Drug Barons

More a Half-Life map pack than a mod, it could easily go unnoticed were it not for the fact that it was made by Maverick Developments, a team led by author Phil Daniels that also gifted us Redemption (which this one is a prequel of) and Wanted!. They even struck a deal with Valve to develop a few projects, so clearly the guys had some talent.

This pack is very brief, and perhaps the biggest noteworthy thing is the premise, where Gordon Freeman, now a government agent after accepting G-Man's job offer, goes to South America to destroy a drug lab run by a military faction. This is just a pretext to shoot more HECU thugs, of course, but the opening minutes, walking around your new facility and listening to your workmates deliver scripted sentences, help getting you in the mood.

The rest is not really impressive, and you switch between gunning down goons and finding you way around, as sometimes the route you must take is not obvious or particularly visible. But suffer not, as 20 minutes will be more than enough for you to scratch it off your list. In this case, I'd say that being so short is a pro, not a con. Had it been unnecessarily prolonged, it would undoubtedly be boring. Having played Redemption before this one, I felt a little disappointed.

Even if the execution is typical, the environments don't hurt the eyes and, while still amateur, one can notice the evolution of a mapper that has gotten past the initial stages and is beginning to refine his skills and exploit the tools. It's interesting to compare Drug Barons with later works, as a historical exercise. Maybe this is the reason why it doesn't get a 6.5.

So yes, you have my blessing to spare some moments for this pack. You can safely use it as an appetizer before moving on to the next.

Playing

ModDB or RTSL. You'll need to extract the .pak file to Half-Life's valve\ folder, e.g. using PAKExtract.