Sven Co-op Map Reviews

       This is a variety map, walk through a teleporter to be dropped off in a fun room. There is an arena, control room, maze, armory, crusher, and a very saucy place. SCMapDB page Author: halo4life Date of release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Choose (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | July 9, 2023 | 2752 characters      Choose is a real swiss army knife of a map. It reminds me of the reeeaaally old Garry's Mod construct map, where you just press buttons to spawn everything. This map really harkens back to that.      So, you've got a bunch of doors. There's an armory for restocking your ammo, an arena for pressing buttons which spawn horrible monsters to fight, an invisible maze for banging your head against your keyboard until blood pours of your ears, a "crusher room", a "pron" room, and a control room.      The armory gives you a bunch of the good shit. Tau, RPG, Gluon- the works. It's good, because it's nice to have f

      This is a variety map, walk through a teleporter to be dropped off in a fun room. There is an arena, control room, maze, armory, crusher, and a very saucy place. SCMapDB page Author: halo4life Date of release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Choose (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | July 9, 2023 | 1452 characters      The simply named Choose is a sort of variety map where players start in a room with teleporters to various attractions. We have a room labelled Crusher, OMG Free Pr0n, Control Room, Arena, Maze, and Armory. There was also a dancing gonome.      The Crusher room has some buttons that trigger traps to kill scientists. They kind of just run around and it can be tough to actually get them into the traps. There is also a conveyor that dumps scientists into a spike. The promise of free pornography is worth it and players should definitely check it out. The control room is a bit of gameplay to access a menu of sorts for the level, the arena is a fight p

    Despite the name this map is a Shadow Warrior themed map, no Black Hawks around, bird or helicopter. It's got both key hunt elements just like games in the old days and its got plenty of combat as well.  SCMapDB page Author: Lt.JC Date of release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Black Hawk (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | March 16, 2023 | 3883 characters      Black Hawk is a map for Sven Co-op which aims to take inspiration from Shadow Warrior, making a series with a more classic build-engine style.      This build engine inspiration is especially apparent in the flow of the map. There's a lot of key hunting, monsters spawning in a monster-closet-adjacent fashion, and secret hunting for weapons. The two main maps in particular are extremely similar to the first two maps of Shadow Warrior at first glance, with the first map being almost beat-for-beat in terms of progression. I think this key hunt style works great, and my teammate had ment

      Despite the name this map is a Shadow Warrior themed map, no Black Hawks around, bird or helicopter. It's got both key hunt elements just like games in the old days and its got plenty of combat as well.  SCMapDB page Author: Lt.JC Date of release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Black Hawk (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | March 16, 2023 | 7587 characters      I haven't played much Shadow Warrior and as a result I suck at it. This map is a lot like its source material, at least according to my teammate who saw the inspiration right away, it has challenging combat in some areas and a lot of annoying key hunt elements. There are three maps in total, the first and second are walkthrough maps that pick up right after the other and are built very similar to levels in Shadow Warrior. Then there was the bonus map that was a brutal platforming co-op journey.      We spawn in a street, for various reasons my teammate and I went afk for a bit and I ca

      Don't jump down! Or do because besides hunting for hidden weapons all the gameplay is at the bottom of a pit. There is no end game trigger so this map is best for sightseeing.  SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Splatter 3 (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | January 1, 2023 | 2260 characters      Robootto does it again with another Sven Co-op map. Relax, sit back, fire weapons endlessly into the pit of despair. Is there anything worthwhile at the bottom of the pit? If you find finding the answers to questions its own reward, then possibly!      Explore the above-pit world, which is a semi-decently brushed and not-decently textured cave interior filled with tau-or-tripmine-only reachable ledges. Don't worry- you get both! By crawling the cave, players can nearly complete their arsenal: a tau gun, snarks, tripmines, machineguns, grenades- the works.      The pit itself is a massive inconvenience. There

      Don't jump down! Or do because besides hunting for hidden weapons all the gameplay is at the bottom of a pit. There is no end game trigger so this map is best for sightseeing.  SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Splatter 3 (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | January 1, 2023 | 1702 characters      I spawned in front of a sign that says "Don't jump down!", which is the same as what is written in the map description. In order to progress in the map you have to jump down.      There isn't a lot to this map, players spawn in a large, cavernous room that looks like a cavern. A deep pit exposes respawning enemies, most notably a gargantua. There are plenty of weapons scattered around the room but none of them really help in getting through the bottom of the pit, the enemies spawn too fast and the best garg killing weapon is a crossbow. There is a door down there that teleports players to a fun lit

       I don't know why the author thought it was necessary to make this map some weird fanfiction about Barney's family. But I will say none of that matters, simply kill aliens in the map and you win. SCMapDB page Author: Tigan Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Barney The Great (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | October 1, 2022 | 2208 characters      Barney The Great is a baffling map for how straight forward it is. Navigate 3 poorly brushed, blocky floors in a self-contained building, fighting annoying enemies in cramped spaces with the bare minimum weaponry to do so.      In the first floor you fight zombies and baby headcrabs in cramped living quarters. According to the story, these are Barney The Great's family members trying to avenge him. This makes absolutely zero sense to me. I don't get this angle at all. It's an annoying battle in an ugly, mostly dark area that you must navigate with only the crowbar and the pisto

      I don't know why the author thought it was necessary to make this map some weird fanfiction about Barney's family. But I will say none of that matters, simply kill aliens in the map and you win. SCMapDB page Author: Tigan Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Barney The Great (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | October 1, 2022 | 1274 characters      There is a rather fanciful interpretation of what happens in this map in the map description. I guess Barney's family is a bunch of aliens. The map is very straightforward, players spawn in a room with some pistol ammo, walk through a hallway full of zombies, go up some stairs and get a shotgun. There is one fork in the map here, players can go up to fight a gargantua and die or go around to fight alien slaves and grunts to get an rpg to kill the gargantua. The map ends when the garg dies. That is the whole map.      The whole thing was over so fast. The story might as well be for a diff

       This map only has one room, or two if you count unreachable rooms, with a giant pyramid and a bunch of weapons and ammo scattered around. The only enemies are zombies that fall out of the sky forever. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Red Pyramide (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | July 21, 2022 | 2455 characters      Robootto does it again. red-pyramide is a baffling experiential digital space. Players may arm themselves as they find themselves encased with a red pyramid(e?) within a large silo of some sort, shallow liquid permeating the featureless base of it. A suspended walkway surrounds the very tip of the pyramid(e?) and extend bridges to meet in a circle around said tip. Up above, a shaft to the outside world directly above the pyramid(e?)'s tip drops freshly spawned zombies down into the tip. Players can use weapons from the surrounding area to combat these zombies if they wish. Maybe this works

      This map only has one room, or two if you count unreachable rooms, with a giant pyramid and a bunch of weapons and ammo scattered around. The only enemies are zombies that fall out of the sky forever. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Red Pyramide (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | July 21, 2022 | 2335 characters      There is a red pyramid. Like many of the author's (the author is Robootto) other maps this one is avant garde, strange, and somewhat poorly put together. It has an area that players can't reach, clashing textures not meant to be on walls, and true to the map description there is an unsettling sound playing in the background at all times.      The map layout itself is a large room dominated by a red pyramid in the middle. Players spawn on top of a walkway that goes around the perimeter of the room and has a bridge in the middle to a platform on top of the red pyramid. Zombies fall down fro

       Jump up a lot of precarious platforms to get to the top. There is no end to this map and sometimes players will spawn at the top, negating the need to platform at all. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Trash Xprase Arena (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | July 10, 2022 | 1251 characters      Trash Xprase Arena is a climbing map. Players climb crude brushwork of multiple colors through a concrete silo all the way to the top, wherein they exit into a Toonrun grassy noll. Sometimes you spawn at the bottom, sometimes you spawn at the top. I gave up at a certain point, so I can't say for sure that all of the jumps are completable- a couple of them, especially after the elevator, felt that way. Oh yeah, there's also a janky elevator.      Usually my reviews are longer than this, but this just about covers it. Most of the jumps are perilous and will send the player to hell in a handbasket. There's no sp

      Jump up a lot of precarious platforms to get to the top. There is no end to this map and sometimes players will spawn at the top, negating the need to platform at all. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Trash Xprase Arena (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | July 10, 2022 | 1554 characters      I never know how to review platforming maps because I am not a fan of platforming in general. My teammate however is well versed in the arts of first person jumping onto things. He has assured me the climb is probably doable but very difficult. This is already a huge step up for the author, Robootto, whose maps are usually all nonsense.      The map looks real bad, it has misaligned textures that are not meant to be tiled on the walls, all thrown together haphazardly. The platforms come in all shapes and sizes and later there are rails. Half way up the climb there is an elevator designed to be bullshit and it succeeds at t

       This is an arena. There are many like it, but this one is Arena. Enemies spawn in without end and the architecture is simple and blocky. SCMapDB page Author: Rivendell Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Arena (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | June 17, 2022 | 3662 characters      Arena is an arena map. You ever see those gladiatorial battles where they just, like, let wolves or dogs or mountain lions or bears loose on a bunch of fighters and it's just nonsense and bloodshed and nothing makes sense? Arena is a lot like that. I think, in that way, it lives up to its name.      However, it's also one of those kinds of arena maps that's made with very little finesse. In fact, I'd say this is done with no finesse whatsoever. Reality falls apart at the seams, as players randomly find themselves swimming through midair, or at times you'll find cylinders of water. The structures are massive and fantastical, and the outdoor are

      This is an arena. There are many like it, but this one is Arena. Enemies spawn in without end and the architecture is simple and blocky. SCMapDB page Author: Rivendell Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Arena (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | June 17, 2022 | 2295 characters      Arena is a fairly bland map. Players spawn next to friendly NPCs and some hostile ones and they fight and players can step in and help them. Left alone these two factions can generally keep each other busy. There doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason to which monsters are friendly and which are hostile, it all seems random. There was a gargantua that I saw and helped kill but then I tried looking for anything else of interest and didn't find much, meanwhile my teammate fought spawning turrets, female assassins, a minigunner, and a big momma. I guess your mileage may vary. Players spawn fully loaded so that helps a lot.      The map is a big empty room with a

       Another Unit (alternate version) is a remake of the official map Another Unit. Some details have been lost to time, but the authors seem to be different and there is some confusion as to whether it is a remake or a sequel. Personally, it feels like a remake by a player who didn't like the original map. SCMapDB page Author: GAMESABA Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Another Unit (Alternate version) Part 1 (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | April 3, 2022 | 4392 characters      Another Unit Remake Part 1 is a remake (sequel?) of the map Another Unit. Another Unit was a map by B-Dama which I also reviewed, giving it a very mild score but overall praising its visuals and interesting use of mostly default material. This remake (sequel?) is an almost complete redesign, starting from scratch after the very first setpiece.      That first setpiece is a pair of dual hallways filled with turrets and barneys, and holographic triggers which spawn

      Another Unit (alternate version) is a remake of the official map Another Unit. Some details have been lost to time, but the authors seem to be different and there is some confusion as to whether it is a remake or a sequel. Personally, it feels like a remake by a player who didn't like the original map. SCMapDB page Author: GAMESABA Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Another Unit (Alternate version) Part 1 (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | April 3, 2022 | 3895 characters      I try to judge each map on its own merits, but remakes, sequels, and the like somewhat demand a comparison. To say it outright, this map is better than the original. Where the original was one long corridor this map shortens the hallway and adds a non linear office complex area that players go through instead. It's almost a complete reimagining of the first map.      Players spawn next to a burnt out plane and a few dead soldiers, this area in the original map

       Normall is a map series all about walking through hallways. Robootto, a mapper with a bad reputation, and RNG, a mapper with a good reputation, have teamed up to bring us these hallways. SCMapDB page Authors: Robootto, RNG Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 10 Map review of Normall (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | March 31, 2022 | 7332 characters      Normall is a mapset by Robootto and RNG. I would say it is their most prolific collaboration- and Robootto's advertisements for Normall in his other maps would certainly seem to suggest that he thinks the same.      The Goldsrc engine is a mapping engine which specializes in drawing corridors. The entire visleaf setup is designed to ensure that condensed interior areas are best optimized.      Half-Life is a game which utilizes the Goldsrc engine in a way which masks these corridors- sometimes as science labs, sometimes as alien factories, and sometimes even as outdoor areas… but sometimes it just mak

      Normall is a map series all about walking through hallways. Robootto, a mapper with a bad reputation, and RNG, a mapper with a good reputation, have teamed up to bring us these hallways. SCMapDB page Authors: Robootto, RNG Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 10 Map review of Normall (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | March 31, 2022 | 2679 characters      I've played a lot of maps made by this author, Robootto. All of his maps have a quality that is somewhere between bewildering amounts of incompetence and being trolled. So when I took a look at the map description 'Contains Hallways" and the screen shots of endless twisting hallways I guessed that this would be the absolute worst map series for Sven I've played yet.      It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. Yeah, I was right in that the whole map series is about walking down boring hallways where nothing happens most of the time. The hallways have mostly the same texture, along with th

       The author of this map,Robootto, is Finnish. Sticking the map name into Google translate spits out 'Muumin valley'. Google the terms, it's some interesting Finnish culture, too bad the map looks like a gravel pit. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Muumimaaliset (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | February 26, 2022 | 1663 characters      This map is a weird one. A very strange looking zombie with a tremendous amount of health but a seeming inability to deal damage stalks players in a small, circular, bizarre field with some skewed crosses in one corner and a massive tower silo in another corner. A strange blob lurks within. Spend entirely too long with all of your weapons killing these creatures. There is no catharsis. Spend the rest of the map timer thinking about what you've done.      That's what's in store when you play Muumimalliset. There's some mention of the Moomin Valley in

      The author of this map,Robootto, is Finnish. Sticking the map name into Google translate spits out 'Muumin valley'. Google the terms, it's some interesting Finnish culture, too bad the map looks like a gravel pit. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Muumimaaliset (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | February 26, 2022 | 1126 characters      This map is a terrible looking arena with a monstrous looking thing that runs at players. It doesn't attack or if it does, it does no damage. It does frequently block players into corners and traps them there. It has a lot of health and killing it takes forever, when you do kill it nothing happens. There is a lot of ammo at the spawn area and some weapons behind the tower. Inside the tower is a teeny tiny elevator past some platforms with more weapons and ammo, and a weird blob thing that I later learned was a monster. To get down from the tower players have to j