Surface Run - Dunkelschwamm

  

    Surface Run is a map where players must run to the surface. It's a conversion from a standalone mod that takes place in Black Mesa.

SCMapDB page

Original mod authors: noSICK

Conversion authors: Outerbeast

Date of original mod release: 2011

Date of final Sven Map release: 2021

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Surface Run

(originally posted on SCMapDB) 

by dunkelschwamm | January 16, 2022 | 3530 characters

    Surface Run is a Half-Life mod with some really novel ideas. I didn't play it but from what I can tell it has a lot of differences from its original version and this conversion, which I understand takes many liberties with the stories, monsters, and items. So, as such, I'm going to review it as its own thing.

    Surface Run is a Sven Co-op mod with some really novel ideas. It takes the player into an underground facility run by a malicious science organization trying to make more resonance cascades. Well- OH NO- they did it, and now there's a big chunk of their lab stuck in Xen. Teleporting in and out of Xen is a major concept that this map is based around, with the underground segment taking place on Earth helping the map to not need to show the change in skybox textures. Good thinking!

    The map begins with a big problem: early on you fall into a portal into Xen. The moment you do this the standard Earth part becomes populated with enemies even though there's not really much of a story reason given to this yet. However, players do not spawn with crowbars until they find a crowbar in Xen. There's plenty of time from that initial fall (including during the fall itself) until the players first find a crowbar that players can die, and if one does and respawns they will find themselves surrounded by monsters and unable to defend themselves. Hell, even if a player joins at this point in time they'll find they have that problem. I died during the fall because I was the second to fall into the pit, hitting an invisible wall, and slamming into a brush before I could land in the teleport. I ended up sequence breaking, pressing a button before it was time, finding a satchel charge before I had any other weapon, and running like hell from enemies I was incapable of fighting.

    In Xen the players find a crowbar and begin fighting aliens. There's a new enemy: the zombified chimp. I have little to say about it. It's a smaller zombie. By teleporting in and out of Xen, fighting aliens, and eventually making your way to a couple scientists whom you kill for a keycard, the map just kinda ends. Rather abruptly, I'd say. It's a short map, but it's fine.

    Its shortness can be tempered though by a puzzle that had us scratching our heads. There's an explosive crate that we shot and crowbarred like hell. Turns out you need to use a satchel charge on it, and right next to it. I had thrown one not close enough and it hadn't gone off. Only after scouring the entire map did we revisit it as an way to progress forward in the map again. That's not really a puzzle, it's just poor conveyance and misusing a common signpost in Half-Life and its mods- if an explosive crate doesn't explode when you shoot it, it probably doesn't explode.

    Overall I think the map is janky but pretty in some areas, ambitious in strange areas, and full of very novel ideas. If you're running an action server, throw it on there who can it hurt. If you're looking for one to play with another player, go for it. I think that overall it gets pretty easy, so I don't know if more than two players is recommendable.

Pros:

• Fun ideas
• I liked gibbing a scientist to take his keycard
• Really fun locations

Cons:

• Janky co-op implementation
• The map ends before it really feels like it ever begins
• Poor conveyance

Score: 6.8 / 10