Biglolly Coop - Dunkelschwamm
Big Lolly is a conversion of a standalone mod made for the author's brother's birthday. It's short and sweet, pun intended.
Original mod authors: Cayle George
Conversion authors: Royal-soldier
Date of original mod release: 2003
Date of final Sven Map release: 2009
Maps in package: 6
Map review of Biglolly Coop
(originally posted on SCMapDB)
by dunkelschwamm | January 30, 2022 | 3752 characters
Biglolly Coop is a Sven Co-op port of the Half-Life mod Big Lolly. My understanding is that Big Lolly was originally made as a birthday gift to the author's brother. If my brother were to make a mod like this for me, I wouldn't even know what to say.
The port is very straight-forward and faithfully plays out the original mod in Sven Co-op. I remember playing this port a while back and having difficulty with it, but seeing that it has been patched makes sense as to why this time around the experience was so smooth and flawless. I do have to say, however, that Big Lolly's maps are not at all optimized for co-op play. Much of it takes place on narrow ledges or platforms, enemies are scant and meant to be dealt with by only a single ill-equipped player, and there are many frequent level transitions. Frequent level transitions are typical in Half-Life singleplayer mods, but are very jarring in co-op where one person may end the map before another has fully caught up after a lengthy server connection. This didn't happen to me in this occasion, but it's one of the things which makes ports of singleplayer mods so tricky and sometimes clunky. Even though the port is totally functional, it doesn't compensate, and thus the port is unable to be quite as enjoyable as it was in its home, single-player environment it was designed for.
These issues are fairly minor, however, if you consider Big Lolly for the brief jaunt that it is. It opens and closes with fully voice acted cutscene cinematics, everything is new to the point of being considerably a total conversion mod, and it features several very brief maps throughout.
The gameplay of each map revolves around traversing a hazardous candy landscape, usually involving high mountain cliffs or platforms floating over an abyss, while battling headcrabs and zombies remodeled as red gummy bears and gingerbread men, respectively. To fight these sweet, sweet foes the player must use a lollipop (crowbar), a banana (pistol), poprocks and soda (grenades), and their own green gummy bears (snarks). Ammo for the pistol is very lightly given, and the landscape rarely makes grenades or snarks a viable option, so masterful use of the crowbar is often the best approach. Each map is very, very short, however, so be ready for it to often end even sometimes shortly after you first acquire a new useful weapon.
The graphics of this map are beautiful, by the way. The candy is all conveyed in very simple but highly effective brushwork and textures, as well as some great models. The new weapons and the enemies look fantastic, and I really like the sourpatch kid cockroaches which run around. There's multiple environments throughout the series, so it never gets boring to look at before the end.
If you're looking for something to play with some friends, I'd recommend this. It's short and sweet, and I think it's hard to not have fun playing it. If you're running a server, you might want to look into the way it automatically shuts down a server when the map ends before you put it on any of your rotations.
Pros:
- Looks great, with fantastic weapon and enemy models and new textures
- Fun minimalist gameplay for one player
- Lots of environments
- Lots of production detail, including voice acting
- I liked the level transition paintings
- I also really liked the opening and closing cutscenes
Cons:
- Maps are very short and abrupt
- With more than one player the gameplay is dirt easy
- The maps don't feel like they're big enough to support multiple people playing
Score: 7.5 / 10
Comments
Post a Comment