Case Closed - Dunkelschwamm

  

    Case Closed is one of the many singleplayer Half-Life mods ported over to Sven Co-op. We go around and see all the familiar sights around Black Mesa, especially the sewers, and eventually we are able to get out.

SCMapDB page

Original map author: EraSerx

Conversion author: Hezus

Date of original mod release: 2001

Date of final Sven Map release: 2005

Maps in package: 10

Map review of Case Closed

(originally posted on SCMapDB) 

by dunkelschwamm | July 9, 2023 | 3163 characters

    Case Closed is a conversion of a singleplayer mod called Case Closed. Play a singleplayer walkthrough which journeys players through funky testing labs, maintenance rooms, sewers, funky testing labs, maintenance rooms, and sewers!

    Most of what is on display is standard Half-Life action stuff, but it plays decently well in Sven Co-op. I'd say I think some maps could stand to be stitched together for the sake of this, as they often end right after grabbing some HEV or equipment. This leads to some awkward moments where players wait around for restock before continuing, only to find it was a waste of time.

    As I goofed on in the first paragraph, there are mostly testing labs, maintenance rooms, and sewers in this map. I think things really shine in the testing labs, where lots of imaginative equipment is rendered in detail and spectacular interactivity. The maintenance areas are mostly what you would expect. The sewers looked, frankly, pretty bad but come up often. There's a couple imaginative bits, like a machine which flips the world, or some bits where players visit xen that were all fantastic.

    All throughout, combat is pretty solid. Players mostly battle HECU, but lots of xen aliens make appearances. Even the tentacle shows up and is used to decent effect. There's some fun moments of xen military taking on the HECU while players can watch, as well as great use of the tiny square tripmines and of the tripod turrets. All the while, players have an ever-expanding arsenal which cleaves through them satisfyingly. There's some places where combat does feel less than exceptional, usually owing to lifting a players up an elevator into a surrounded ambush, or enemies saturating a checkpoint or spawn area.

    That's worth mentioning: this map does have checkpoints, which helped progress forward when it didn't place us in the heat of battle. There were also lots of redundant equipment pickups so players didn't have to often feel they were missing out on important stuff.

    I think the mapset lacks much of a feeling of progression. The threat doesn't escalate as much as it remains a steady challenge throughout. The map less of ended as it stopped, with the G-Man suddenly intervening in the middle of a level.

    Overall, if you're looking for a very solid fun action mapset with some good lab environments, this will work well for you. It'll give about 2 hours of playtime, and then abruptly stop.

Pros:

• Solid, satisfying action through-and-through
• Decent equipment stations
• Good checkpoints
• Great lab environments
• Changes things up in interesting ways as often as the map can
• Good use of tentacle and other oft-unseen features

Cons:

• Bad sewer environments
• Sometimes players are put in bullshit combat situations to crawl out of miserably, like spawn-kills on a checkpoint
• Forward progression sometimes is not clear
• Overall map doesn't have much escalation or feeling of how much progress has been made

Score: 7.6 / 10