It happened last week sometime. I was sitting at home one day, being bored while on the computer. Nothing good on the Internet to look at, tired of listening to all my same music, and burnt out on all my PC games.

So I started playing through older games - replaying parts I liked - when I realized I didn't have Sven Co-op installed. It was on my old computer, but I never installed it on my new PC. So I went ahead and installed it and then cruised around some other sites to download the hundreds and hundreds of maps that are available for it. Finally started playing it and haven't stopped since. I barely even touched Guild Wars thanks to Sven.

Quick info on Sven: Sven Co-op is a multiplayer mod for the game Half-Life. 'Sven' I believe is the original creator of the mod and 'co-op' is short for cooperation. You simply join a game in progress and work with real other players against computer bots/enemies to beat the level. You can even play the original Half-Life game in co-op with other players.

I originally started playing the game a few years ago. I was hooked immediately. But of course through the years, the same thing gets kind of old, and newer, shinier things grab your attention. So I stopped playing Sven for about year until last weekend where I picked it up again.

I find the game to be extremely fun. Most of the levels are really fast paced and throw tons of enemies for you and your team to kill. It's definitely a twitch shooter. But again, the levels are the one of the coolest aspects of this mod. A lot of the levels are huge and can take a good amount of time to complete with your team. Some levels even span across multiple maps and contain little stories that go along with them. Helps make the game more engrossing. The AssaultMesa2 series of maps is a perfect example. Plus there are other great maps that are very imaginative. The Toonrun series is like this - you play inside a cartoon-like world. While most maps follow the same scheme (get from point A to point B and kill anything in the way), some maps require a little more. These maps contain puzzles that have to be solved before you can continue, or require lots of team work to move forward.

Anyways, it's a fun mod and great time waster. If you own Half-Life I suggest you download and try Sven Co-op. You can check out more info on the mod and download from their web site here >> SvenCoop.com. Sure it's based off an old game with dated graphics, but the fun game play is still there. And yes, they are creating a new Sven Co-op mod for Half-Life 2. Let's hope to see that sometime this year.