Half-Life fans are a dedicated bunch. Even in the absence of content from Valve , the series has thrived with mods, community content, and unofficial games such as Lambda Wars and Black Mesa. Half-Life: Alyx didn’t fully reignite the torch, but it helped to keep the flame fans have managed to carry all these years flickering. There were community forums of like-minded individuals sharing each other’s work, news websites specifically catering to Valve fans after Episode 3 faded into obscurity, and then there was LambdaGeneration.

Platforms: PC , Android

Think of CrossFire as Counter-Strike 2 Crosshair Customization but with less emphasis on repetitive maps and technical gameplay, and this time with a lot of emphasis on action and sheer speed . Despite its 2007 release, CrossFire retains quite a large fanbase today, which is testament to its replayable content. Given its age, it evidently has dated graphics. However, the game does shine in terms of character and gun customization, as well as speed-oriented gameplay reminiscent of classic

This expensive skin came out in 2014 alongside Operation Breakout. The cosmetic gives this already rare knife a bright paint job, coating it in vivid purples, reds, and yellows. As the name implies, these colors are faded into each other to give a spectrum of more subtle shades and h

Unlike other more futuristic games, CS: GO has a more grounded approach to its gameplay , relying on firearms based on real-world weapons. With no hero abilities, players need to trust their wit and quick fingers - getting weapons only via a Buy Menu before a match or picking them up from downed opponents. This straightforward approach makes CS: GO matches much faster and more accessible fun for newcom

December means three things for me: KOTOR , KOTOR 2 and The Old Republic, plus a possible co-op playthrough of Resistance 3 . I'm also hoping to catch up on some games I've missed such as Shadows of the Damned and Yakuza 4 , and this before I get to all of the games I bought off of Steam's Fall S

The first two points quite literally seem to indicate that more money spent in game on cosmetics translating to being more trustworthy. Perhaps there is some truth to this, as spending real money in a game may dissuade a user from cheating and risking the lose of an account, but it still seems odd without confirmation of that i

"The concept for LambdaGeneration was simple - we wanted to create a site that would share all of the amazing fan content the Half-Life and Valve community make," Alex says." At the time, most Valve fansites were focused on official news and there weren’t any news sites dedicated to things made by the community. I remember being frustrated seeing some really cool stuff scattered around various forums just going unnoticed, and I wanted to fix that.

This month I'm looking forward to Mario Kart 7 . It's just one of those games that you can pickup and play whenever you want, and I plan on playing it throughout December and well into the new year. Since some folks are talking about what they're excited for next year, I'd have to say Halo 4 and Bioshock: Infinite are on the top of my l

Given the complex systems in Fallout: New Vegas , it's easy to see why the added benefit of a keyboard and mouse is so important here. Of course, another reason to use this control scheme is that most mods don't really support controllers either, which is a bum

Currently, there is no way to financially support the self-funded fan-site, but there are plans to potentially open a Patreon in the future. LambdaGeneration seems like the inevitable next step in this saga, a hot-spot for Half-Life devotees to enjoy.

Alex was driven by all of these approaches to bring everything together into one central hub for all things community. "One huge inspiration was PlanetPhillip.com, now RunThinkShootLive," he tells me, "The site posted reviews of single-player Half-Life maps. I could see how much of a positive impact that had on the community. People were inspired to create Half-Life maps because they could see others making cool stuff and they knew their effort would not go to waste. There seemed to be room for something that could do the same for everything else in the community like fan art, fan films, music, and mods.

Geographic location on the other hand is a strange one. Perhaps a player needs to move often, and that is outside of their control. Perhaps players need to use VPNs for undisclosed reasons, and that too may be out of their hands. Whatever the case, it would be fascinating to know more about how Valve uses this d

December is relax time for me. It's the first month in a while where I play games for fun instead of for review purposes. I plan to journey on in my restart of Skyrim on PC and make time to catch up on a large pile of games, including Saints Row: The Third, Battlefield 3 (PC) and Forza Motorsport 4 while making sure I begin Arkham City, Assassin's Creed Revelations and Uncharte