Sven Co-op Map Reviews

      This is, of course, a remake of another map by the same name. While it does offer many improvements over the original it also has an unfortunate area that we had to cheat past. SCMapDB page Author: GiGaBiTe Date of release: 2016 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Central Bunker Remake (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | October 9, 2023 | 1537 characters      The remake of the original Central Bunker does indeed offer much improved optimization and visuals. The map looks great. I didn't see a whole lot of difference in the gameplay, but I did see a much better offering of supplies. I liked the original but rated it a 5 mostly because I thought this one would make it obsolete. But unfortunately there was a section in this map where we had to get past a fan that would inevitably pull us in and turn us to paste. My teammate even looked up a review where the player eventually noclipped past that point, something we had to resort to as well.      I will say that the map

      We've been Captured! Now we must escape the prison with the help of Otis and go to Black Mesa I guess? The map is pretty simple and straightfoward with a storyline that screams 'early Sven map'. SCMapDB page Author: pcgamer58 Date of release: 2003 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Captured (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | June 22, 2023 | 3006 characters      So we are in a jail near Black Mesa, Otis comes over and helps us break out and we go on an adventure to freedom. We start with nothing but a medkit and find a crowbar in the jail cell with us and in the next few rooms we find our first enemy, a human grunt, and a pistol with one magazine.      Then we go to the next room with more enemies and more weapons. Right after this room we get our first respawning enemies, I think there are 15 in total but it was really worrying when we didn't know if they were going to end. Right afterwards we have to go up a ladder and when they kept respawning they w

      Caget is the prototype for another map called CAGED, which if I understand correctly was prototyped in Sven Co-op, made into a mod, and then ported back into Sven Co-op. Regardless of the journey this map has taken, CAGED is now out and is a more complete version of Caget. SCMapDB page Authors: Cayle George, Trempler Date of release: 2003 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Caget (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | June 17, 2023 | 4044 characters      This map is some sort of beta for another map, which is a conversion of a mod, by the name Caged. I rather liked that map and I can definitely see the evolution of this idea. Although it does have a rough draft's rough edges and since the finished product is released I don't see much of a reason to play this besides study.      Players start out in a jail cell and have to break out via turning a valve that should probably not be in a jail cell. Then we plummet down a hole and either bounce off pipes perfectl

    A walkthrough map that is mostly hallways through various rooms. Enemies spawn in big wads right in front of players and we have to chip away at them with revolvers. SCMapDB page Author: Trempler Date of release: 2003 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Bunker Fight (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | June 12, 2023 | 3983 characters      This is one of those maps where outside the first door is a swarm of enemies. It is a fairly straightforward walkthrough map with lots of enemies with a lot of health. There are some HEV chargers with lots of charge but later in the map there are snipers that kill us in one hit no matter how much armor we have.      We start off by falling through the level in what I think is a pretty cool effect, at least until I started taking fall damage. The spawn area has two health and HEV charger pairs and both have lots of charge to give. My teammate and I had our armor drained very fast and we were able to suckle at the chargers for most

      A fairly standard horde map, Bunker features a bunker from which players and allies can shoot out a the swarms in relative safety. For some reason weapons are outside the bunker forcing players to brave the ocean of enemies outside. SCMapDB page Author: Halgmor Date of release: 2012 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Bunker (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | June 12, 2023 | 3231 characters      True to the name, there is indeed a bunker that players spawn right outside. There are no weapons in the bunker besides an mp5 outside the front door, all the weapons are in a weird boarded up passage to a big room with a ton of weapons and ammo strewn about. Most of the level is a wide field around the bunker that is so big we can see the darkness that is draw distance gnawing at the edges of reality. Grunts of the human, robot, and heavy weapons variety spawn in droves constantly.      There are some friendlies in the bunker but they do very little. There are some tur

      Fight a neverending horde of enemies in a small city block. The slice of city is very simple with nothing much else to see, although the tallest building is almost entirely destructible and will fall apart. SCMapDB page Author: Killer99 Date of release: 1999 Maps in package: 1 Map review of City (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | April 29, 2023 | 2674 characters      City is a fairly standard arena horde map, this time based on a simple city street. We have some multi-story buildings scaled way down to be simple boxes with only enough room for windows and stairs. Vortigaunts spawn in clumps staggered with clumps of alien grunts and human grunts, who do shoot each other when they spawn in together. The weapon selection isn't bad but it is very medium. We get an mp5, shotgun, crossbow, gauss gun, grenades, and a single satchel charge in addition to the standard pistol, medkit, crowbar.      The moment the map starts players are taking damage. We spawn in t

      The sequel to Breakfree is more of the same. We don't have to go back down the elevator and there is now a boss fight! Unfortunately the biggest obstacle is still the elevator mechanic itself. SCMapDB page Author: Beather Date of release: 2004 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Breakfree 2 (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | April 29, 2023 | 3293 characters      I'm getting something of a crisis of conscience with the Breakfree series. I just played Break Go, which was inspired by this series, and gave it a higher score than the original based solely on how much I exploded on the elevator. Elevators in Sven Co-op are very dangerous and throughout this map we were constantly exploding for no reason.      So I'm going to try to judge this map without taking into account how many times I was randomly killed by the floor. We start off and the map is fullbright, just like the first one. We hit a button that is hard to discern against the background that

      This is an early version of another map called Holodeck. I recommend skipping this and going straight to that map. But it does have a separate entry on the map database so here is a separate review. SCMapDB page Author: Shnuh Date of release:2002 Maps in package:1 Map review of Biodome (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | March 4, 2023 | 2264 characters      The screenshots of the map look fullbright, and indeed the map is fullbright. It also appears to be the beta of another map called Holodeck. That one has lighting and everything.      The map is a stadium type of map, there is a combat zone with some raised walkways around and buttons up top that players can press to spawn NPCs. The buttons are labelled but can still be vague. Most of the enemy spawners had two buttons, one is green and that indicates friendly. There are some unlabelled buttons and one caused rockets to rain down on both myself and my teammate who was above pressing the buttons. Maybe wit

      The whole map is a skatepark, with one half indoors in what one would call a big room, and the other half is outdoors. There is a drivable skateboard but it is on a track and does not go outside. SCMapDB page Author: Unknown Date of release: 2001 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Big Room Guy 3 (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | February 11, 2023 | 1750 characters      This map is a pretty cool skate park. There are two areas, an indoor park complete with bar area and rideable skateboard, and an outdoor park with no interactive things but it does have enticing doors that to not go anywhere.      The rideable skateboard is pretty cool, it's stuck to a track and rides around the level, going up and down ramps. It will absolute splatter anybody who gets in the way. The rest of the map is just half-pipes, rails, and other constructions that aren't really fun to interact with in the goldsrc engine. That skateboard is really the best thing in the map and t

      We go back to Black Mesa to fill the shoes of a naive scientist who thinks the military is here to save everybody. We go back to Lambda core to get our revenge for some reason. SCMapDB page Author:Zorbos Date of release: 2007 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Betrayed (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | February 2, 2023 | 5242 characters      In this map we go back to Lambda Core. This is pretty much what the map description says and what the level is. Lambda Core already exists so I am not sure why we are redoing it, this map is certainly not better than it.      Players start off by infiltrating the facility from the outside, down an elevator and into a series of hallways. There are a lot of enemies and they usually have really high health, occasionally there is a glowing monster with really really high health. After about three different kinds of hallways we come to a room with forcefields blocking doors. This map is an abandoned beta so only two of th

      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 s

      There are many Resident Evil maps in the Sven map database, but this is the first and has the highest score (of the time of writing this paragraph). Players are Bravo squad, the lost and dead STARS member seen at the beginning of the first Resident Evil, can we overturn canon and survive? SCMapDB page Author: mrfranswa Date of final release: 2003 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Resident Evil: The Awakening (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | October 9, 2022 | 7304 characters      This map has me so confused. So I dipped my toes into the Sven Co-op Resident Evil maps by doing the ones with the lowest STARS ratings first, now we are jumping to the map with the highest rating. It's certainly better, but it is essentially a big maze with an item hunt while players have to deal with ammo and guns that don't respawn and some limiting character classes.      Players start off in a big metal box with some buttons, the problems start early as the difficulty buttons s

      This map has three rooms and two combat encounters, it is insanely short. After fighting through generic Half-Life hallways players enter a vent and end the map, that is it. SCMapDB page Author: Unknown Date of final release: Unknown Maps in package: 1 Map review of Battle (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | October 2, 2022 | 1188 characters     T he map description said the map was short and I can confirm the map is very short. It is essentially three rooms, spawn, a room full of human soldiers, and then a room full of aliens. Players get access to a shotgun with very limited ammo, and an mp5 with a couple boxes of ammo. In the last room, with the aliens, is a vent that changed the map to svencoop1 when I climbed into it.      That's the whole map, I have described everything that happens in it. The map is your standard Black Mesa paint job and the enemies just spawn in big clumps. The action was fast paced enough that I died before going through all 12 shotgun

      A front-doorless fort with a scientist glued to the center, a courtyard, and a button that spawns waves of enemies, the goal is to protect the scientist. Except enemies don't target the scientist so it is hard to lose this map. SCMapDB page Author: Ice Box Date of final release: 2011 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Baohu (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | September 18, 2022 | 3108 characters      Baohu is a wave defense map which really requires a large number of players to make feasible. The point of the map is to protect a scientist from an onslaught of progressively more impossible waves of bullet-spongey enemies. However, the scientist himself has a ton of health and is never explicitly targeted by the enemies. Rather, the main obstacle of this map will be enemies breaching the base where the players spawn and spawncamp the players. I played this with one other player, and we got as far as a wave of bulky snipers who would unload several sniper shots into o

       Azure Sheep is a Half-Life mod made a long time ago in 2001 with an 8.5 on moddb. It introduces new characters while also showing us old favorites with Gordon Freeman, Adrian Shepard, and the original Barney which is a bit hard to tell since pretty much every other NPC in the mod/map set is Barney. SCMapDB page Original map author: DAVLevels Conversion author: Chocolate IceCream Date of original mod release: 2001 Date of final Sven Map release: 2020 Maps in package: 45 Map review of Azure Sheep (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by dunkelschwamm | September 8, 2022 | 5343 characters      Azure Sheep is a prolific Half-Life modification known for having a shitload of maps, decent visual quality, a few new actors, and a very fanficy alternative take on the Black Mesa incident from Barney's eyes.      Before Episode 1 introduced players to leading your NPC handgun toting wisecracking waifu through alien and military infested industrial and urban ruins, Azure Sheep introduced playe

    Play a Sven Co-op map while it is being generated! This is a strange marriage of Roguelike and Co-op FPS  that is really cool to experience, but unfortunately has been abandoned. SCMapDB page Author: w00tguy123 Date of final release: 2011 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Automap (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | August 21, 2022 | 3132 characters      What an amazing concept, Automap turns Sven Co-op into a roguelike. Every part of this is really interesting and executed really well. Maybe not perfectly, in fact, my teammate and I only got one run in before the map totally broke and we couldn't play it anymore. But when it sort of worked that first and only time we had a lot of fun.      So to reiterate the map description, player start off in a room and then have to go through a randomly chosen hallway layout with random enemies and a random weapon loadout. After going upwards of 50 meters (which is five hallways if I remember correctly) a boss chamber with a bos

      When a rave and a disco combine the result is this map. There is no party, just some twisting paths, weird rooms, and caged boids. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2003 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Rave Disco (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | August 14, 2022 | 2099 characters      Rave-Disco is a robootto map. There's really no point, and there is no end, so if you want to put this on your server then prepare for it to jam a cork in your rotation.      I think the best way to put this is that Rave-Disco is a funhouse map. There's winding corridors, funky rooms full of wacky interactables, trick walls which players can walk right through, buttons which do nothing, crazy colorful lights, and nonsense progression. To Rave-Disco's credit, many stops are pulled with heavy use of boids, some crazy combat segments, and heavy armaments given to actually provide some fun to the map.      Less to Rave-Disco's credit is the atmosphere.

      When a rave and a disco combine the result is this map. There is no party, just some twisting paths, weird rooms, and caged boids. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto Date of final release: 2003 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Rave Disco (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | August 14, 2022 | 2925 characters      This map is a confusing jumble of hallways and rooms. The map features nonsensical layouts, textures never meant to be walls used as walls, and secrets.      There are two spawn areas, one is situated in what I would call the beginning, and the other I would not. We spawned in the first area mostly, but then my teammate spawned in the second area and was very confused, so be aware of that. Spawn is what I assume to be a disco, with players trapped in glass cages on the dance floor. Blast out of the cage and head up past the weird red pole room and we enter a long hallway. About halfway down the hallway I noticed some light was coming through the wall, so I crowbarr

       Artifact is a custom map converted to Sven from Team Fortress Classic. It's a hard as nails platforming map that has me questioning if there is an important change in player movement across games that makes the map harder than it should be. SCMapDB page Original map author: Kami Conversion authors: AdamR Date of original mod release: 2003 Date of final Sven Map release: 2020 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Artifact (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by dunkelschwamm | July 24, 2022 | 4815 characters      Artifact is a map that, much like the hidden temples in Indiana Jones, hides peril lurking beneath great beauty. The foliage, the textures for the stone reliefs, the models for the key objects, the waterfalls and giant trees- they all look fantastic. But within, trap brushes swiftly kill players and require hard jumps back to spawn and the backtracking that comes with that.      Let me just be up front: I didn't beat a single one of these puzzles wherein death was a threat

      Artifact is a custom map converted to Sven from Team Fortress Classic. It's a hard as nails platforming map that has me questioning if there is an important change in player movement across games that makes the map harder than it should be. SCMapDB page Original map author: Kami Conversion authors: AdamR Date of original mod release: 2003 Date of final Sven Map release: 2020 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Artifact (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by GrandmasterJ | July 24, 2022 | 8431 characters      I feel like every part of this map is engineered to be the most absolute bullshit. This is one of those maps where five minutes into playing it I look at the time limit, see that we have 70 minutes left, and think to myself "we're not going to beat this". My teammate and I used noclip the entire map, there was not one section that we did not cheat to get through. This map was originally made for Team Fortress Classic, I have to think to myself, is there some moveme