The first is a single-player mod that features some impressive city-building strengths while the second is a multiplayer-only mod inspired by Valve's Team Fortress Classic (for the original Half-Life). Go it alone or join the crowd -- the choice is yours.
City 7 Toronto Conflict (Half-Life 2)
When I found this single-player mod hiding amongst the latest batch of 2007 Half-Life 2 add-ons (it hit the net about three weeks ago), I was ecstatic. As a born and bred Vancouverite (from Canada's west coast), Toronto-bashing is one of my all-time favorite pastimes and here was a chance to go after those Maple Leaf supporters with some big-time weapons. In an earlier life, I spent a full year in the Ontario capital and -- like many non-natives -- grew to love and hate the place in equal measures (the CN Tower is nice and all but I prefer mountains). Diving into a Half-Life 2 single-player mod with this concrete urban jungle as the backdrop seemed like a perfect opportunity to reacquaint myself with the old place.
City 7 Toronto Conflict is the product of a small team of students and professors from the Game Design program at Toronto's George Brown College. The linear plot follows Gordon Freeman after a teleporting accident in Kleiner's lab strands him in the Canadian city. Demoralized Torontonians shuffle through the streets and squares of this Combine-controlled metropolis (that's what being a Leaf fan will get you) and helping Gordon escape from all this misery is no easy task. Eventually you'll hook up with some motivated rebels as you travel south along Yonge Street through a series of roadblocks and detours en route to the city center.
The local detail is impressive. Newspaper boxes hold the correct periodicals, uniquely shaped streetside bike racks match the real thing, and local landmarks like Eaton Centre and Dundas Square are immediately recognizable. Neon signs from well-known Canadian vendors like Future Shop dot the landscape and, once you figure out how to actually get down there, you'll discover that the underground TTC transit system operates as a front for a secret Combine operation.
Battling through all these familiar sights adds a lot to the entertainment value but the whole concept breaks down as soon as you leave the Toronto streets and enter a generic HL2 fortress for the final battle. I don't want to give too much away here but, as boss battles go, City 7 Toronto Conflict delivers one of the most imbalanced final engagements I've ever seen. If you ever figure out how to beat the never-ending wave of Combine troops please drop me a line because after killing about two or three thousand of the buggers, I eventually gave up. Even god mode didn't help.
Although I love Vancouver much more -- and the Canucks will always rule over the Leafs -- it was still nice to see some of my old Toronto hangouts again... even if a lot of them were just piles of rubble.
