Sven Co-op Map Reviews

       Metal Bar is a reference to a genre of music and a drinking establishment, not a material and an object. This map features two bars with speakers blasting some heavy metal with very low quality audio. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto and RNG Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Metal Bar (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | February 19, 2022 | 3757 characters      Metal Bar is a map by Robootto and RNG. The map is intended to be a fun map for people to chill out on in a server. I feel like the environment of a metal bar is evoked shockingly well in both Robootto's and RNG's bars. I really like these Robootto maps with RNG coauthoring. I feel like RNG really brought the best out of Robootto.      The map takes place in a sort of outdoor strip mall type of location with lots of palm trees. To the left is Ixa's metal bar. I presume this metal bar is the one which Robootto mostly made, based on part of the description describing the secr

      Metal Bar is a reference to a genre of music and a drinking establishment, not a material and an object. This map features two bars with speakers blasting some heavy metal with very low quality audio. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto and RNG Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Metal Bar (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | February 19, 2022 | 3682 characters      I've played enough maps made by Robootto to know I'm probably not going to have a good time. But RNG also helped make this map, and his maps are amazing. RNG's influence is probably a big reason why I think this map is one of Robootto's best maps.      The map design is simple, start off in a small park with a couple doors. One door is locked up tight and never opens, another leads to a small guitar store, and the other leads to the first metal bar of the map. The map description says there are two, its pretty difficult to find the second one and I would never have looked

       There are plenty of Sven maps out there with no goal other than to have fun. This map is one of those but everything about it is slightly off. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Little Fun Park (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | February 13, 2022 | 3846 characters      Another three maps from Robootto's wacky brand of whimsy and anti-gameplay. All three maps require chiseling your way out of a destructible wall that is textured like a door to taunt you (in the third map it's the wall next to the door that's destructible so you end up wasting your time attacking the door if you're thinking of the previous maps. The destructible has way too much health to destroy unless you cheat or have all 16 players hammering on it at once. I'd recommend that you cheat, but I'd sooner recommend not playing the map at all.      After breaking your way out, in all three maps you're presented with th

      There are plenty of Sven maps out there with no goal other than to have fun. This map is one of those but everything about it is slightly off. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Little Fun Park (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | February 13, 2022 | 5057 characters      So there are three maps here, little fun park, version 2, and mini. I started out in little fun park first and spawned in a dim room with grenades and a door. The door doesn't open. IT becomes apparent that we have to use grenades to open the door, but the door has a ludicrous amount of health. My teammate and I cheated and gave ourselves all the weapons and it took an absurd amount of damage to destroy the door and get out of the room. There is another room with a destructible door here. Thankfully it has less health but it's still annoying.      Out of the spawn room and in the park itself is a variety of strange things to look at. Ther

       Adam's Dungeon is a trap and monster filled maze with a boss fight and a difficult platforming room. With two players the map was difficult and took a long time to complete. SCMapDB page Author: Adambean Date of final release: 2009 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Adam's Dungeon (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | January 28, 2022 | 5867 characters      Adam's Dungeon is a maze map fraught with traps, monsters, and silly platforming bits that are far more aggravating than they need to be.      When first spawning in Adam's Dungeon, you must break into the dungeon proper by breaking down a wall with a crowbar. Once inside, you move through the dungeon and accept that trial-and-error deaths in traps will be part of your experience.      Tunnels throughout the maze contain utterly unmarked deathtraps which are sure-fire murder to whomever triggers them. I think this is the type of thing that's a lot more fun with lots of players, where there's

      Adam's Dungeon is a trap and monster filled maze with a boss fight and a difficult platforming room. With two players the map was difficult and took a long time to complete. SCMapDB page Author: Adambean Date of final release: 2009 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Adam's Dungeon (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | January 28, 2022 | 6484 characters      Let me be upfront, I am not a fan of maze maps or first person platforming. This map has both. I wasn't too excited about what I saw on the map's page either so I didn't have high hopes going into it.      The map is a maze. It starts off with a deluge of gonomes and pit drones right off the bat, players could be fooled into thinking it is a combat heavy map. Yes, there is combat and plenty of it. The combat is frenetic and claustrophobic, the whole map is a maze of hallways and running backwards from incredibly fast and powerful enemies while frantically trying to shoot them. But the real obstacle

       This map set has two maps in it. One is a hallway with some rooms off to the side and the other is a room with some random junk scattered around. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 2 Map review of Indokiina (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | January 9, 2022 | 2168 characters      This is a review of two maps together: indokiina and indokiina2_chaosslum. indojapan, also by Robootto, is supposedly a sequel to these. If you can understand any way that makes sense I invite you and strongly urge you to explain some of this to me.      indokiina is a series of outdoor rooms connected by an outdoor hallway. Weapons are strewn about, some brushes with novelty textures adorn the walls of the rooms, some broken zombies with the Gina model and respawning headcrabs keep you company. The whole thing is lit in this weird sickly dim light that makes everything kind of off-putting and uneasy. The first room has what appears to be a crudely

      This map set has two maps in it. One is a hallway with some rooms off to the side and the other is a room with some random junk scattered around. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 2 Map review of Indokiina (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | January 9, 2022 | 2070 characters      There are two maps here and they are completely different. Reading the map description can easily lead you to believe that the maps are similar, but they really aren't. There are some textures both maps use but that is where the similarities end.      The first map, indokiina, is a hallway with four rooms on the right side. The first has a bunch of weapons and some zombies with Gina Cross models halfway through the floor. I play as Gina myself so I immediately killed them, there can be only one after all. There was also a poorly made toilet and simple rough bathtub with and HEV suit in it. Red water was haphazardly placed around in such a way that

       I am guessing the 'Goreship' from the map title is the white ship that reminds me a toilet in the above screenshot. I am guessing the splatterforest is the simple forest not pictured. There is also a Hell section of this map but I guess 'Goreship Splatterforest Hell' was too long. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Goreship Splatterforest (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | January 1, 2021 | 3443 characters      The best you can hope for with Robootto maps is a kind of strange sense of exploring something that couldn't so much to be have been made as much as to have happened. Goreship Splatterforest gives those vibes at times, and has a surprising sense of progression within. Room after room of seemingly infinitely respawning aliens. The players must escape from a bizarre structure which we could pretend is a ship, starting from the bathroom.      The player is equipped with only a pistol a

      I am guessing the 'Goreship' from the map title is the white ship that reminds me a toilet in the above screenshot. I am guessing the splatterforest is the simple forest not pictured. There is also a Hell section of this map but I guess 'Goreship Splatterforest Hell' was too long. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Goreship Splatterforest (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | January 1, 2022 | 2982 characters      This map is real ugly. You start off in a badly proportioned and textured bathroom that opens up into a room full of respawning bullsquids and a gonarch among other monsters. Past the bullquids is a staircase that leads to a terrible ladder I fell off almost every time I had to go up it. This leads to a weapon stash with a moderate amount of ammo. After taking heavy fall damage from this terrible ladder exit the ship to see it is a horrible toilet-white color and a shape somewhat reminisc

      Despite the name, there are no games here. There are a few areas in which games can be, but they are mostly empty. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Games of Mega Zone 6 (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | January 1, 2022 | 2084 characters      In typical Robootto fashion, this map meanders and fritters out shortly after an initial shock and confusion. It takes a moment to orient one's self to the world when thrust into it, in the middle of a hallway, with no clear direction where to go, and an uneven tone set by strange lighting and textures which couldn't cling coherently to any one theme.      Once you adjust and orient yourself to your surroundings, there's a kind of dadaist charm in how garish and inconsistent the environment is. There's this kind of spark there, a hope that the in-your-face laziness of the design is a statement and that there's some sort of deconstructionist art happe

      Despite the name, there are no games here. There are a few areas in which games can be, but they are mostly empty. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Games of Mega Zone 6 (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | January 1, 2022 | 555 characters      There are a lot of rooms that lead to nothing and then there was a teleporter that sent me to a room where friendly grunts killed human assassins I didn't see. I killed the friendly grunts and then floated around the map in low gravity. There are some inaccessible areas.      Not much in this map. Pros: Cons: boring nothing to do Score: 0 / 10

       The title of this map would bring to mind some sort of laboratory environment secreted away somewhere. Instead we get this stately looking building above with some odd rooms and halls around and inside of it. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Forgotten Secret Lab (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | December 29, 2021 | 2218 characters      The great Robootto strikes again with another baffling half-attempt at a map.      The map begins with a hallway full of respawning zombies and weapons. The players must use the gauss gun to jump out of the hallway, right around where the zombies are set to respawn, out of a pit which has a non-functional ladder brush leading out of it. After moving through a long, flashing hallway and battling in a large room with a voltigore, you will find yourself surrounding a large structure. On one side of the structure there will be respawning zombies. On the other side there will be

      The title of this map would bring to mind some sort of laboratory environment secreted away somewhere. Instead we get this stately looking building above with some odd rooms and halls around and inside of it. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Forgotten Secret Lab (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | December 30, 2021 | 2149 characters      This is the third Robootto map I've played tonight. The first two maps I thought were pretty good for Robootto. This map sucks.      Right off the bat you spawn in a tunnel with infinitely respawning zombies at one end. They don't swarm spawn, but they do swarm a hole to the next level and a completely nonfunctional ladder. Thankfully spawn has a weapons drop including a guass cannon so we could charge it up and jump to the next level. The enemies spawn right there though and they spawn a lot so actually doing it is easier said than done. That's the first room and

       Fend is named for the Fender brand of amplifiers. There is certainly a big one in this map set. There are two maps here, one is devoid of enemies and the other is filled with enemies. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 2 Map review of Fend (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | December 29, 2021 | 4898 characters      Fend is a map by Robooto. Robooto is a fairly well known mapper whose bizarre machinations are the Goldsrc equivalent of deciding to make a beautiful sketch of an idea you just had and finishing it as a doodle 5 seconds later when you realize how much effort it would take to make anything worthwhile. That mentality is exemplified in both fend and fend2.      In fend you explore a barren world; a cave tunnel winds corridors into a larger atrium. Within there are intricately displaced brush walls creating cliffsides along the rocky walls. Dominating the room, however, is a gigantic Fender amplifier. The brushwork cre

      Fend is named for the Fender brand of amplifiers. There is certainly a big one in this map set. There are two maps here, one is devoid of enemies and the other is filled with enemies. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 2 Map review of Fend (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | December 29, 2021 | 3644 characters      This map is a simple cave network with an awful looking toilet and cabinet in one section, probably the bathroom, and a very big room with a large fender amp. There are some ridges on the wall, in fend these ridges are inaccessible but in fend 2 they are used to jump over to the top of the amp.      As far as maps made by Robootto go, its pretty good. Nothing I would ever play for again, bu it was interesting to look at.      Now, in fend 2 there are enemies and weapons dumped into the map. There are two spawn points, one puts you on top of a ledge where you must make some difficult jumps over a pit of alien grunts w

       Long hallways with no branching paths are not labyrinths. This map is a long hallway with no branching paths. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2005 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Crazy Labyrinth (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by dunkelschwamm | December 12, 2021 | 2255 characters      The incredible thing about Robooto's body of work is that you never know what kind of madness it will lay upon your lap next. You're never entirely sure to what extent the map is a joke at the player's expense at to what extent it is actually just Robooto's boredom scouring Goldsrc for extreme anti-gameplay ideas and bringing them into existence just to make the world a little more chaotic.      Crazy Labyrinth is a long hallway winding back and forth, back and forth, mostly in the dark, utterly linearly, until it ends at a tiny brushwork award. The hallway is mostly homogenous all the way through. Any seeming offshoot is just a waste of time along the way, a

      Long hallways with no branching paths are not labyrinths. This map is a long hallway with no branching paths. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2005 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Crazy Labyrinth (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by GrandmasterJ | December 12, 2021 | 1154 characters      I can't really be mad when the map description tells me exactly what the level is. It is a long hallway that has a vaguely interesting crystal thing at the end and the map is over. What the description doesn't say is that players are spawned so that they fall to their deaths unless they swim in a sliver of water in the middle. I thought that gimmick was kinda cool after I got what I was supposed to do. But then there is a door with entirely too much health. My teammate gave up trying to break it and looked for alternatives. I cheated and gave myself an egon gun to try. I eventually broke halfway through the ammo.      It's got a grand total of one interesting aspect

       Space Viking 2 is the classic sequel to the classic map Space Viking 1. While the first map takes place in space a majority of the time this one takes us to a space port, filled with scum and villainy. SCMapDB page Author: Salamander Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Space Viking 2 (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by dunkelschwamm | December 12, 2021 | 7549 characters      Space Viking 2 is a very adequate, I would even say great, sequel to Space Viking 1 which takes the idea of the original map in new and interesting directions. By exploring a new planet, new and interesting areas of the original ship, and introducing setpieces which wow the player to extremes to which the original had not, Space Viking 2 really forges an identity for itself apart from its predecessor.      I'll get to the many ways in which I think this map is an extraordinary accomplishment in Sven Co-op, or even Goldsrc in general, mapping- but first I'd like to express a fe

      Space Viking 2 is the classic sequel to the classic map Space Viking 1. While the first map takes place in space a majority of the time this one takes us to a space port, filled with scum and villainy. SCMapDB page Author: Salamander Date of final release: 2006 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Space Viking 2 (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by GrandmasterJ | December 12, 2021 | 7132 characters      Space Viking 2 captures the same great look and feel of the first map, only slightly less well. I had an absolute blast playing this map.      The map starts off similarly to the first one, walking out of the spawn (no weapon this time except a crowbar on the floor) to the bridge and witnessing a scene that sets up the map. This time our tentacled host teleports over to a spaceport in order to talk trade before getting kidnapped and the ship is boarded.      The opening fight is hard with crowbars only and with just one person could get frustrating. Thankfully it doesn't last long b