Back on 27^th February, I announced a writing competition, asking for people to write a review of HL3.

I received 4 interesting entries.

Continue reading to see them all and then select your favourite.

And the winner is…

You find yourself in a time warp. Sent back to a prison in 1999.

Can you escape and make it back to the present and if you do, will it be worth it?

The time traveller in you is eager to try.

You’ve probably noticed in the last month or so, 3 new events have been announced. If not, where have you been?

Hopefully, you are as excited about them as I am. They allow you to play mods that you might have missed.

Each event has its own focus and objective and none will overlap.

I’m hoping for plenty of reader participation and I’d like to draw your attention to the Event Reviewers Giveaway post.

However, what you may have noticed is that they all use previously released or updated quite well-known mods.

Don’t worry, I will very soon begin to run some time-limited events that aim to update those really old mods or the mods that have hardly any details, including working links. I will also start adding recently released mods that are missing from the site.

My aim is to have lots of events running at the same time, maybe even EVERY weekend.

There’s also a chance I will be able to do some limited streaming on Thursday evenings.

We hope to have a monthly Video Submission Challenge, but we are still playing with that idea.

If you are a regular reader and would like to run your own event or just suggest an idea for one, please let me know.

Approximately once a month, Jim Partridge will play and deconstruct a mod from a designers point of view.

Each mod will be livestreamed on the RTSL Twitch channel and Jim will be explaining how the mod he is playing has made some questionable design decisions. There is a good chance that for many streams, James will have a Devil’s Advocate to counter his observations.

He will always be polite and try to be as fair as possible with his criticism and he will be focussed more on what we can learn rather than criticising the mapper directly.

Hell he may even use his maps at some point and invite someone else to critique it.

Will you agree with him? Only one way to find out and that’s to watch.

Every few months a podcast will be recorded discussing the mods that have been deconstructed.

The event is called Critical Jim.

This is another opportunity to play something you may have missed or replay something with a new perspective.

Pervasive. Literary. Brutal. Experimental.

MINERVA, by Adam Foster, takes you to a remote island under the control of Combine forces. Something is going on here. Your goal is to uncover what that is and destroy it. Oh, yes – and try to survive.

I think if I had asked this question immediately after the release of Episode 2 in 2007, the answer people would possible have given would be different.

Then in say 2011, it might be different again.

Now, I think we just want to know what happens. If Valve said they are not going to make a game but a comic instead, a little like Labrat whilst it would crash the Internet at least I would know what happens to the protagonists and Earth.

That’s kinda more important to me than anything at this point.

What about you?

As announced last week, here is the moment you have all been waiting for! Run in conjunction with MapCore.org and lasting 4 full weekends, this mapping challenge with stretch your imagination and abilities to the limit. It’s time to fire up hammer and let those creative juices flow. The Theme and Your Objective We’d like… Read More

Myself, Don and James discuss the various threads from the Half-Life Sub-Reddit.

We also finish with a discussion about how the Recommendation system works and whether PLAY IT NOW! is being overused.

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You can also watch it or download it too. See the full post for details.

For each main event run and for each year of the event, if a reviewer reviews or re-reviews all of the mods in that event, they will be entered into a prize draw. The prize will be at least one game with a value of around $35 US Dollars.

So, for example, at the end of this year there will be 11 Classic of the Month mods updated and livestreamed. If you have posted a review or re-review for each of them you will be entered into the draw. If you reviewed the mod BEFORE the start of the event then it WILL NOT count towards your total reviews.

No “sign up” is needed, you just need to stay up to date with each of the events and post the reviews of the mods involved.

For your review to count, it must be posted AFTER the start of the event and AFTER each mod has been Livestreamed.

If you have any questions, just ask.