Big Coop Map - Dunkelschwamm

 

    If you are looking for a lengthy cooperative experience with a friend then you could do a lot worse than this map. It may be a bit generic, it is called 'Big Coop Map' after all but the title is accurate and its not bad.

SCMapDB page

Author: Robootto

Date of release: 2005

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Big Coop Map

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by dunkelschwamm | February 11, 2023 | 4109 characters

    Big Coop Map (BCM for short) is an action walkthrough map for Sven Co-op with a military complex theme. Battle a little bit of each faction in a surrealist, nightmarish take on Half-Life gameplay.

    While the map begins with some fairly standard outdoor urban combat with turrets and snipers, the moment you enter the complex is the moment you fall down the rabbit hole. This map looks on the surface like a beginner's Black Mesa imitation map, but it is wacky. Consoles (yes, plural) will display an inaccessible dance hall full of aliens when used. Walls will open like doors and slide through one another, incurring zfighting, blocking other hallways as they move, causing crushing damage to players who get in the way, revealing Quake-style monster closets. You never know when you use one of these walls whether they'll slide sideways or drop immediately down, but 3 out of 4 times it's going to be a bunch of enemies who'll get right up in your face.

    On the upside, this map does supply players with some updating spawnpoints and plenty of weaponry. The downside is that much of the weaponry is no longer accessible as the spawnpoints update. Before the first spawnpoint update, I was able to access an RPG, underbarrel grenades, shotgun, and handgrenades, as well as a bunch of HEV. By the last spawnpoint I was mad-dashing for a revolver, the only weapon near spawn. Additionally, weapons do not stay in this map. This is was a bit of a problem with two people, though it was manageable with optimized teamwork. On a server full of people I can only imagine this being a nightmare mad-grab for weaponry and ammo.

    The combat is fun, due mostly to lots of enemies with low health. It's as pleasant as mowing the lawn when you have the ammo and teamwork to sweep a hallway. Then, a wall unexpectedly slides away and you're facing down a bunch of heavy weapons guys who end you on the spot. I think the map's enjoyable qualities are probably mistakes which rose to the top of a thoughtless bukkake of enemies onto this shifting puzzle box of a map. We fought an osprey that was a fine encounter, but looking back if either of us had died or run out of ammo we would not have been able to take it out with the rocketlaunchers we had brought from before the spawn update. Once we started dying, battles as we climbed our way back to our ammo grew tedious. To make matters worse, the map would sometimes spawn new batches of enemies over the entire map, making respawning an even greater chore each time. I'd say the map started the most fun, but progressively got less enjoyable. By the end the map has the players locked into a pretty boring tiny combat area. By this point, I'm missing the strange sliding walls in the complex.

    The map's looks are a bit inconsistent. In some areas the map creates some really nice atmosphere, especially in an early outdoor area. There's also a lot of effort put into some specific rooms, and the aforementioned dance hall. However, much of the rest of the map feels a bit like a beginner's map, especially when you have bizarre lighting around and zfighting sliding walls. It also does almost nothing to signpost the next area to progress, the sliding-walls acting as doors being just one example.

    Overall, this map is playable from beginning to end. I think it has some moments of decent combat in it, enough to warrant putting this on a server rotation. I'd warn, however, that I don't think the ending is worth it by the time you get there.

Pros:

• Some great canon fodder battles
• Large arsenal for much of the map
• Great variety of encounters
• Some decent looking areas, especially the office area and the outdoor beginning area

Cons:

• Bizarre, confusing mapping and progression
• Often just spawns enemies on top of players without warning
• Updating spawnpoints deplete the arsenal
• Underwhelming ending
• Much of the map is ugly or garish

Score:

6.2 / 10