The Half-Life series can be quite glum at times, especially with no resolution in sight for the series. Good thing we have the modding community to deliver us some light-heartedness. Here are fourteen off-the-wall mods hand-picked to help relieve those Episode 2 cliffhanger blues.

The popular “XboxAhoy” YouTube channel, which is a member of the Machinima.com gaming network, just uploaded an excellent retrospective video analysis that explores Valve’s success with the original Half-Life.

Written by Stuart Brown, the video analysis highlights the early influences of Half-Life, such as Quake as well as the affect that Half-Life’s release had upon the FPS in genre, including the modding scene as well as Valve’s later developments with Team Fortress, Steam and the Source engine.

If you have a spare 20 minuets, it’s well worth a watch!

The year is 1998. A previously unknown group of game developers known as Valve Software has just released Half-Life. Of course it becomes an instant hit, entertaining a generation of gamers worldwide. But beyond that, buried away on the CD-ROM inside that ridiculously big cardboard game box is a program called “Worldcraft”. According to a note at the back of the instruction manual (remember those?) this program would allow fans to “create a replica of their garage or a fantastic alien world”. And create they did. With this tool, now known as Hammer, at their disposal, the possibilities have been almost endless. From Counter-Strike to Ricochet, from Black Mesa to deep space to World War II France, the community created a tidal wave of new adventures, far beyond what anyone might have anticipated. Fifteen years later, we show no sign of stopping.