Sven Co-op Map Reviews

      Ambush 2 is a fun little map based on a GI Joe toy set. There isn't really anything ambush related here, clear the map of enemies, there is no end level trigger. SCMapDB page Author: Lymphoid Date of final release: 2003 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Ambush 2 (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | March 26, 2022 | 2903 characters      I played this map right after playing the first Ambush, which I thought was pretty bad. The sequel is much better but still has much room for improvement. The map description says this is a beta, and it shows. The level end is behind a wall that looks like it is rigged to explode but does not seem able to do so. There are underbarrel grenades here that spawn in fours and they got me through the level.      Right out of spawn there is a respawning swarm of houndeyes. My teammate and I were killing them and with no end to them in sight he decided to use wonky level geometry to hop a fence and trigger the next area. Worried that we mess

       In this map player's get attacked right away by a wave of enemies, I guess players get ambushed. SCMapDB page Author: Lymphoid Date of final release: 2002 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Ambush (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | March 26, 2022 | 7843 characters      Ambush is a walkthrough map for Sven Co-op that is really interesting to me from beginning to end. There are a lot of "bad" Sven Co-op maps which fail on basic technical concepts, but what intrigues me about Ambush is that every rookie mistake features a kind of jerry-rigged compensation- the problem is never "solved", it's only rendered inert by a workaround.      Here's an example: The players spawn in a truck in a tunnel. The truck takes up a lot of the tunnel, but overall both are pretty cramped- the tunnel's size not helped by having a truck wedged in it. The player's weapons are all supplied as items around the truck. Now, any sane person might think that

      In this map player's get attacked right away by a wave of enemies, I guess players get ambushed. SCMapDB page Author: Lymphoid Date of final release: 2002 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Ambush (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | March 26, 2022 | 5244 characters      To quote my teammate, "there was an ambush."      Right off the bat the spawn area was hit by a squad of HECU and a heavy weapons grunt. The spawn area is a tunnel with a truck parked in it, players can spawn to the side of the truck with the ammo or inside with the some guns. A wonky jump over the car leads to two batteries and a climb to the top and back of the truck has snarks. Under the truck is a revolver. This sounds like a nice selection of guns but with the waves of enemies hitting spawn meant I had to basically navigate an obstacle course while under fire just to have a chance of fighting back. I opted to jump over the truck hood to get some cover, the truck's hood is destruct

       Another Unit is an official Sven Co-op map release, it's flavored in typical Black Mesa aesthetic and presented from the HECU perspective. SCMapDB page Author: B-dama Date of final release: 2003 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Another Unit (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | March 26, 2022 | 4594 characters      Another Unit is a map by B-dama which comes default with Sven Co-op. It is a standard walkthrough map, with lots of mixed alien combat and fighting with Barnies, turrets, and robogrunts.      First thing you'll notice when playing this map is that it looks rather good. It has a lot of the same aesthetic that Black Mesa style maps usually do- industrial, mostly subterranean concrete brutalist corporatism. However, it also has that look that's a little past the generation of Half-Life's original graphics, with more ambitious brushwork and scale. Everything in this map looks good, is decently well lit, and every location in the first half of t

      Another Unit is an official Sven Co-op map release, it's flavored in typical Black Mesa aesthetic and presented from the HECU perspective. SCMapDB page Author: B-dama Date of final release: 2003 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Another Unit (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | March 26, 2022 | 4129 characters      Another Unit is an official map and it shows. The level architecture is beautiful. Everything is detailed and would look at home right alongside levels in the original Half-Life.      Players spawn right off the bat with a shotgun, mp5, full ammo for both, and 40 armor. This means players don't have to rearm when respawning. The map starts off with two long hallways side by side with turrets everywhere. You have to toss a grenade in the booth with the evil Barney to open the door, then you can use the big unlock machine to open up the doors at the far end of the hallway. Going through the hologram walls triggers barricades to rise up and robo grunts

       Ally starts players in a tent with a crowd of friendly grunts. It took me too long to figure out these grunts are the allies. SCMapDB page Author: yulo Date of final release: 2010 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Ally (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | March 25, 2022 | 3756 characters      Ally is a map that doesn't look great, isn't made particularly well, and doesn't aspire to much. But it's fine. And I think it's fine.      The basic idea of Ally is that you start in a room full of allied grunts and progress down a series of chambers full of robogrunts. To proceed through each chamber, you must access a control room with the button to open the door to the next area, guarded by a Barnabus, next to a friendly robogrunt spawner. The map culminates in a big final battle with the robogrunts.      Ally's biggest strength is that it arms the players with M16s with underbarrel grenades and MP5s and gives the players lots of friendly NPCs to push

      Ally starts players in a tent with a crowd of friendly grunts. It took me too long to figure out these grunts are the allies. SCMapDB page Author: yulo Date of final release: 2010 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Ally (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | March 25, 2022 | 3271 characters      Ally is a short map that starts players behind a wad of friendly soldiers that pits players against increasing swarms of robo grunts. The level consists of a spawn area and a hallway divided by a series of security doors opened in a separate room, at the end of the hallway is a wide open outdoor room with a final large swarm of robots.      The spawn area has an mp5 with two boxes of ammo and four underbarrel grenades with an M16. Ammo was scarce with two players, near the end my teammate had to go without any ammo because I took both boxes. As the last robo grunt fell he had one bullet left. The underbarrel grenades are the most useful for clearing out the resilient robo grunt cr

       Kani Gyosen is Japanese for "Crab fishing boat" and true to the title, in this map players will fish for crabs. Since this is based on Half-Life the crabs in question are all headcrabs. SCMapDB page Author: takedeppo.50cal Date of final release: 2020 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Kani Gyosen (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | March 20, 2022 | 3006 characters      Kani Gyosen is another great chill map from takedeppo.50cal. This time the focus of the map is on capturing headcrabs at the bottom of the sea using spears and reeling lines. Over the course of five "days" the ocean becomes increasingly inhospitable, escalating the stakes with bullsquids, sharks, alien controllers, and eventually armed pirates and helicopters. To defend yourself, you are armed with a machinegun of some sort which can fire underwater. Throughout it all, however, never lose sight of catching crabs!      To catch crabs, players can jump from their boat into the water (

      Kani Gyosen is Japanese for "Crab fishing boat" and true to the title, in this map players will fish for crabs. Since this is based on Half-Life the crabs in question are all headcrabs. SCMapDB page Author: takedeppo.50cal Date of final release: 2020 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Kani Gyosen (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | March 20, 2022 | 3971 characters      The idea behind this map is that players must spear fish for headcrabs and gather them all in a cage. The water is dangerous, sharks and bullsquids lurk around. Players have machineguns that work underwater and even have custom models for real world underwater machineguns. The crowbar replacement, the spear and the barnacle has a custom model and custom scripting as well. Although I don't think the barnacle has custom scripting, as the winch kept eating the headcrabs.      Players spawn on a cute little boat, the deck is dominated by a cage, this is where the headcrabs go. There is a small

       This is the most culturally respectful map on the database. The phrase 'Allahu akbar' literally translates to 'God is great'. SCMapDB page Author: Keen Date of final release: 2016 Maps in package: 2 Map review of Allahu Ackbar (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | March 19, 2022 | 3528 characters      My understanding is that this map is "abandoned," so take that as you will. If I were to project my own feelings on the map's author, I would presume he realized the joke got old after two seconds and gave up.      Allahu Ackbar is two unfinished maps by keen where the joke is middle eastern terrorists blowing up things and shouting allahu ackbar. If my explaining that to you didn't make you chuckle, you probably won't like the lethargic attempts at edgy humor which turns real world tragedy into memes in this map- and since they don't treat the subject matter with any respect IS the humor, that these maps are also unfinished and

      This is the most culturally respectful map on the database. The phrase 'Allahu akbar' literally translates to 'God is great'. SCMapDB page Author: Keen Date of final release: 2016 Maps in package: 2 Map review of Allahu Ackbar (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | March 19, 2022 | 2396 characters      I did not expect great things from this map. Thankfully, it was short. The map is also broken, right in the map description it says the goal is to get into the white zone, as far as I can tell the door to the white zone does not open and the path is covered by neverending explosions that kill you anyway. So the map is impossible to beat.      There are two maps here. Both maps start out with the player in a rough underground room, there is a wide dark hallways leading down at a slope. Human grunts will attack up through here. Players start off with a nice wide variety of weapons, but not too much ammo. My favorite here is the SAW and I usually burn all my

   This map follows the proud tradition of not featuring what is in the title, the above picture is the closest to an alley we're going to see in this map. It's a linear map through varied locations and themes and some combat. SCMapDB page Author: Vince Date of final release: 2000 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Alley (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | March 19, 2022 | 4071 characters      Alley is a straight-up walkthrough map through and through. It takes you from scenario to scenario, each brushed with moderately decent architecture and passable -if mediocre- natural rock structure brushwork.      There is no attempt at theme or continuity. In one room you battle a hostile gargantua, in the next you are teamed up with a friendly gargantua fighting human grunts, and literally around the corner from there you fight hostile alien grunts. This sequence of events is so sudden and jarring that my teammate and I immediately opened fire on the friendly gargantua.   

  This map follows the proud tradition of not featuring what is in the title, the above picture is the closest to an alley we're going to see in this map. It's a linear map through varied locations and themes and some combat. SCMapDB page Author: Vince Date of final release: 2000 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Alley (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | March 19, 2022 | 4184 characters      When I first loaded up Alley I immediately thought that this map didn't look like an alley. It starts off in a desert canyon area and then goes into long hallways with your standard Black Mesa textures. The whole map is a series of hallways and rooms with varying themes and enemy composition.      Players start off in an outdoor desert room with a truck and enemies directly behind the truck, so combat starts right off the bat. Fight some soldiers through linear hallways and find a room witha barney and a shotgun along the way. The shotgun, along with every other weapon on th

       Alien Shooter is a top down run and gun game where players shoot large amounts of aliens. This recreation in Sven does a fairly good job copying the original game in both gameplay and presentation. SCMapDB page Author: Dr.Abc Date of final release: 2018 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Alien Shooter 1 Demo (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | March 12, 2022 | 4665 characters      Alien Shooter was an old game I remember playing using the shockwave player on AOL back in the day. Top-down running and gunning game. When I saw there was a map based on it I was extremely excited.      This map is an attempt to recreate Alien Shooter in Sven, and I have to say it's far better than I would have expected. The setup is pretty simple: fight a bunch of melee-only pitdrones as they swarm out of every room you open- in green-yellow-red ranking order of toughness. The players are given dual handguns for infinite ammo firing, then later a shotgun and minigun. There was ammo fo

      Alien Shooter is a top down run and gun game where players shoot large amounts of aliens. This recreation in Sven does a fairly good job copying the original game in both gameplay and presentation. SCMapDB page Author: Dr.Abc Date of final release: 2018 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Alien Shooter 1 Demo (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | March 12, 2022 | 3986 characters      I've played a bit of Alien Shooter back in the day, so I sort of knew what to expect going into this map. That game has a ton of running backwards down corridors shooting a massive swarm of enemies, and that is exactly what this map has.      Right off the bat the game forces players into third person mode. This is probably my least favorite part of the map, but I get why the author did it. Gunning down aliens in third person really felt like a 3D Alien Shooter. The enemies are pit drones with the projectile attack removed and recolored to green and brown to serve as the game's main e

       Alien fight is a map about fighting xenomorphs, the aliens from the famous movie franchise Alien. Players go from room to room fighting them in waves. SCMapDB page Author: Original Prankster Date of final release: 2002 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Alien Fight (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | March 11, 2022 | 3864 characters      Alien Fight is a map which lives up to its name: the players fight aliens in it. They fight aliens a lot in it. When you hear "fight aliens" you might be thinking of a lot of games with aliens stalking interesting settings for you to fight in. But: have you ever fight a bunch of alien xenomorph bullsquids in a smallish box room coming out of a spawner until you find your way out into another smallish box room with respawning xenomorph bullsquids by finding the z-fighting on a breakable wall? What about if you did that… four times?!      I feel like it's very rare that I play an unofficial (or, often, official for that m

      Alien fight is a map about fighting xenomorphs, the aliens from the famous movie franchise Alien. Players go from room to room fighting them in waves. SCMapDB page Author: Original Prankster Date of final release: 2002 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Alien Fight (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | March 11, 2022 | 4581 characters      The map starts players off in a rough looking spaceship with a nice view of space and four perfectly lined up alien controllers. There is a mounted gun here that is controlled by one half of the nearby terminal, it's a little funky to use. There are three ways to go here, on the left side of the stretched out credits texture is an infantry class teleporter and on the right are demolitions and medic. The way the classes work is that players spawn with nothing, or at least they should, sometimes I or my teammate would spawn with a medkit, but that disappeared for me. The teleporters put players in a room with another teleporter and y

       This map is supposedly set on an alien planet but starts off in some brutalist YMCA and never really looks too alien. There are parts where players can see through cracks in the level. SCMapDP page Author: DeathBog Date of final release: 2003 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Alien Planet (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | March 11, 2022 | 3682 characters      Alien Planet is one of those maps that shakes you to your very core. Something happened to this map. Something about it ain't right. It's sloppy in ways that I cannot fathom stumbling upon accidentally. Rooms are made out of patches of similarly textured brushes which overlap, fail to match on axis, leave gaping holes into clearly padded-in skybox brushes to prevent leaking. It's so bad in some places that it feels like you're in a house made out falling cards frozen in time mid-fall. If you managed to conjure that image to your head, add copious z-fighting to it as well.      Walls are paper

      This map is supposedly set on an alien planet but starts off in some brutalist YMCA and never really looks too alien. There are parts where players can see through cracks in the level. SCMapDP page Author: DeathBog Date of final release: 2003 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Alien Planet (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | March 11, 2022 | 3636 characters      That was a rough map. The walls were paper thin and didn't always line up with each other. He had a noob box around the whole thing, I could see skybox through the gaps of the level.      Players get thrown into the map already taking damage from enemies. The map starts on a fade in so you can't even see what you are doing and you have to take hits. The room you start in looks like a plain swimming pool, I started a map called 'Alien Planet' and started in a swimming pool. If you stand at the water's edge and jump you can see parts of the map through the skybox. The pool is absolutely filled