On Thursday evening, Valve Software and Sierra Studios brought together the seven of the best Half-Life MODs together in a small Internet cafe called Club I (also the home of the PGL tournament) in San Francisco.

　　When Half-Life finally released, gamers knew that the Quake II engine had even more power to offer gamers with an amazing scripting engine that made gaming feel cinematic, textures that made you feel as if you were there, highly detailed models, and an AI so real that you could feel your heart racing.

　　The Half-Life bug captured some of the more creative gamers immediately. Instead of appreciating Half-Life for the game it is, they saw visions of what it could be. And like other Quake-based games, mods have given them a chance to mold Half-Life with a slightly different feel to a completely different monster.

　　Valve knew that this would happen and released its SDK to let gamers build their creations, offering some of those gamers a special SDK where a chosen few could alter and enhance the game's original code.

　　Here's a listing of the mods gamers can expect to see listed in the Half-Life mod browser soon. (Currently, only one is available for download.]

　　Action Half-Life: Much like Action Quake II, Action Half-Life is like playing a first person multiplayer shooter fused with a chess game. Players don't gain fancy power-ups after sustaining damage. Bullets and ammo don't grow on trees, and when you're shot - you're permanently wounded. Once you're shot, you can't gain your health back, although you can bandage your wounds to stop the traces of blood that other players can use to track your every move. Weapon reloads take on a new level of realism, as you have to manually reload your weapon. Other bonuses include pickups like bulletproof vests and silencers, but you can only carry one at a time. Action Half-Life has already been released on the WON.net site, so if you're looking for even more realism - head on over and download.

　　Chemical Existence: Taking some of the realism out the weapons for a fast-paced and fun experience, Chemical Existence places you head-to-head against an evil corporation's gang intent on taking over the world with mutants. And you're the only good guy who knows about it. The mod will feature 14 single player levels as you work to destroy the corporation's quest for global domination, and the team is already hard at work on building multiplayer levels to ensure even more mutant-inspired gibfests.

　　Counterstrike: This mod is all about multiplayer terrorism, and you determine whether you want to be an evil terrorist or goodly counter-terrorist. As a terrorist, your goals are to take out the good guys and take hostages. As a good guy, you need to take back those hostages and make sure the terrorist threat goes no further. Players enter the mod in a series of eight-minute rounds and gain money for each kill or rescue/abduction or killing of hostages, as well as gain money for surviving a round. If you die in any of the rounds, you don't magically respawn until one team is victorious.

　　Gunman: One the most ambitious of all the mods at the expo had to be Gunman. The mod leaps firmly from the Half-Life universe and creates a completely new universe complete with new models, wild new textures, and a massive assortment of details gamers will love. Gunman takes place on five planets where players encounter creatures they'd never guess would come from a group of gamers (the work looks extremely professional). The worldwide team of about 12 members (many of which have never seen each other face-to-face) hope to have 30 levels completed for the final version and will weigh in at over 80MB with new sounds and a new soundtrack. One of the new and interesting features that made the mod stand out was its programmable weaponry. Imagine having an acid gun that lets you dial how much acid you want to shoot at a creature, and you'll understand level of detail the team has risen to. This will definitely be one of the stars in Half-Life modification.

　　Kanonball: Every first person shooter has to have a sports-inspired modification, and the Australian-based programmers of Primal Clarity have sought to fill the gap with Kanonball. At first glance, the game inspired the sporting events that used to take place on the Battlestar Galactica TV series, except on two levels. Two teams battle it out by taking a small ball and slamming it into a small hole at the opponents' end (in some ways like basketball). Players will choose to compete with one of three players models with more than 50 animations depicting moves like Feign Throw, Incite Rage, Taunt, Immovability, and Rally. Also, the mod offers the option of choosing one of seven different emotions, from an enraged player to an extremely focused one.

　　Science & Industry: Imagine Half-Life molded into a light version of Civilization where the world is controlled by technology and money. You have two corporations fighting to outsmart one another by discovering new technology and using it to upgrade their corporation's weaponry. At the same time, the other side is also doing the same thing. In Science & Industry, the scientists have become NPCs that react to their environments. If they're hard at work and hear gunfire nearby, they get skittish and stop working - you have to make sure they don't hear gunfire and that the enemy never sees your scientists. Why? One interesting features is that when you see an enemy scientist, you can bonk him on the head and drag him to your human-resources department to recruit him into your ranks. But try not to die - it will cost your corporation loads of money to use expensive cloning techniques to bring you back to life.

　　USS. Darkstar: In Darkstar, you're a biology doctor in a zoological spaceship ready to dock with an alien craft - until something goes wrong and the two ships collide. You survive, but the aliens have infested your craft. Your goal now is to get your feet and trigger finger in shape as you head for the escape pod.

　　After the private event for the gaming press was over, the public was allowed to enter and play the mods for themselves. Surprisingly, there was quite a crowd of gamers, which made mod developers happy to show off their wares to the people they wanted to impress the most. Over the next few months, these featured mods will start showing up on the Web and on sites everywhere, and the creativity we saw in the featured mods will surely keep Half-Life players hooked until the impending release of Team Fortress 2.