Sven Co-op Map Reviews

      This map is sort of a mall, we have a big building with stores, bars, and some sort of storage area. There's a locked door players must find their way behind but beyond that the map is light on interaction and focuses more on exploration. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto, RNG, Poka Date of release: 2007 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Shopping Centre (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | April 1, 2023 | 2901 characters      Shopping Centre seems to be a shopping mall including some vaguely interesting shops from the likes of Robootto, RNG, and Poka, including the Sushi Shop from Poka and Robootto's collab Indojapan, and some of the stuff from RNG and Robootto's collab Metal Bar.      For the most part, it's just for walking around. I think there's an interesting sense of discovery, as you find yourself hopping off from high places to find your way around. However, aside from one secretive tunnel which leads to unlocking an only somewhat i

      This map is sort of a mall, we have a big building with stores, bars, and some sort of storage area. There's a locked door players must find their way behind but beyond that the map is light on interaction and focuses more on exploration. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto, RNG, Poka Date of release: 2007 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Shopping Centre (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | April 1, 2023 | 2733 characters      This is a map of a shopping center with the shops being contributed by three different mappers, RNG, Robootto, and Poka. Robootto is known for a very avant garde style bordering on nonsense. RNG is known for making very detailed grit. I don't know Poka very well.      Players are dumped in the main hallway, which is pretty blocky and plain. We have thick windows and big signs allowing us to see the stores that line the way, we have quite a selection, two of which I've seen before. There is a sushi bar I've seen in Indojapan tha

      I'm so angry! Because of this map! Because it is a RAGE map! We return to the collaborative community series with the 2012 edition, more rage and more map. SCMapDB page Authors: Nih, Puchi, Protector, RNG, JPolito, JaF, Tuesday's Avenger, StreamFox, CubicVirtuoso, Aurora, Prinzmetal, Zombiner, Mutant, Maiten, Hezus, Dynamite, Keen, Walter, g1l, AzShadow, Silencer, Zorbos, El Gringo (Due to the number of authors and the page tag limit of 20, not all authors are tagged) Date of release:2007 Maps in package:1 Map review of Ragemap 2012 (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | February 26, 2023 | 5410 characters      Ragemap 2012 is the 2012 Ragemap compilation map for Sven Co-op. Like Ragemap before it, this is a heavy collaboration between many mappers, quilting together several vignettes of varying quality and style. Most of them follow a fairly linear action focus, but there are also lots of visual setpieces and puzzles mixed in.      Given the nature

      I'm so angry! Because of this map! Because it is a RAGE map! We return to the collaborative community series with the 2012 edition, more rage and more map. SCMapDB page Authors: Nih, Puchi, Protector, RNG, JPolito, JaF, Tuesday's Avenger, StreamFox, CubicVirtuoso, Aurora, Prinzmetal, Zombiner, Mutant, Maiten, Hezus, Dynamite, Keen, Walter, g1l, AzShadow, Silencer, Zorbos, El Gringo (Due to the number of authors and the page tag limit of 20, not all authors are tagged) Date of release:2007 Maps in package:1 Map review of Ragemap 2012 (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | February 26, 2023 | 4641 characters      More rage in more map. This iteration of the community made ragemaps once again has an incredible diversity of gameplay, architecture, sounds, themes, and everything else. I would even say its got a bit more rage than the original too. So much stuff that it comes in two maps instead of the original's one.      This map is much like the other rage

    Agog means to be very eager to hear or see something. Be agog for this map as it has interesting visuals, puzzles, combat, and some very impressive sequences. Mind the eye strain. SCmapDB page Author: RNG Date of release: 2009 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Psychic Agog (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by dunkelschwamm | January 22, 2023 | 3527 characters      Psychic Agog is a seemingly "beta" map release by RNG. It's been in this state going on 14 years now, so I think it's probably safe to presume RNG's interests have moved on and we can take a look on what this beta release stands to say on its own now.      The map is an action walkthrough with the slightest, slightest hint of a puzzle element. Players traverse a surreal (but not THAT surreal by RNG standards) illusion world which exists as some sort of experiment. Players traverse the initial stage by exploring an open area and solving tiny contextual puzzles in the environment before entering a new

    Agog means to be very eager to hear or see something. Be agog for this map as it has interesting visuals, puzzles, combat, and some very impressive sequences. Mind the eye strain. SCmapDB page Author: RNG Date of release: 2009 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Psychic Agog (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | January 22, 2023 | 3584 characters     This map is just a beta and is unfortunately never going to be 'finished', however it is still playable and is fairly polished as well. The first half has some trippy scenery followed by some space zombie fighting with cube gathering.      The map starts us out in a big black and white grid field with some basic but evocative geometry. large cubes dot the area along with some floating and gyrating cubes above, some interesting towers and some buildings with obvious purpose. This is a puzzle, an escape room of sorts and it is pretty fun. Each time we solved a piece of it there would be something happening, this map uses

       Welcome to a land of dark and grainy textures, emphasis on grainy. This is a short and spooky map where players must explore a decrepit facility while dealing with hostile creatures. SCMapDB page Author: RNG Date of final release: 2010 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Mystic Radar (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | September 17, 2022 | 5489 characters      Mystic Radar is a short horror map by RNG with a charmingly cheesy story and an atmosphere of texture and grit.      The map is broken up into three parts, I would say. The first is a machine room where players must complete a series of puzzles while dodging two zombies without any weapons. The first puzzle, before the zombies appear, involves placing a block simply into a machine when the machine is opened by a valve pressed by another player. The rest of the puzzles involve finding keys or turning valves while zombies run amok. Once the puzzles in this room are complete, the map lets us know by making the zomb

      Welcome to a land of dark and grainy textures, emphasis on grainy. This is a short and spooky map where players must explore a decrepit facility while dealing with hostile creatures. SCMapDB page Author: RNG Date of final release: 2010 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Mystic Radar (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | September 17, 2022 | 3865 characters      Mystic Radar is a very dark and atmospheric map, it's got fog restricting view distance and constant background music always setting the mood. Most of the gameplay is hunting for keys, valves to turn, destructible panels, or whatever else is needed to progress. Zombies show up and are generally very annoying.      When the map starts my eye is drawn to the textures. Pretty much every surface texture is grainy, lke the world is made out of static. Most everything is a dull metallic color, ranging from rust brown to not-yet-rusty dirty grey. With how dark the map is this can make the map seem mazey and confusing

       Let me just say right off the bat that this map has nothing to do with arcades. It's really just another Black Mesa map style-wise and a scavenger hunt gameplay-wise.  SCMapDB page Authors: Streamfox and RNG Date of final release: 2010 Maps in package: 2 Map review of Arcad (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | May 14, 2022 | 2976 characters      Arcad is a couple of maps by Streamfox and RNG. The first sees players fight their way through a military base lightly peppered with alien invaders, followed up by a pretty straightforward romp through an alien-infested bunker/engineering facility.      The first map struggles to form much of an identity outside of cargo holds and hallways. Most of the map felt samey, but featured fun (if easy) combat with lots of ammo and an ever-expanding arsenal. I think its most memorable bits are point-and-click reminiscent puzzles featuring finding parts to build explosives, repairing broken door engines, and driving forklifts thro

      Let me just say right off the bat that this map has nothing to do with arcades. It's really just another Black Mesa map style-wise and a scavenger hunt gameplay-wise.  SCMapDB page Authors: Streamfox and RNG Date of final release: 2010 Maps in package: 2 Map review of Arcad (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | May 14, 2022 | 4824 characters      On the surface Arcad looks like a very generic map that looks like Black Mesa. For the most part, that aesthetic pervades the whole first map but the second map is much more visually interesting. This leads to making the rooms all look the same, but objectives are well marked for the most part so players always know where to go, for the most part. There were definitely times where the means of progression was hard to find and led to a lot of jumping around and poking heads into dark corners.      The first map starts off looking pretty bland and stays that way the whole time. At first players will just plow forward but the

       Deluge is a very atmospheric map made by one of the community's most acclaimed mappers, RNG. This map is very indicative of his style, well detailed moody and oppressive environment, strange monsters, and high levels of interactivity including lots of secrets. SCMapDB page Author: RNG Date of final release: 2014 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Deluge (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | April 9, 2022 | 4625 characters      Deluge is a map by RNG, which you can assume means it is a quality map. RNG brings style, high-production, and a confusing sense of eldritch nonsense that glues the experience together in a way that makes it feel like something that was summoned from another plane of existence rather than mapped out.      The map is a classic arcade-style keyhunt level. After choosing a difficulty (I suggest going as hard as possible, as with two players it felt easy) you hop into a gritty world that feels like brutalist, industrial architecture made its way

      Deluge is a very atmospheric map made by one of the community's most acclaimed mappers, RNG. This map is very indicative of his style, well detailed moody and oppressive environment, strange monsters, and high levels of interactivity including lots of secrets. SCMapDB page Author: RNG Date of final release: 2014 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Deluge (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | April 9, 2022 | 4895 characters      Deluge is a map that like the author's (RNG) other work just drips in style. The story in the map description is phoned in but the map starts off strong with a fake loading screen before putting us in a weird environment with lots of things to explore.      When the level first starts off players are given four buttons to vote for easy, normal, hard, and ultra violence difficulty levels. One weird thing is that each option says "lives system disabled" even easy mode, this led me to speculate that maybe there was a lives system pla

       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

       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

      This map is all about elevators. Get it? Lift Lifters? Elevators? I think the 50 50 refers to the authors, RNG and Robootto, each creating half of the map. I'm not sure what Xsus means. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto and RNG Date of final release: 2007 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Lift Lifters 50 50 Xsus (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | January 30, 2022 | 3651 characters      Lift Lifters 50 50 Xsus, or Lift Lifters as I will be calling it henceforth, is a map credited to the famous RNG and the infamous Robootto. How much of it was based on either's input, I have no idea. What I will say is that this is among some of my least favorite of RNG's work, and easily my favorite of Robootto's that I've played so far.      The map is made up of challenges divided by massive lifts, hence the name. I don't think Robootto or RNG could have predicted the nightmare that would become Sven Co-op's elevator physics, which often cause players to bec

      This map is all about elevators. Get it? Lift Lifters? Elevators? I think the 50 50 refers to the authors, RNG and Robootto, each creating half of the map. I'm not sure what Xsus means. SCMapDB page Author: Robootto and RNG Date of final release: 2007 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Lift Lifters 50 50 Xsus (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | January 30, 2022 | 2407 characters      This is easily the best map I've played made by Robootto so far, probably because RNG, a generally beloved mapper, is a co-author. When I play maps made by Robootto usually I am trying to figure out if the map is trolling me. This map gave me no such feeling.      The map is about elevators. The map name, lift lifters, makes a lot of sense when you realize this, The elevators are usually simple but big with lots of variation on the design. Combat is minimal, there is a gargantua serving as a sort of boss fight about halfway through. Most of the combat is scattered skirmishes with v