Sven Co-op Map Reviews

       Big Lolly is a conversion of a standalone mod made for the author's brother's birthday. It's short and sweet,  pun intended . SCMapDB page Original mod authors: Cayle George Conversion authors: Royal-soldier Date of original mod release: 2003 Date of final Sven Map release: 2009 Maps in package: 6 Map review of Biglolly Coop (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | January 30, 2022 | 3752 characters      Biglolly Coop is a Sven Co-op port of the Half-Life mod Big Lolly. My understanding is that Big Lolly was originally made as a birthday gift to the author's brother. If my brother were to make a mod like this for me, I wouldn't even know what to say.      The port is very straight-forward and faithfully plays out the original mod in Sven Co-op. I remember playing this port a while back and having difficulty with it, but seeing that it has been patched makes sense as to why this time around the experience was so smooth and flawless. I do have to say,

      Big Lolly is a conversion of a standalone mod made for the author's brother's birthday. It's short and sweet, pun intended . SCMapDB page Original mod authors: Cayle George Conversion authors: Royal-soldier Date of original mod release: 2003 Date of final Sven Map release: 2009 Maps in package: 6 Map review of Biglolly Coop (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | January 30, 2022 | 1854 characters      Biglolly is a map that looks really good. The textures are nice, the level design is interesting, and the candyland concept is really fun. The map series may consist of 5 maps but each one is so short the whole thing just flies by. Enemies are zombies reskinned to be gingerbread men, headcrabs reskinned to be red gummy bears, and cockroaches reskinned to be tiny sour patch kids. There are also some nice butterflies flying around the maps and players can pick up snarks which are green gummy bears. The crowbar was a lollipop and the pistol was a banana, there wer

       Access Point is a standalone mod converted to work in Sven Co-op. The whole goal of the map is to escape from Black Mesa. SCMapDB page Original mod authors: Dr. Orange Conversion authors: Mikk Date of original mod release: 2018 Date of final Sven Map release: 2021 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Access Point (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by dunkelschwamm | January 16, 2022 | 4920 characters      Access Point is a singleplayer mod that I have never played by (the, I'm presuming, mysterious) Dr Orange. Access Point for Sven Co-op is a port of that singleplayer mod by mikk. And boy, what a port it is.      Access Point is a fast-paced singleplayer map which acts as a vertical slice of all of the action in the first half-dozen-or-so chapters of Half-Life. There are headcrabs, houndeyes, barnacles, vortigaunts, and grunts battled through fast and satisfying mini-battles throughout the exploration of the locale. Said locale is one of those Black Mesa industrial areas, fit with

      Access Point is a standalone mod converted to work in Sven Co-op. The whole goal of the map is to escape from Black Mesa. SCMapDB page Original mod authors: Dr. Orange Conversion authors: Mikk Date of original mod release: 2018 Date of final Sven Map release: 2021 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Access Point (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by GrandmasterJ | January 16, 2022 | 3376 characters      This map I another port of a stand alone Half-Life mod. Unlike most other ports of mods this one is very short. At the beginning of the map it gives players a vote on a hard or medium difficulty. It's so short that my teammate and I played the map twice, on both difficulties.      The first problem with the map is that since it's a port of a singleplayer mod there is a shortage of ammo. There are only two underbarrel grenades for the M16 in the whole level and not much M16 ammo either. Shotgun and magnum rounds were plentiful, but seemed stretched thin across two people and didn

       Half-Life: C.A.G.E.D., or just Caged as I will refer to the map from here on, is a standalone Half-Life mod converted to Sven Co-op. It's a prison break themed mod with quite a few maps. SCMapDB page Original mod authors: Cayle George Conversion authors: ak47toh Date of original mod release: 2017 Date of final Sven Map release: 2021 Maps in package: lots Map review of C.A.G.E.D. (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by dunkelschwamm | January 15, 2022 | 4840 characters      C-A-G-E-D, or "Caged" for short, is a Half-Life mod experience that's quite fantastic. The single-player mod is available on Steam and, to be frank and up-front, this is a mod designed to be experienced as a singeplayer mod.      My review of C-A-G-E-D is:      It's a very beautiful mod with some fast-paced action, satisfying combat, tense platforming, and a general feeling that you are attempting to escape from a high-level prison complex. The thematic music, end-game setting, and final visua

      Half-Life: C.A.G.E.D., or just Caged as I will refer to the map from here on, is a standalone Half-Life mod converted to Sven Co-op. It's a prison break themed mod with quite a few maps. SCMapDB page Original mod authors: Cayle George Conversion authors: ak47toh Date of original mod release: 2017 Date of final Sven Map release: 2021 Maps in package: lots Map review of C.A.G.E.D. (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by GrandmasterJ | January 15, 2022 | 3459 characters      Sometimes when a singleplayer Half-Life mod gets ported to Sven Co-op it doesn't really hold up, like Half-Quake. The second map, where actual gameplay starts, has it pretty rough, but overall I think this is one of the better ports and one of the better Sven Co-op maps out there. It definitely can be completed solo, a lot of the time whoever entered a room first would kill everybody inside before the other could do much to help. With any more than two players the combat becomes pretty trivial.      The map s

       USS Darkstar is not a Star Trek themed map, let me get that out of the way now. It is an original setting with a massive space ship filled with a bunch of biological specimens that closely resembles a zoo. SCMapDB page Original mod authors: Neil Manke Conversion authors: Lymphoid first and later Lossy Date of original mod release: 1999 Date of final Sven Map release: 2017 Maps in package: 18 Map review of USS Darkstar (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by dunkelschwamm | December 29, 2021 | 4044 characters      USS Darkstar is a classic Half-Life mod made by Neil Manke and Black Widow Games, famous for the They Hunger horror conversion. Instead of pulpy horror cliches, USS Darkstar harps on sci-fi tropes, while forging a very unique identity of its own. At times it reminds me a bit of System Shock, at other times it reminds me a bit of Star Trek: TNG.      This conversion to Sven Co-op is brilliantly executed. Balancing is in proper check, everything works correctly (aside from occ

      USS Darkstar is not a Star Trek themed map, let me get that out of the way now. It is an original setting with a massive space ship filled with a bunch of biological specimens that closely resembles a zoo. SCMapDB page Original mod authors: Neil Manke Conversion authors: Lymphoid first and later Lossy Date of original mod release: 1999 Date of final Sven Map release: 2017 Maps in package: 18 Map review of USS Darkstar (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by GrandmasterJ | December 29, 2021 | 3259 characters      This map is one of the oldest maps on scmapdb that are not official releases. It's actually a conversion of a single player mod from way back when that I never played. It's got a lot of maps in the campaign but the first section is a lot of nice scenery, practically showing off the areas you will be fighting in later. I don't think you even see enemies or weapons until map 5 (out of around 16). The last map itself is just a cutscene and credits.      I loved the en

       As suggested by the name, this map has eight chambers of jumping puzzles. Some of the jumping is easy and some is so hard as to be almost impossible. SCMapDB page Author: Kataclism Date of final release: 2005 Maps in package: 1 Map review of 8 Jump (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | December 16, 2021 | 1729 characters      Played this with a friend. Neither of us knew the jump techniques needed to leave the first area. We set the gravity low and jumped around the map. It was kinda fun to jump around with low gravity. Aside from some curious shapes in the brushwork, such as a map with pyramid-shaped spikes jutting from multiple spots in a wall, the visuals were fairly dull, bland, repetitive, devoid of memorable style. I don't think it was going for anything more than spartan visuals, but if I was accomplishing the jump puzzles I would feel a little let down from the progression. It also seemed as though the easier jump puzzles came after the much, much harder

      As suggested by the name, this map has eight chambers of jumping puzzles. Some of the jumping is easy and some is so hard as to be almost impossible. SCMapDB page Author: Kataclism Date of final release: 2005 Maps in package: 1 Map review of 8 Jump (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | December 16, 2021 | 1529 characters      I'm going to say this upfront, I turned the gravity way down and floated through this map.      I'm not a big fan of first person platforming so I was not looking forward to this map. I gave the first room a concerted effort though. Unfortunately the first room requires grenade jumping. Without HEV I was dying pretty much every time. My teammate and I were both trying but in the end we decided turning down the gravity was for the best.      The jumping puzzles are not in order of easy to hard. The first room was near impossible, but the next was very easy. Some rooms are insane, some are easy, some are tedious. If you die you go back to th

      High Rise is a map that takes place in a high rise of all places. Both aliens and humans (terrorists going off the map description) have invaded the tower and it is up to you to clear them out. SCMapDB page Author: TruckStopSantaClaus Date of final release: 2020 Maps in package: 1 Map review of High Rise (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by dunkelschwamm | November 28, 2021 | 1499 characters      There's not much I have to say about high-rise because, to be completely honest, I feel like I forgot most of the map shortly after playing it. There are some neat bits of brushwork here and there, especially a stationery fighter jet at the beginning of the map. I felt the map had odd invisible wall placement that made movement that seemed intuitive impossible. For the most part it felt painfully vanilla.      One aspect that I appreciated about this map was that there were moving spawn points to keep respawning players close to the action. This kept things moving at a steady pace and

    High Rise is a map that takes place in a high rise of all places. Both aliens and humans (terrorists going off the map description) have invaded the tower and it is up to you to clear them out. SCMapDB page Author: TruckStopSantaClaus Date of final release: 2020 Maps in package: 1 Map review of High Rise (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by GrandmasterJ | November 28, 2021 | 814 characters      This is a fairly fun straightforward map. I don't really have a lot to say about it, nothing stands out as particularly good and I don't remember anything bringing down my experience of the map. It's a very average map.      New weapons are in good locations, there is ammo scattered around, and the spawn updates as you progress. These are very nice quality of life inclusions that keep the map feeling fun.      If you like straightforward maps where you kill a lot of things there are worse maps you could be playing. Pros: Solid straightforward gameplay lots of action Cons: forgettab