Aggregate Pain - GrandmasterJ

 

    

    Aggregate Pain is another conversion of a standalone Half-Life mod. It takes place in Black Mesa and players fight both soldiers and aliens.

SCMapDB page

Original mod authors: Michael Sisk

Conversion authors: Garompa

Date of original mod release: 1999

Date of final Sven Map release: 2017

Maps in package: 3

Map review of Aggregate Pain

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by GrandmasterJ | March 5, 2022 | 3200 characters

    Aggregate Pain is a very short three map series. The map is set in Black Mesa like a lot of maps are, this map does almost nothing to stand out.

    The first map players start in a truck. A human grunt stands right outside and will begin shooting so don't dawdle. One my first playthrough three more grunts came around the corner and I had a big fight right out of spawn. On my second playthrough the grunts stayed put. There is a hallway with a lot of enemies at one point with two heavy weapons grunts. After another hallway the map ends.

    We played the first map twice because there was an area behind spawn I wanted to see. It was a series of rooms filled with zombies, headcrabs, tripmines, and vortigaunts. It served to give us the shotgun and plenty of ammo. There is a room back there with crates suspended by cables above a bottomless pit. My teammate fell into the pit but survived and was trapped down there. It was pretty funny and he had to kill himself to get out. It's a completely missable part directly behind spawn.

    The second map had some more corridors with grunts and one catwalk flanked by two big useless spinning things. They aren't fans, they are attached to the walls and could not possibly direct any airflow. Eventually there is an arena with snipers, pressing a button will summon an apache. My teammate and I had a lot of difficulty dealing with the apache. A lack of HEV made us very prone to being shot and the huge range of motion the helicopter had gave it an almost guaranteed chance to hit us. We kept running for the gluon gun but there was a side area we went into later with a rocket launcher.

    The third map was some more corridor shooting and it ends in a very large arena with baby gargs and alien controllers. It's worth noting that players spawn with more weapons each map, in the first map we had mp5s, in the second we had shotguns, in the third we have rocket launchers and gluon gun. We were well equipped to take down the baby garg and eventually a full size garg. I managed to kill myself by indiscriminately throwing grenades and respawned in the arena, so there are updating spawn points in the map. There were also some elevators. They were all right, I just am not too keen on elevators in Sven maps.

    Overall, it was a forgettable experience. The action is mostly corridor shooting soldiers. The map design was choked with hallways and felt completely uninspired. There were some nice features like spawning with progressively better weapons, updating spawn points, and the completely optional area in the first map. But overall this map set didn't leave a strong impression on me and while playing I felt like I wanted to try another map.

Pros:

• players spawn with progressively better weapons each map
• spawn points will update closer to the action
• fun semi-hidden area in the first map

Cons:

• Black Mesa done bland, too many hallways
• enemies shoot into spawn right as the map starts
• the apache battle was a pain

Score: 4 / 10