Resident Evil: Covert Operations - Dunkelschwamm

 

    The second installment of the first Resident Evil series (two series of Resident Evil maps by two authors, this one is made by mrfranswa) is bigger and more Resident Evil than the first. We are trapped in a mansion once again and have to scavenger hunt our way out.

SCMapDB page

Author: mrfranswa

Date of final release: 2004

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Resident Evil: Covert Operations

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by dunkelschwamm | October 13, 2022 | 6424 characters

    Resident Evil: Covert Operations is a very long map which aims to largely create a fan game of Resident Evil within Sven Co-op. It features limited ammo, lots of monsters, some unique puzzles, and backtracking like nobody's business.

    Before I begin, I do want to mention: when I played this for this review, some crucial puzzle elements did not spawn. The map was unbeatable without cheats. In particular, the golden emblem did not appear. As such, right out the gate, I cannot recommend this map for a server rotation. It is either broken, or accidentally breakable.

    Anyway, the first thing you'll notice when you play this map is that, compared to many other mansion-centric Resident Evil maps, the presentation is fantastic. The atmospheric noises are on point, the textures look great, the mansion looks the best it's ever looked in Goldsrc, and there's plenty of custom models which keep things nice and spice. In particular, I'm actually really fond of the licker models for the gonomes which crawl toward the player. The map is like a mashup of Resident Evils 0-1, with an ever-present mutant madman scientist like in Resident Evil 0, but the mansion and progression reminded me much more of Resident Evil 1. Things really go far off the rails, though, as events follow a new A-Virus. There are quite a few different environments, and almost all of them look great or at the very least interesting. Good textures, good lighting, and great light fixtures to go with the lighting. At one point my teammate mentioned "great ceilings" and ever since I kept marveling at how nice and thoughtfully crafted many ceilings are throughout the map. It's very good looking.

    Speaking of presentation, this map does have some interestingly executed journal entry notes, some cutscenes, and character dialogue. I don't think any of this is done especially well, but it's so rare to see in Sven that it all stands out as, at the very least, a lot of extra love and effort.

    Things start to fall apart a bit with gameplay. Now, the combat isn't all terrible. Blowing away lickers and flesh reavers is a lot of fun- though fighting zombies feels like a bit of a crapshoot due to inconsistent health and some zombies just continuing to stand through their death until they fade away, making combat confusing. I think the low point, really, is the non-respawning guns and ammo. Considering how quickly a player can be killed, losing weapons happens frequently and painfully. The breadth of weapons isn't just necessary to pack additional punch in combat- it's necessary because there is so little ammo to go around. The zombies, on the other hand, completely repopulate the mansion and labs seemingly every time the players make progress. It has this eroding force on gameplay, as weapon variety slowly dies out with player deaths or ammo loss, and the game just gets worse and worse to play over time. I get the feeling this was intended to create a survival horror feeling, but it really just gives the feeling of a map getting less and less fun and interesting over time due to poor, narrow-minded, and short-sighted game design.

    There's a crocodile puzzle boss which is a hilariously silly concept- you have to drown a giant crocodile by placing a box over a vent in a half flooded room. There's no indication that the room is flooding, or that the vent is an outlet which isn't equally flooded as the rest of the room. You seem to be in a room ankle-deep with still water, and a giant crocodile is chasing you. So, you're supposed to push the crate over the vent and then the room fills very slowly with water and the crocodile drowns. I just stabbed and shot it to death.

    The biggest, most glaringest issue (aside from the map being broken) is the backtracking and movement. Throughout the map, enemies constantly respawn as you make progress, and ammo only gets more and more scarce. However, you're forced to move all the way through the map multiple times to find the doors which said they were locked for specific reasons without visual indicators (like some rooms just say they are locked with club or diamond shaped locks, or are computer locked, when they could show a digital locking mechanism or texture a diamond or a club into the door). Instead, when you finally open a door that you've unlocked you have no way of realizing until you notice the new area isn't familiar. The map itself is lain out like two twisty mazes at either sides of the hub, and you're constantly bouncing between the extreme ends of each one with pieces of puzzles that your recollection of where they go are gonna be hazy at best. As the map expands, and gets more convoluted, eventually requiring barnacles to get around certain areas, or many long elevators, and many more twisting corridors, through tight hallways with doors which never open the right way and often get the player stuck- this map is entropy. It sucks the energy right out of you until all that's left is a gray powdery substance that no longer resembles the bright-eyed soul which entered the map.

    Overall, I think this map looks really good, and plays fine until you're about a quarter of the way through it. Then you'll be replaying the map over and over and over again, more frustrated with it each time, until finally the map ends because you cheated- as the map is broken and incompletable normally. I don't recommend it, which breaks my heart, because it really seems like it should be the best Resident Evil map here.

Pros:

• Very good custom models
• Very nice looking map with great textures
• Lots of fanmade story delivered through creative means
• Lots of ideas
• Clearly a lot of love went into creating such an impressively large map full of such varied locations

Cons:

• The gameplay is grating and only steadily gets worse as the map progresses
• Progression is often unclear and cryptic in a way that makes intrigue feel like a waste of time, which is the biggest sin a map like this can make
• Navigating the map feels like a chore no matter how many times you do it- and you'll be doing it so many times you'll have it all seared into your brain
• Enemies respawn, but weapons, health, hev, and ammo do not
• The map is broken

Score: 4.5 / 10