base and a house. Each time you need to collect the “eye balls” the house is in a different state.

Portal Memories is a mod based on the Portal 2 Mappack. The idea behind this is to make an episodic mod, which you can play as it grows and every new chapter will be based on a whole new theme.

The basic concept is the following:
You start at the main room. Use the portal machines to visit the chambers and gather all the eye balls. Bring them to the main room and open the gate leading to the next chapter

This first chapter takes place in a Portal 2 style setting.

Portal Memories is a mod based on the Portal 2 Mappack. The idea behind this is to make an episodic mod, which you can play as it grows and every new chapter will be based on a whole new theme.

The basic concept is the following:
You start at the main room. Use the portal machines to visit the chambers and gather all the eye balls. Bring them to the main room and open the gate leading to the next chapter.

This single player Portal mod features, new soundtrack, new level transitions, custom voice acting and some clever puzzles.

There’s also a cool introduction video.

This is the first episode and as such I have added “Ep1″ to the title.

In a shock development, City 17 Times recieved word from Dr. Breen’s office, via a weekly audio broadcast, that the quality of the headlines of this newspaper weren’t funny enough. As the wave of depression swept through both rooms of our extensive offices, reporters could be seen jumping from the windows in a futile attempt to rid themselves of the shame.

Gamma Energy is a mod that contains over 30 chambers and requires a variety of portal techniques to complete.

This is no obvious story and you simply play as the original protagonist from Portal.

Each month seems to see the announcement of a new mod whose objective is to release a recreation of the leaked beta.

The four I have heard of are: Project Terminal, Beta Source, Anonbeta mod and Missing Information.

Seems a shame that so many people are working on more or less the same thing when they could be A: working together (although that’s a lot easier said than done) or B: working on something original.

Obviously a lot of people love this sort of thing but are players really that interested? You tell me.

Hello and welcome to another community round up. Lots of mod updates this week, so, find a comfortable chair and a pack of snacks and get reading!

Please remember, I am not responsible for the content of other websites.

Don’t forget to send me your news by email and your URL if you want a credit link.

This is a remake of the On a Rail section from Half-Life 1. Half-Life: Source was used as the inspiration apparently.

I found it via tip from jasper, who saw it on Grinder74.com, who seemed to how found it on PlayGround.ru.

I converted to a normal folder installation without the author’s permission and hope that’s ok. The bad news is that in doing so increased the file size a bit.

“This map features three main puzzle areas: an energy ball puzzle with piston obstacles, a “fling” puzzle that requires an understanding of timing and portal creation, and a button puzzle that utilizes experimental technology. Though nominally beginning in Chamber 16, it mostly takes place Behind the Scenes, and seeks to distinguish the player as being a unique character, rather than Portal’s protagonist.”

Getting a map or mod tested is very important and it’s something I’ve written about many times in the past and I still feel passionate about.

I even went as far as creating a SP beta testing team [now dead] that contained members with varying quality PCs, different levels of playing skill and even some modders. The idea was to create a committed group of individuals who took testing seriously and offer that service to other mods.

YES! That’s right City 17 Idol is coming. We’ve all heard the rumours, we all heard the gossip about “other” cities getting their “idol” first and we’ve all know it was false. Well, that’s all about to change.

Details are slowly emerging and it seems that the city will be split into four sections for the preliminary auditions: North, South, East and West. Of course, West won’t have many people to choose from since the explosion in the sub-station and the medical services say that even though most of the few remaining survivors got a serious dose of radiation, the long term effects are quite minor.