Sven Co-op Map Reviews

       After Gordon Freeman finishes up his work at Black Mesa he goes home to his rental. His neighborhood is quite terrible and mobs of police, alien, and criminal wake him up. SCMapDB page Author: Mr_InSaNe Date of final release: 2002 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Mostwanted (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | January 23, 2022 | 3872 characters      Most Wanted is an older map going back roughly 20 years ago. It features a small city block where Gordon lives in a crummy rental place when everything attacks.      I can't tell if my comrade and I finished this map or not. We certainly did everything that we can tell we can interact with and killed enemies until they stopped respawning. Best we can figure the map is just kinda over at some point but never actually ends. We spent a long time chasing wild geese if that's the case, and I'm compelled to believe that it is the case.      The crux of the ma...

      After Gordon Freeman finishes up his work at Black Mesa he goes home to his rental. His neighborhood is quite terrible and mobs of police, alien, and criminal wake him up. SCMapDB page Author: Mr_InSaNe Date of final release: 2002 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Mostwanted (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | January 23, 2022 | 3284 characters      Most Wanted is an old map, made circa 2003, and it has no reviews, no stars, and no comments. I feel like I have unearthed a forgotten relic. One of the main reasons I wanted to play this particular map is that the description states that "After surviving the ordeal at Black Mesa, Gordon returns to his rental for a night of sleep." I found it incredibly funny that after the end of Half-Life 1 Gordon just goes on home. "Oh man, what a day at work, time to go home and sleep."      The map opens up with players spawning in Gordon's rental, a claustrophobic two story house with ...

       Actual is an early Sven map where players take on the role of airplane crash survivors. They must penetrate a strange laboratory in order to escape the wreckage. SCMapDB page Author: The_6th_Monkey Date of final release: 2003 Maps in package: 2 Map review of Actual (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | January 23, 2022 | 3930 characters      Actual is a 2 part mapset released almost 20 years ago as of writing this review. It's an action survival walkthrough map.      The first Actual map opens in an airplane, which impressively crashes in a sequence where parts of the plane are blown off, revealing the outside. After the crash, players must swim in the half-submerged plane to safety. By swimming you can find what looks like a breakroom area with a few aliens in it. From there, you can swim and crawl around in caves until the map ends. That's the map. It's short and finding your way out of the plane is kind of diff...

      Actual is an early Sven map where players take on the role of airplane crash survivors. They must penetrate a strange laboratory in order to escape the wreckage. SCMapDB page Author: The_6th_Monkey Date of final release: 2003 Maps in package: 2 Map review of Actual (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | January 23, 2022 | 6530 characters      This is a map that I had high hopes for. The screenshots for it look pretty good and I thought the story would lead us somewhere interesting. It had its ups and downs nut ultimately I think the map kind of flopped.      Players start out in an airplane. The proportions are horrible, chairs are massive and everything seems really big. Maybe this is how first class VIPs fly, but in my experience this plane was like three times too big. Then the plane begins to crash, there is a pretty cool bit where a hole opens up in the plane and we get to see simple scenery rush by. I thought it loo...

       We must face the long dark of Moria. Be on your guard. There are older and fouler things than Orcs, in the deep places of the world. SCMapDB page Author: NIPPER Date of final release: 2004, community fix on 2019 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Moria (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | January 23, 2022 | 5667 characters      Moria is one of many Nipper map projects which recreates a piece of pop culture. This time, it's the Mines of Moria scene from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of The Ring. This begins in the ambush scene where the orcs and the cave troll attack, and ends after the fellowship flee the Balrog.      Nipper has been an expert mapper for Counter-Strike for years, playfully recreating and parodying things through brushwork and simple textures in the top tiers. For that, it shouldn't be much of a surprise to learn that the map looks pretty good. It looks like the scene from the movie, with so...

       We must face the long dark of Moria. Be on your guard. There are older and fouler things than Orcs, in the deep places of the world. SCMapDB page Author: NIPPER Date of final release: 2004, community fix on 2019 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Moria (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | January 23, 2022 | 6267 characters      When I was a wee lad playing Counter-Strike 1.6 I knew of Nipper from the great and fun maps he made, usually with a prominently displayed "NIPPER" somewhere in the map. When I first got into Sven all those years ago I saw that Nipper had made a bunch of Sven maps and from then I had just assumed they were the greatest Sven maps ever made. Now that I'm older and cynical I can understand that not all of Nipper's ideas were solid gold.      The map starts off with a pet peeve of mine, enemies in player spawn. This isn't so bad in this map, as players spawn on a raised platform around the edge of the...

       Persia is a walkthrough map set in a Middle Eastern city with tons of snipers around. There are a lot of enemies on rooftops and hiding around corners making progression tough and tense. SCMapDB page Author: Skacky Date of final release: 2008 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Persia (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | January 23, 2022 | 4972 characters      Persia has been a Sven Co-op staple going on almost 15 years as of writing this. Does it hold up?      The first thing that you'll notice about Persia is that it's a striking map. There's a very specific theme and atmosphere that is set up early in the map and really manages to maintain until the very end. Along the way there's lots of implied scale, subtle details which enrich the environment without drawing attention, seamless flow from indoor to outdoor scenes, shocking verticality, and some very fun set pieces which do unexpected things with the theme. The text...

      Persia is a walkthrough map set in a Middle Eastern city with tons of snipers around. There are a lot of enemies on rooftops and hiding around corners making progression tough and tense. SCMapDB page Author: Skacky Date of final release: 2008 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Persia (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | January 23, 2022 | 4567 characters      Persia is a great looking map with solid combat and a lot of platforming. There are no new spawn points so all the good parts of the map are interrupted on death with the same platforming sequence again and again.     The map is supposed to look middle eastern and it totally does. I feel like in some maps set in the middle east it always looks like a warzone but this map felt more like Prince of Persia. The buildings were large and imposing with those fun stylized windows like you see in Aladdin. There was a really nicely made tank in the beginning and lots of sandbags, but I ...

       This map looks awesome. I mean look at that screenshot, it's a giant mech with enormous guns stomping all around and the player has a rocket launcher. There are some other things in the map set but just look at that mech. SCMapDB page Original mod authors: Jedidiah Clay Kirchner Conversion authors: Garompa Date of original mod release: 2001 Date of final Sven Map release: 2021 Maps in package: 2 Map review of Mechanized Death: Army of None (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by dunkelschwamm | January 23, 2022 | 7186 characters      Mechanized Death: Army of None is… quite a project. From what I can gather from the reading, it's a conversion of a separate mod by one Jed Kirchner. I researched a bit further to learn about what this port does different from Mechanized Death: Army of None. I'll make notes throughout the review about this, but first and foremost this is a review of the Sven Co-op port of Mechanized Death: Army of None as its o...

      This map looks awesome. I mean look at that screenshot, it's a giant mech with enormous guns stomping all around and the player has a rocket launcher. There are some other things in the map set but just look at that mech. SCMapDB page Original mod authors: Jedidiah Clay Kirchner Conversion authors: Garompa Date of original mod release: 2001 Date of final Sven Map release: 2021 Maps in package: 2 Map review of Mechanized Death: Army of None (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by GrandmasterJ | January 23, 2022 | 5236 characters      The screenshots looked good, I wanted to fight a giant mech, I was so excited for this map. There are two maps in this set, and only one contains a giant mech, so it was a little bit of a letdown.      The first map is forgettable and I question why it was there at all. Players first have to climb a shelf right in the beginning and I had a lot of trouble with it. The goemetry was all weird, there were t...

       Hellmouth is a map that takes place in Hell! Players must defend a statue at the mouth of Hell before venturing in and killing a bunch of monsters. SCMapDB page Author: Ike Brovlofski Date of final release: 2005 Maps in package: 2 Map review of Hellmouth (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | January 22, 2022 | 4392 characters      Hellmouth is a 2-part map series. The players take on the role of angels sent to battle back the forces of Hell from a great big portal. The portal is a fun effect: multiple transparent brushes in front of one another, making an optical illusion.      The first map is a defense/horde mode. Apparently the monsters are supposed to target the Chumtoad statue in the middle of the defense area, but they don't (anymore?). In my estimation, this is for the best, as I do not want to spend this map defending against the updated and boosted Sven Co-op 5 enemies while they can attack a helpless tar...

      Hellmouth is a map that takes place in Hell! Players must defend a statue at the mouth of Hell before venturing in and killing a bunch of monsters. SCMapDB page Author: Ike Brovlofski Date of final release: 2005 Maps in package: 2 Map review of Hellmouth (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | January 22, 2022 | 5488 characters      Hellmouth is a map I went into thinking it would suck, reading the description and looking at the screenshots I thought I would have a hell of a time playing this. My main concern was that I would have to defend the statue in the first map. Much to my surprise and joy no monster ever tried to attack the statue, this was a ton of pressure off me.      The first map is simple wave defense. Protect the statue (no pressure, the enemies don't attack it, at least not that I saw) and kill all the enemies. Players start with a crowbar and have to fight zombies and fat zombies. Eventually an mp5 and revolver...

       This map has three rooms, a bedroom, a balcony/bathroom/closet area, and dark hallways that lead nowhere. The map description says as much. This map is very small. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2004 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Koti (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | January 22, 2022 | 1797 characters      koti is a map which seems to exist as only a showcase of a brushwork representation of a bedroom. Being that it is a Robootto map, it's weird as shit.      The bedroom itself is like the Twilight Zone- everything is off just a little. There's a ladder to a bunk over a computer desk, but there's not actually any bed up there. There's an alien looking game system, around which are game boxes for individual levels. I have never bought games one level at a time, but apparently that's how games work here. Also the ceiling light is this bizarre glittering cube with a glass cone sticking out of...

      This map has three rooms, a bedroom, a balcony/bathroom/closet area, and dark hallways that lead nowhere. The map description says as much. This map is very small. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2004 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Koti (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | January 22, 2022 | 1133 characters      Its hard for me to get mad at a map with a description as accurate as Koti. This map is a bedroom connected to dark empty rooms. The bedroom has what appears to be a bathroom complete with a window players can shatter and look outside. There is some sort of game system with a button on top players can use to open and close a cd tray. There is what appears to be a closet door that players can't reach due to the layout of the room. The top bunk is inaccessible due to being too close to the ceiling. The proportions were a little off, parts of the room were too cramped to even stand, and everything besides the ro...

       The map author, Robootto, has a tendency to make nonsense maps. This map has a nonsense name (or at least I could not figure out the meaning) and is a simple objectiveless rats style map. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2004 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Karpaselamaa (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | January 22, 2022 | 3180 characters      I often wonder if Robootto was an elaborate troll or just a truly baffling mapper whose design somehow accidentally hated the player.      Karpaselamaa is a "rats style" map which in this instance means it includes LARGE objects. By this metric, some other Robootto maps may be considered rats maps too.      In this case the large objects are a television, a glass of water, a remote control, and a houseplant. You'll notice that I didn't say an environment- usually a rats map is like "bedroom" or "kitchen" or "garage" or something. Nah, this i...

      The map author, Robootto, has a tendency to make nonsense maps. This map has a nonsense name (or at least I could not figure out the meaning) and is a simple objectiveless rats style map. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2004 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Karpaselamaa (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | January 22, 2022 | 2591 characters I really like rats maps. I love being small in a big world and running in and out of everyday items. I feel like the approach the author took to making a rats map is to make things as inconvenient and frustrating as possible.      Players spawn on top of a potted plant thing. There are branches below that look like they can be platformed, this is a trap, players bounce off and fall to their deaths. There is a thin slice of elevator floating right next to spawn, players who don't want to die should jump on top and ride the slow elevator all the way down where it will sink into the gr...

       In this map players take on the role of activists and attempt to free animals from being experimented on. One of the objectives states "DON'T release a deadly plague" but you can ignore that since it's required to complete the map. SCMapDB page Author: Frel Date of final release: 2008 Maps in package: 3 Map review of Activist (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | January 21, 2022 | 4491 characters      Activist is a very well made action mapset by Frel. It features a story which works as a very loose context for what's happening, but it isn't really necessary for the full enjoyment of the map. That is because the map itself is very straight-forward.      Fight your way through a biogenetics(?) laboratory in order to free the animals- and then kill the animals! Play as the worst animal rights activist ecoterrorists on the face of the planet as you murder your way into the complex, release biotoxins, fight and kill the v...

      In this map players take on the role of activists and attempt to free animals from being experimented on. One of the objectives states "DON'T release a deadly plague" but you can ignore that since it's required to complete the map. SCMapDB page Author: Frel Date of final release: 2008 Maps in package: 3 Map review of Activist (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | January 21, 2022 | 4995 characters      Activist is a map that has two objectives. One of the objectives is to NOT release a deadly plague. From the very beginning I suspected that we had to unleash a biohazardous threat as a matter of course to complete the map.      The map starts players off in a well stocked armory with shotgun, uzi, and mp5 plus bullets and shells. Right from the get go it has plenty of ammo to start players off with and there are resupply points periodically throughout the map. Players are never given more weapons, but HEV and ammo are given ge...