Wow, this is going to be an interesting discussion. Firstly, I heard about this mod via the Podcast 17 Agenda and what specifically caught my eye was William’s comment…“This is the one and only time I will address this mod. It will not be covered on Podcast 17”. Mmm, I thought, what’s this about?

An orange room, with weapons, that leads to a couple of areas full of zombies and one or two other surprises.

Can you reach the exit?

Starting in an orange and grey dev textured area, you work your way outside, fighting a variety of enemies.

Your ultimate goal seems to be to reach the airboat.

The City 17 Times is a weekly newspaper produced for the citizens of City 17. It is written from the perspective of real people from within the game. The style will be a serious local newspaper, with a hint of “over-the-topness” and a touch of cliché, so don’t believe everything you read!

The idea has been shamelessly stolen from the First Person Observer, a site ” dedicated to providing you with non-stop, around-the-clock coverage of breaking news from inside the games you play and love.”

I have no idea if this idea has been proposed before but it came to me in a dream. It was between the “Trapped between two broken staircases” and “giant bees and giant cameras fighting”!

With the advent of Portal 2 people have been thinking about new gameplay mechanics for Portal, and that’s pretty cool, but has anybody suggested changing the way the portals work?

I’m pretty sure that PlanetPhillip.Com has a higher average age than most gaming sites. Regular readers will know that grey gaming is something that interests me, not just because I am a “going grey gamer” but because of the idea that gaming was only for youngsters.

So, last night I was watching my town’s annual parade, where people from the town dress up in themed costumes and walk, dance, roll, jump, “fly” and skip along the streets. The last “float” was full of wrinkles and it was very funny.

Celebrity Chef Jamie Oliver has chosen or been chosen to relocate to our very own City 17. So let’s give him a warm welcome.

Taking a break from his School Dinners campaign, especially since that there are no children around, Jamie has decided that he wants to focus on improving the quality of food distributed via the Food Dispensers found throughout the city.

You’ve got plenty of ammo, health, suit power and weapons.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that there are plenty of antlions, Combine soldiers and dropships.
How many enemies can you kill and how long can you stay alive?

July 2010: I have reposted this article in the hope of generating some interesting discussion. It was originally published in April 2006.

A long time ago I started a thread on a gaming forum about expert SP FPS gamers. I asked if anybody had beaten a modern (HL1 or Unreal 1 onwards) Single Player First Person Shooter on the hardest setting without playing sections twice. Let me explain that a little. You are allowed to save a game but only to provide a natural break (toilet, food or sleep!); you are not allowed to quick load when you are running low of health or ammo.