This is the Read category

A collection of text posts, including Poll Questions, Text Interviews with moddersand Phillip’s Blog. All posts are written to encourage friendly debate and discussion.

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City 17 Idol

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.

4th August 2010 3 Comments

The City 17 Times

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.”

28th July 2010 3 Comments

Portals with Personalities

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

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?

28th July 2010 11 Comments

Who is the Oldest FPS Player in the World?

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

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.

28th July 2010 34 Comments

Better Food for City 17 Residents

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.

28th July 2010 4 Comments

Do We Expect To Die?

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

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.

25th July 2010 7 Comments

A Collection of Images – Real Theme

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

I’ve had a lot of hard drive failures over the years and lost plenty of stored images. I became jaded to their loss but I recently came across a few photographs that I think are mildly inspirational for mappers and I have decided to create this post to act as a holder for all the individual images I find that I like.

Obviously, each one may not astound you and they don’t deserve their own post but as the collection grows it may become useful. Please feel free to send me your images and I will add them if I like them.

I will not be sorting them in any way, they are posted in the order I find them. Enjoy.

25th July 2010 3 Comments

A New Approach to Headcrabs?

The City 17 Times has received reports that Dr. Kleiner and a small group of resistance commanders have left the city on what has been described by one Resistance member as “A bold move”.

Apparently Dr. Kleiner and his team have gone to met Cesar Millan, a renowned Dog trainer. You may know him as the Dog Whisperer.

25th July 2010 5 Comments

Poll Question 182 – Has Steam changed your purchasing habits?

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

This week’s question is another that started as a forum thread called: The Power of Steam. MikeS noticed he had 94 games on his Steam account but thought of himself as a casual gamer.

I only have 30 games but I doubt I have even finished half of those. That’s not as bad as it sounds because a lot of those games came free when I bought something else; games like TF2, DOD: Source etc.

23rd July 2010 24 Comments