Player created content. The land where the developer’s concepts are hopped up on a unique internet blend of creativity inspired by Red Bull, Jack Daniels and Ritalin. Whether in the form of Half-Life 2 mods, storylines in WWE 12 or levels in Little Big Planet 2, giving players a customizable aspect to their game has become a proven asset to developers to extend the life of their game. Portal 2 was lauded as having some of the most creative and inventive puzzles of 2011, taking game physics and concepts to the next level. Allowing for this kind of creative freedom to fans of the series is the logical next step.

Announced last October, the puzzle editor will be a part of the free DLC pack releasing to PCs and Macs on May 8th known as the Perpetual Testing Initiative. Using the Steam platform, players will be able to create, upload, download and rate creations from the player community. What could this mean? It means that you are giving PC gamers, the most “hardcore” gaming audience, free reign inside the most complicated but approachable world in gaming today.

While Portal focused mostly on creativity using gravity puzzles, Portal 2 took things to a whole new level using light bridges, propulsion gel and launching platforms. Now, players will be able to assemble their own Test Labs using these.

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Twisted Pixel’s Splosion Man and Ms. ‘Splosion Man have made a big bang the past few years at PAX East, and this year was no exception, because the first day of the convention they announced that Ms. Splosion Man will be making the jump to iPhone, iPad and Steam later this year. I stopped by their booth on the show floor later that day to see for myself how the game translates over to touch screen controls.

For touch-screens, Ms. ‘Splosion Man has been reduced to a directional stick that moves you left and right. To jump and ‘splode, you just tap the screen. It took me several minutes to get used to this new control scheme.

It’s not as exact as using a joystick or directional pad, and the slippery nature of the iPad screen sometimes caused me to slide the directional a bit further than I would have liked. But after a few minutes it became more natural, and I’m sure once the full game is available for iPad, players will easily make the switch from controller to touch controls.

Retooled for iPad, Ms. ‘Splosion Man looked great. I’m definitely looking forward to this title, and it’s making it even harder to resist picking up an iPad.

We can look forward to Ms. ‘Splosion Man on our iOS devices and PC later this summer.

At the start of the month, rumors consumed PC and console gamers alike at the thought of a Steam created console. Most PC gamers thought to themselves, “Well I’ve already got a Steam box. It’s called my PC.” Console gamers had mixed reactions whether it was excitement at the thought of Steam powered games being available on a home console for the first time while others worried about the thought of adding a fourth major console to their home collection, especially with the impending release of the Wii U, next XBox and PlayStation 4 within the next few years.

These rumors were dispelled in under a week when Valve spoke to gaming site Kotaku saying that the company was a long way off from releasing a home system and that the rumored boxes that had been created were meant for internal purposes only to test streaming content from a PC to television, not acting as a console in and of itself. Valve told Kotaku, “We’re always putting boxes together,” he said. “Going all the way back to the Half-Life 1 days, we built special boxes to test our software render…it’s just part of development.”

While on the surface the concept of a Steam box might sound good, there are a few essential problems it must overcome before this idea should attempt to become a reality. The first is the current state of the home console market. Right now, the console market is dominated by the big three: Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. While Nintendo diverged from the hardcore gamer with the Wii, they claim to be aiming at taking a hold back on that market with the release of a more powerful Wii U.

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As everyone expected, the mod community is having a heck of time with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim the same way they did with the past open worlds of the Elder Scrolls series. With the official launch of the Skyrim Creation Kit through the Steam Workshop, players are able to build and distribute mods through the support of Bethesda and Steam which allows the community to come together and let each other know what the best and most promising mods are.

Instead of just being a free for all, this community allows players a piece of mind that they are downloading actual content and not a hack or virus that could harm their system. The first of these mods which every player should snag is the High Resolution Texture Pack which will greatly improve the visuals for most players.

The next piece of content any player with a sense of humor that also isn’t too hung up on silly things like continuity is Fall of the Space Core, Vol. 1. Created with the help of Valve, Fall of the Space Core, Vol. 1 brings Portal 2′s third favorite A.I. core to the medieval world of Skyrim.

To celebrate the opening of the Steam Workshop for Skyrim, Valve and Bethesda have teamed up to bring you the Portal 2 Space Core mod, which will let the aggressively space-centric little robot tag along on your adventures in Tamriel.

Also, since Skyrim was the only major release of 2011 without Nolan North in it, you should consider this mod a patch to fix that problem. You can now feel free to include Skyrim in the “Nolan North” section of your video game library, which is to say, your video game library.

Check out a video preview of the Space Core in action and stick to the Flickcast for more Skyrim and Portal news and all things gaming.

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As we previously reported, Lara Croft is making her return to gaming this summer. But even though she’s no longer under the Tomb Raider moniker, don’t think Lara is changing her MO. She is still going through dark underground lairs in search of treasure.

But this game will not be a full retail release. Instead it will be a digital download only game. In addition, gameplay will drastically be changing as it takes a 3/4 overhead view which resembles a dual stick shooter than a traditional third person action platformer.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light stars Lara Croft as she discovers the lost Temple of Light, resting place of the ancient artifact the Mirror of Smoke. When she finally reaches the mirror, she is ambushed by a devious Mercenary named Vasco and his army. Vasco steals the mirror and releases the evil Xololt who was imprisoned in the mirror.

As you will see in the trailer after the jump, Lara isn’t alone as she teams up with Totec in her first ever cooperative adventure. Hopefully Totec doesn’t whine about his wife the whole game like Dom insists on in Gears of War. It’s refreshing to see Crystal Dynamics attempt to take this series in a new direction much like Ensemble Studios did to the Halo franchise with Halo Wars.

While keeping to the core mythology, they created a drastically different gaming experience still keyed in on what players loved about the Halo world. We are hoping to see the same with Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light.

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If you’re a Mac user and also love to game, today is your lucky day. Why? Well, Valve has decided to release its Steam platform officially for the Mac today and also will be bringing two of their best games along with it.

The first games is the awesomely simple Portal where you solve puzzles by teleporting from place to place using the “portal gun.” The best part, the better you do the more you get rewards in the form of cake. And who doesn’t love cake?

The next game coming out is Runic Game’s Torchlight which is a hack and slash in the tradition of Diablo where you explore dungeons and search for treasure. It’s also a great game and will probably do well mostly because, like Portal, its simple.

Steam, which has around 25 million users, was launched in 2004, allowing PC owners to buy and download games to play on their computer. The library of games soon expanded, and there are now more than 1,000 titles available. Even though its taken a few years, I’m glad to see the platform is finally available for the Mac. Thanks Valve, its about time.

As we have seen, tons of you have been closely following the Flickcast’s coverage of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. We even love it so much, we are giving away a download code for the Stimulus Package on the next episode of the Flickcast.  And luckily, there seems to be more news every day for us to cover about Modern Warfare 2.

First off, anyone who hasn’t played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, immediately drop what you are doing and head over to Steam for the chance to play the game’s multiplayer for free all weekend. Everyone can immediately download the full multiplayer version of the game with absolutely no obligation to purchase the game. For the PC gamers out there who are clamoring for something to play other than World of Warcraft, this is it boys and girls.

In XBox 360 news, the recently released Stimulus Package set records for XBox Live. Despite technical glitches with its launch, the downloadable content sold more than a million units sold in the first day and over 2.5 million units in its first week. At $15 a download, Activision rang in over $37.5 million dollars in just a single week. With the positive response and sales, players are already looking forward to the second timed exclusive pack to make its way to the XBox 360.

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Macs are great, except for when you want to play video games on them. Instead, OSX users rejoice whenever new and exciting titles are announced for the platform, and today is no exception. Kotaku has officially confirmed that along with the Steam software, Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, and the Half-Life series are coming to Mac.

“As we transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, customers and developers need open, high-quality Internet clients,” said Gabe Newell, President of Valve. “The Mac is a great platform for entertainment services.”

This announcement has been rumored for awhile, as Mac-specific graphics were discovered in the beta files for the new Steam service last month. Valve dropped some serious hints later, with the release of some images of Valve games integrated with some familiar Mac themes.

Even more exciting is the new feature Steam Play, which will allow anyone who purchases a game on Steam for PC to download and play it for Mac, and vice versa, with no extra charge. Valve also hopes to release titles for Mac on the same day as the PC versions. The first simultaneous release for PC and Mac on Steam will be Portal 2, which was announced earlier this month.

He has been the face behind 20,000,000 units in video games sales. He was a simple scientist who fought his way through the disaster at Black Mesa and went on to become the face of the resistance against the Combine empire.

He was recently voted by the readers of Gamespot.com the Greatest Video Game Hero of All Time (even beating out Mario in the finals). He is Gordon Freeman of Half-Life and he has been able to do all of this without ever opening his mouth.

One of the key characteristics of Gordon Freeman, aside from being the “Free Man” as the aliens in Half-Life like to refer to him, is that he is also the “Every Man”. He was not a war hero. He wasn’t a super-powered being. He was a person doing his job when a terrible accident occurred and set the events of his life in to motion to lead him to a path of greatness.

Without ever being given a voice, players were given the chance to fill in the blank spots in dialogue during the game with what they felt would be their own responses.

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