It Has Leaks - Dunkelschwamm

  

    Released officially in the Sven Co-op 4 release, this map claims to have leaks. The name is a non-sequitur, as the main point of the map is to retrieve the scroll of wisdom.

SCMapDB page

Author: Skacky

Date of final release: 2011

Maps in package: 1

Map review of It Has Leaks

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by dunkelschwamm | January 15, 2022 | 3300 characters

    It Has Leaks was an old favorite of mine back in the Sven Co-op 4.0 days. Of course, those days are long ago, and we've come a long way. Does It Has Leaks hold up?

    The first thing you'll notice about IHL is its striking style. It has a decidedly Quake/Hexen 2 feel to it, and takes place entirely in dingy Eldritch libraries. Everything from the red skybox to the lighting is fantastic throughout the map, and the visuals hold up even after all these years.

    The enemies you'll be fighting throughout are alien controllers, pit drones, voltigores, and a baby gargantua. Along the way there's also some piranhas as well. All of the combat is done with MP5 and Shotgun, and then eventually the Uzis. Combat is a bit tedious at times, in part due to how Sven 5.0 ruined the alien controllers by giving them that horrible seeker attack, and in part due to the high amounts of health put on each enemy, necessitating dumping tons of ammo into them over and over again. By the end I winced at the sight of a new alien controller and groaned at the sight of a pit drone.

    The level geometry is pretty to look at, but not always totally functional. There were also a few times where I'd get turned around because the Quake-style textures tend to make everything look a bit samey at times. Some jumps throughout the map require play boosting to a degree that made us question if we were playing the map the intentional way. Hallways are often narrow in a way that forces players to get cornered by pit drones. Buttons don't signpost at all what door they open, making part of the map scouring the rest for to find out which door opened. There's maybe a bit too much time spent in this map doing nothing but scratching our heads. Progress and pacing, as a result of both this and the fatty enemies, made the pacing something of a grind throughout.

    The map does help the players significantly by giving them a shortcut early on which pretty reliably puts them near the center of action for the rest of the map.

    Overall, I think this map is dripping with style. It's a functional level and it's a bit fun figuring parts of it out with a friend, but it's overall kind of a chewy level with gristly bits that get stuck in your teeth. I think it'd work better with a lot more people to help break up the fat.

    That said, given how this map was a Sven 4.0 staple, I'm sure many of you already know whether or not you enjoy it. If you're looking for a map to play with a handful of friends, give this a try. If you're looking for a map to throw into your rotation for a server list with some classics and some fun action maps, throw this in there too.

Pros:

• Looks great from beginning to end
• Some very fun lighting
• Opening shortcuts
• Good length for a map
• Unique collectables make fulfilling objectives fun

Cons:

• Somewhat tedious combat, especially with fewer players and especially with newer Sven enemy behaviors
• Some unclear platforming puzzles whose solutions felt like we were gaming the system
• Got lost a couple times looking for where to proceed
• Kinda lame weapon loadout

Score: 6.5 / 10