Deep Down

for Half-Life 2: Episode Two

5th June 2013

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Firmly sticking to the Half Life 2 formula, Deep Down (Classic) is a new entry in the story of Alyx and Gordon as they continue the hunt for Combine Advisors in the area surrounding White Forest.

Combine Forces, Zombies and Antlions lie between them and the brooding menace deep below the earth that will test both their skills further than ever before.

If you miss the Half Life 2 formula and are tired of waiting patiently for Episode 3 then this mod is for you. Featuring new gameplay elements, fiendish puzzles and blistering action, Deep Down will provide your Half Life 2 fix (well some of it at least).

Basic Details
  • Title: Deep Down (Classic)
  • File Name: hl2-ep2-deep-down-v1.3.7z
  • Size : 84.3MB
  • Author: James Partridge AKA Aazell1
  • Date Released: 02 June 2013

Download Options

Download version 1.3 to your HDD [84.3MB]

Installation Instructions
  • Copy the deepdown folder into your SourceMods folder.
  • Restart or start Steam.
  • Deep Down should now be listed in your Library tab.

If you require more help, please visit the Technical Help page.

Custom Grid View Icon

The file above comes with three grid view icons. To use one, select “Grid View” in Steam (top right corner). Make sure you have saved the image to a location on your computer – you can’t use it from the compressed archive directly. Right click on “Deep Down” and select “Set Custom Image”. Then browse to where you saved the image and choose it. Then click “Set Image” and that’s it.

Of course, you can create your own custom image if you prefer.

Videos

The playthrough below is provided by Custom Gamer.
See more of his playthroughs on this site: VP: Custom Gamer

Screenshots

Click on the thumbnails below to open a 1024 pixel wide image.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.

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Reader Recommendations
Avoid It!
Think Twice
Maybe
Play It Later
Play It Now!
36 recommendations, average score: 4.75 (out of 5), standard deviation: 0.35 (what's that?)
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Meta Review Data
Statistics based on 36 comment(s) with meta review data.

Installed:
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 36 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 2 Hours, 13 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 1 Mins by Old Scratch
Longest: 4 Hours by Zekiran
Total Time Played: 80 Hours
Categories (?)
Half-Life 2: Ep2 HL2-EP2 Mods Play
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Episode 2 Finished Mods
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144 Comments

  1. PlanetPhillip
    Phillip's Favourite

    This is without doubt a fantastic piece of work and in some places Valve quality. The very beginning is very understated but once you get outside you almost feel the quality hit you like the heat when you leave an aircraft in a very hot country.

    I felt rushed and pressured, which is exactly what James wanted me to feel. The levels merged smoothly one into another and the use of tunnels to change locations was well done.

    It’s the details that matter and here is no exception. The addition of the random generator is a great touch and I hope it can be used more often.

    I know there are special challenges built into the mod and I can guess one of them but how many of my readers can find them? I’ll ask James in an upcoming audio interview who many there are.

    The puzzles are well done and not too hard, even if some people complain they were too difficult – if I can do them, then anybody can.

    The balance between driving, exploring, fighting and puzzle solving was just right and I didn’t get bored once.

    Well, that’s not strictly true. The two things I felt needed improvement were the final section which was a little too repetitive, i.e. the doors leading to the tunnels and striders.

    I also felt James rushed the release and the mod needed a fraction more testing.

    Where James did a memorable job was integrating the voice lines for Alyx into the mod, that was superbly done.

    This is without doubt one of the best mods to be released in a long time and I hope it helps James find a job in the industry if that’s his ambition.

    There are lots of lessons for budding level designers in this mod and the most striking is that of design quality. This mod didn’t just “happen” to be good it was “designed” to be good – with attention to detail and planning.

    That’#s enough from me. Hopefully by the time you have finished reading this the download will have finished and you can go and play it, because that’s the only way to really appreciate this mod.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Easy
    Playtime:
    2 Hours, 15 Minutes
    Reply
  2. lj4linux

    This mod works ONLY with the new “steampipe”
    To play it on non-steampipe make a new .txt document, rename it “gameinfo” (without quotes) and paste this into:

    “GameInfo”
    {
    game “Half-Life 2: Deep Down”
    title “HALF-LIFE'”
    title2 “== deep down ==”
    type singleplayer_only

    FileSystem
    {
    SteamAppId 420

    SearchPaths
    {
    Game |gameinfo_path|.
    Game |all_source_engine_paths|ep2
    Game |all_source_engine_paths|episodic
    Game |all_source_engine_paths|hl2

    }
    }
    }

    Replace the original gameinfo with this one.
    That was posted by “GUEST” jun 2 2013 at 4.30pm on MODDB and I thank him/her for that.

    Reply
    1. PlanetPhillip

      Please be aware that this mod is NOT designed to work in a non-Steampipe installation and Alyx will NOT work correctly.

      I highly recommend either waiting until another version MAY come out or convert to Steampipe.

      Reply
      1. Sparks

        That’s a pretty poor choice, Phillip! Either stick with your slightly broken steam and watch a good mod float away, or convert your steam to the new fully broken state to play this one gem, and in doing so sacrifice many/all of your others. The old adage of “supping with the devil requiring the use of a long spoon” comes to mind. Is this the end for modding?

        Reply
        1. Jim_Partridge

          Its not Phillip who’s giving you the choice.
          It’s Valve…

          We’re simply trying to bring you Free content for your enjoyment.

          Please try to remember who gives up their free time so you can have fun.

          Reply
          1. Sparks

            Yes Jim, I understand that – my comment was meant to be purely objective, in that neither of the options are desirable i.e. to play your mod broken, or break a bunch of other ones so that yours plays properly. I know very well who’s responsible for this (as usual) – my displeasure is levelled squarely against Valve, certainly not at either yourself or Phillip, by any means!

            Of course I recognize and greatly appreciate the huge effort of both crafting an excellent mod and of running a very successful fan site – the ‘long spoon” referred to the necessity of dealing with GABEN since the compulsory imposition of steam with all the ensuing problems, past, present and future; maybe I was unclear.

            For the record though, whilst I know it’s nothing compared to modding, I do give up plenty of my own free time to keep things running so you can remember that too.

            I’d like nothing more than to play your mod the way it was intended to be, but at the moment I feel it’s too great a gamble. If the steampipe change isn’t fully reversible (as I suspect) then it’s still a bad trade-off at the moment. If they fix everything, then that’s really great & I might well go for it – but let’s face it, their record in this department speaks entirely for itself.

            Sorry if you feel that this is “overly dramatic” but this is just another [yet one more] milestone disaster that everyone has to now struggle with, through no fault of their own. If valve’s destructive changes were optional then at least we could opt out (very desirable since I neither need nor want Linux, nor all the problems bundled up with this update) however they are forced upon us (just try running steam offline for any length of time) and that is very frustrating and annoying.

            Reply
            1. Jim_Partridge

              Oh wow. Trust me I totally understand your frustration.
              Imagine how I felt after working on a mod for a year to find that my one Key selling point (Alyx talking and interacting) was the one thing that Valve managed to break!!

              I was sooo upset.

              All we can do is our best to work around it I guess.

              I recommend ranting on the Steam Forums rather than here though.

              🙂

              Reply
      2. jrw1945

        need help after I use the crane how do I get the gate open to the tunal

        Reply
        1. lj4linux

          You mean the gate from the yard or the force field of the tunnel?
          The first should open automatically when you step into the yard and the force field opens with your secondary attack (default = right mouse click)

          Reply
          1. Sethy3030

            Thanks for the information with “secondary attack (default = right mouse click)”. My problem was: I have bound “go forward” to “MOUSE2” and cause of this the right mouse click doesn’t deactivate the force field. I had no idea, that “MOUSE2” was “secondary attack” by default.

            It would be better to change the information text in the game from “right mouse click” to “secondary attack”.

            Reply
    2. Anon_817558

      thanks it works

      Reply
  3. Sparks

    I’m not having any of that turdpipe until it becomes mandatory (and it will, as it breaks existing mods) so I replaced the packaged gameinfo.txt with the new text one from lj4linux’s post, copied it to sourcemods and restarted Steam but the mod didn’t show up in the Library. Plan B…

    Ok, that looks like it. If you copy & paste the above text as is, you end up with the “wrong” type of speech marks and steam doesn’t recognize them. So copy & paste but then replace the speech marks with fresh ones, save file & restart steam and the mod will be listed & will launch properly. It does look very good! Nice job, GUEST & lj4linux!

    Reply
  4. jrw1945

    I tried all that game will not start

    Reply
    1. Sparks

      Can you be a bit more specific? Does it show in your steam library, and if so, as what? i.e. Half Life 2:Deep Down or ?Half Life

      If it’s the second, try changing the quotes in the gameinfo.txt. Worked on mine.

      Reply
      1. jrw1945

        that worked thanks for the tip

        Reply
  5. sm69ny

    Great mod! Good mix of action & puzzles. Best mod I’ve played in a while.

    FYI, at first the mod would crash before loading. Once I used the fix posted above (changing the “gameinfo” file) it worked fine. Alyx did seem to stand around aimlessly a few times, but no big deal.

    Kudos!

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Easy
    Playtime:
    2 Hours
    Reply
    1. Ade

      but what’s your recommendation?

      Reply
  6. brianthesnail

    whats happening … why make mods so complicated … done the gameinfo fix .. game not in libary … and if you convert hl2 ep2 to steampipe it screws up several other mods
    is there any way to get this mod working ( other than steampipe ) … I dont know about you guys but im not gonna convert ep2 to steampipe just for one mod .. and if this is the way things are going its a sad day for hl2 mods
    im now going to bang my head against the wall and then play minerva … any help guys will be much appreciated
    peace !

    Reply
  7. brianthesnail

    got it working … done the gameinfo fix,however it appeared in my libary as “?half life ” … yes half life with a question mark in front … I then found it easier to open the console and load map deepdown 1
    I will comment on the game as soon as ive finished it … but this does need a patch or some kind of fix especially for the not so “source savvy” guys who may not understand console commands and gameinfo ect

    Reply
    1. Sparks

      Yes, that’s exactly what happened to me the first time I copied & pasted the gameinfo.txt, but I spotted the different speech mark characters in the copied text and replaced them with normal ones as I mentioned previously, and then on restarting steam the mod appeared in the library with the correct name & started normally. I’ve only had time for 5 minutes of gameplay, so I can’t vouch for Alyx’s behaviour throughout, but she seemed normal for me in the first section anyway. Try again but change the ” characters; they should look like small straight lines, not curved with a tail, like a tadpole – if you know what I mean by that.

      Reply
      1. brianthesnail

        thanks sparks
        can you copy/paste the correct gameinfo.txt and place it on here.. then we can simply copy/paste the right gameinfo.txt … many thanks

        Reply
        1. Sparks

          I tried, but it didn’t work. When the speech marks are copied off this page they become double-apostrophies on pasting, so you’ll have to do it yourself I’m afraid – it’s quick and easy.

          Open your pasted gameinfo.txt file, delete each of the existing speech mark/double-apostrophies and replace them with quotation marks [shift]+[2] for all 8 instances. Save the file, restart steam and Half-Life 2:Deep Down should show up in your Library.

          Reply
  8. lucifer372

    Well, I’m probably one of those “not so source savvy guys” as brianthesnail so adequately quoted. 🙂 I’m pretty reluctant fiddling around with settings and stuff. I really don’t want to compromise playing other HL2 mods.

    This is what happened to me after installation: it appeared in my library, as “Half-Life 2: Deep Down”. On a first run it crashed, so I restarted and went to the game menu. When I chose “Start New Game”, the little window you always get for selecting a chapter was completely empty.
    So there was no way for me to actally start a new game. Does this relate to that gameinfo.txt stuff mentioned in some posts above? Do I have to manually select the 1st map from the console? Pretty anxious about playing this mod now 🙂

    Reply
  9. Ade

    If this is what I think it is, I’m saddened that he didn’t resort to more testing, but am glad he finally released it.. from what I played years ago, this should be quality.

    Reply
    1. Ade

      hehe http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=73350064

      Reply
      1. Jim_Partridge

        Wow! How did you do that?!

        Haha, will take a look for the next version and see how that could have occured…

        Reply
        1. Ade

          u forgot about me already 🙁

          Reply
          1. Jim_Partridge

            No I didn’t.
            You are the nice lady who breaks things!

            haha. Am looking forward to hearing your opinion!

            Reply
    2. Jim_Partridge

      This mod has been fully tested with Steampipe Beta. Its only meant to work with Steampipe Beta. Normal Episode 2 is broken. Valve broke it. If u want to play this mod. Convert Episode 2 to Steampipe Beta…

      Reply
      1. brianthesnail

        the only problem with changing ep2 to steampipe is it makes many other mods unplayable ( I know this when I changed ep1 when there was no voice in hl2 ep1 )

        Reply
        1. Jim_Partridge

          Those are your choices at the moment…
          Sucks but there it is…

          Soon as Valve fix Episode 2 I’ll release a new version that works with the fixed normal version.

          Reply
  10. Jim_Partridge

    Please do t fret… If your worried about Steampipe Beta then read this

    http://www.planetphillip.com/posts/steampipe-and-current-issues/

    I’ve upgraded and been able to play every mod I’ve wanted to using the instructions in the linked thread.

    Bottom line, this is Valves issue, not mine or Phillips. Simple choice, if u want to play this mod fully functioning, you’ll need to change to Steampipe Beta. That’s that….
    I worked on this for over a year and trust me If there were any other way to get around this I would be using it.

    If you dont want to change to the beta, the I dont recommend you try to play this at the moment by messing with the gameinfo file. Wait until your forced to upgrade.

    Its only a game peeps.. 😀

    Reply
    1. brianthesnail

      thanks for the link jim,im also changing ep2 to steampipe,as you can allways change back when you have completed the mod …. many thanks mate

      Reply
    2. Dirk

      Before playing Deep Down, I was on Precursor. Sure enough, when I changed EP2 to Beta to enable Deep Down to run, Precursor would no longer load. No surprise there. When I’d finished Deep Down, I changed EP2 to opt out of Beta. I then ran Precursor again without a problem. This is no longer an issue.
      Great mod!

      Reply
  11. brianthesnail
    Personal Favourite

    amazing mod,and one of the best ive played in a long time … the few installation issues such as steampipe and gameinfo.txt editing are easily fixed but could be a problem for less “source savvy” users
    however once this was out the way “deep down” was extrememly enjoyable … and when you consider it took jim a year to make this mod he must of spent many hours a day to complete this
    jim,s also managed to include many of the aspects of the original hl2 including the crane,jeep and gravity gun which are all used in the mod to good effect
    its also unusual to see mods with alyx as a partner ,many have included the lady in small parts of their mods but not as much as in deep down
    you can easily get lost in the maze of tunnels ( which I did ) and I did need to backtrack myself on some occasions ….
    I especially enjoyed the part were the massive rolling peice of concrete dropped,i had to turn round and hide before it crushed me and managed to just in time …
    the finale was excellent,were you needed to disable the ball generators and there was a few strider fights to cope with ( nice to see the magnusson device make a return )
    in summary a outstanding mod which was so much fun to play …. and I was glad to see it will be continued …!
    well done jim … a outstanding peice of work !

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Easy
    Playtime:
    1 Hour, 35 Minutes
    Reply
  12. Louis

    Played using the gameinfo.txt posted above, worked fine and I had no problems with Alyx, so, the steampipe update is not mandatory to play this one.

    Reply
    1. PlanetPhillip

      Did she talk?

      Reply
      1. Jim_Partridge

        She will talk a bit, but won’t say any dialogue from Episoide 2 of which I have used a lot!

        Reply
  13. Ade

    Well this is silly.. why would you release something for steampipe when it wasn’t introduced yet? I can play old mods just fine and I’m afraid that if I opt in, I won’t be able to play/test the old ones.
    Despite that, I tried to opt in but nothing happens.. I right clicked ep2, properties, betas, tried twice to opt in but the setting isn’t saved and nothing really happens even if I restart Steam.

    And I don’t want to change my gameinfo and mess up my experience either. Bleh.

    Reply
    1. Jim_Partridge

      The one thing that sets the mod apart is that Alyxs talks and re-acts to the player just like in the normal games.

      Thats the one thing that Valve broke when they broke Ep 2.
      Had no choice but to release for the Beta.

      Sucks but there it is…

      If you convert ep2 to beta the conversion should kick in shortly after.
      Suggest some patience needs to be applied but understand frustration.

      Reply
      1. Ade

        u dont get it.. the opt-in does nothing for me. I restart steam and still shows NONE, so I can’t wait for something broken to start up on its own, I’m guessing it’s a bug and more likely I will play this when the conversion will finally happen..
        that screenshot is old btw and I showed it to you at that time

        Reply
    2. JG

      Ade,

      As I mentioned in Phillip’s Steampipe thread, try running Episode 2 after changing its Beta properties to Steampipe. I found that the Steampipe setting doesn’t “take” until you try to run the game, at which point you will be prompted to start the conversion process.

      Most of the instructions I’ve seen suggest that it is supposed to convert automatically, but I haven’t seen that at all.

      It is possible to “revert” back to the non-Steampipe build of the game, but it involves redownloading the whole game. You just go to the same Betas tab and opt out of the betas and then redownload the game.

      As for developing a mod for a non-existent future version, who knows what Valve expects people to do. Either you release an “old style” mod right now and deal with it potentially being broken at a later date, or you release a “new style” that might be more future proof, but won’t work for anyone not in the beta program. The unfortunate part of the latter choice is that players are missing out on content that the modder intended for them to experience, but they would have no idea that they are.

      Reply
      1. Jim_Partridge

        Thanks JG

        I’m checking this out as have been interested to see how I could get back to non-beta ep2 for mapping purposes…

        Will let you know if he speaks the truth!

        Reply
      2. Sparks

        Thanks, that’s useful. Have you (or do you know anyone who has) actually done the reversion after converting to steampipe? I’d be very interested to know if it’s possible to go truly back…

        Reply
        1. Jim_Partridge

          JG’s instructions work fine. Have just re-installed ep2 and all mods are working correctly.

          I’ll ask Phillip to update the previous post with this information.

          Reply
          1. Sparks

            Outstanding result! Bet the option to revert will be revoked when it comes out of beta…

            Reply
      3. Ade

        In all honesty, I did run ep2, but after I restarted steam
        so if I opted in, closed dialog, then opened dialog again cus didn’t know if I did it right, it would say NONE every time; if I opted in, closed dialog, then restarted steam and opened it again, would still say NONE
        i never tried to opt in, close then launch ep2 right after that and apparently this works, it’s a shame that it’s how it is, spinning n possibilities like that

        oh noes, approaching an evil comments number

        Reply
        1. JG

          No, I totally hear you, Ade. When I did the right-click Beta thing, it didn’t start automatically and I was very confused. So, like you, I closed and restarted Steam only to find that the Beta setting reverted itself back to the opt-out. I even thought I had to put Steam itself into Beta mode in order to make the setting stick. It took a bit of trial and error, but that’s eventually how I arrived at the simpler solution I posted. 🙂

          Reply
  14. john

    Just to add to the txt document comments. I did what the “guest” said and it works fine. The mod shows up in my steam favorites as
    ?halflife

    No worries here, I wanted to thank the “guest” (possible G-man associate) for allowing us to play the game with the standard steam.

    now off to get me an adviser or two.

    Reply
    1. PlanetPhillip

      Please be aware that you will be missing one of the best aspects of the mod: Alyx using perfectly placed speech.

      Reply
    2. Sparks

      Please Note:

      If you want the mod to show up correctly in the steam library, after pasting the text from lj4linuxs” post into MS Wordpad/Notepad you need to replace the speech marks (which are actually “Modifier Letter Double Apostrophe” according to MS Character Map) with “quotation marks” i.e. [shift]+[2] throughout the text and save gameinfo.txt before restarting steam. Then Steam will recognize the game and title in gameinfo.txt correctly and will display it properly. Nothing else is affected, it’s purely cosmetic, but it’s worth doing as it only takes seconds and then your Library will show Half-Life 2:Deep Down instead of ?halflife. You will have to do the edit manually as copying the characters from this page ends up pasting the “wrong type” so put them in yourself, save gameinfo.txt and restart Steam.

      Reply
  15. Joepan

    I’ll not buy games from Steam anymore, period. I feel cheated, bad, by Volvo:)
    Steam! I’m getting a lawyer!

    Reply
  16. Ade
    Play It Now!

    So I finally get it working and the first things I see are console errors hehe
    “CModelLoader::Map_IsValid: No such map ‘maps/ep2_background02a.bsp’
    map load failed: ep2_background02a not found or invalid”
    And then “node graph” errors all throughout the mod that bug the sound for a few seconds even on my new pc. Plus quite a few cuts and holes in walls and what not, I would’ve found them all btw.

    I would’ve also found a nice game breaking bug, I think.. in the sewers after we ditch the car, Alyx gets taken but if I get lost in them and go back 1 map, Alyx appears right near me weaponless and cant get rid of her.. even if I go back so I had to reload some save of mine.
    Loved the moment when I went round back and shot combine thru window, reminded me of Daylight.
    After the big pipe came down, I dodged and walked up to see a floating ar2, then the combine holding it was just spawning under my eyes.
    Loved the strider walking above me. For the final strider, I found it hard to throw the sticky bombs from beneath (but loved the first occasion to use those), yet was amazed to see it try to stomp me! Seemed a bit rushed the entire final area, could’ve done with fewer orbs to push and less repetitive and huge empty hallways.
    I was expecting the advisor fight to be a lot more difficult, instead it was a dry death from an orb with a hl1 gibbing sound…
    And now for some screenies.. interesting texture http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=151011230
    huge missing texture 😀 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=151011259
    remember this dearly http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=151011284
    I was expecting an antlion guard here http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=151011325 but hunters were nice too, specially in this lit environment their sparks were nice to look at or maybe it’s just my new hardware.

    All in all I wanna grab you by the ears for not testing this more and making it into a more awesome mod lol (I think I gave it a PIN but doesn’t show in edit mode)
    But yea, it’s fun to play with a lot of great driving areas and a responsive Alyx (which didn’t always find her way to me), the fighting was good and never too hard, the only time I went to 10 hp was actually because I was trying to fight the police by throwing hoppers at them and died 2 times, once from the hopper behind the fence and once for driving too fast into explosives o_O I just wish more puzzles actually and harder. But yea, give it a play and you won’t regret it 😉

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    1 Hour, 30 Minutes
    Reply
    1. Jim_Partridge

      Hmm weird with Alyx re-appearing in Map 5. She shouldn’t appear unless you load the map in the console… In all other cases she should follow you through from map 4.

      This bug didn’t come up in playtesting, and I did a LOT of playtesting.
      None of my playtesters felt the need to go back to map 4 once Alyx had been kidnapped. They all pressed forward.

      I may add a point of no return in the pipes to make sure that you can’t go back to map 4.

      Alas, with mods you will always find bugs…
      This is something you must learn to live with Ade. Most mods are built by one person. One person can’t do the quality assurance that a proper games company can.

      Mods that are built by teams normally fail because the scope balloons into something silly!

      Reply
      1. Ade

        I can assure u it wasn’t my intention to get lost and go back, plus the level change is right there in the pipes, so..
        And I agree there can never be too much testing. I was just stressing the fact that you didn’t test this with me 🙂 til the end nor have u used the Beta Testers Collective as in general you need objective people from outside your circle.

        Reply
        1. Jim_Partridge

          Ah yeah. I totally forgot about the Beta testing collective to be honest.

          I had some of the best modders in the business test this however and their feedback was invaluable.

          Running this through the BTC would have probably highlighted some more of these issues.

          Definately more sign posting needed in those tunnels too. It’s a very simple layout actually but not enough unique landmarks in there.

          Reply
  17. john

    thank you for the tip on getting the mods name in the library. I think I will be ok and let it ride as is.

    However, Alex with perfectly placed speech or my inability to enjoy this aspect of the mod has me worried.

    I wonder if she still gets in the way and says “sorry” at the appropriately placed time. hehe.

    almost done with challenger deep 2. this one is next.

    Reply
  18. DjReplica
    Play It Now!

    To minimize the spoiler alerts of my view, I will retrain from using any places,objects and all naming content as the gameplay progression, instead will use generalized indicators.

    1. Plot
    I felt the story and the simulated line of tasks wasn’t really focused, so generally could have used some more dramatic or mind-twisting events to disorientate(in a psychological intended way) the player and keep the attention of the author’s creative and innovative point of the mod. There were good uses of custom sounds on the start, but the sidekick wasn’t fully interactive with the player. There were a bit of lines here and there, a better way is to find a character (probably a npc_citizen) give him some lines to keep the player informed he is there with him. You probably noticed that in all hl2 series, the sidekick always keeps the played talkative and thinking, as a worthy advisor too, always putting him on the right path. This is actually a tradition hl2 has developed, so we could have seen something of this nature to be integrated in this mod, sadly we didn’t.

    2.Visuals
    I didn’t find any graphical glitches or something out of place. The atmosphere generated by the textures had it’s function done completely, and for that I will use the “no comment” for the mod visuals. In some areas I could see wonderful lighting which got me amazed, including the terrain. And all of this was fulfilled with the mod’s exterior. Simply great work

    3. Gameplay
    I got stuck in some areas without the idea of what I needed to do, there weren’t any signs or clues of what needed to be done. Especially the 3rd level and the overall mine levels. I think there could have been used more indicators of what the player was expected to do.

    4. Ingame orientation
    I stumbled to some areas which the player shouldn’t have go, mostly in the underground levels. Simply by doing a sidejump I could have easily escaped the clutches of the barrier. And I consider this to be a bug, so you might want to imply an invisible wall. Overall the events of npc, ai and player-related tasks were extraordinary and it got me to put this mod in my favorites.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Hard
    Playtime:
    1 Hour, 10 Minutes
    Reply
    1. Jim_Partridge

      Hi! Thanks for all the useful comments. Will consider them for the future.

      On point 1:
      Did you play the Steampipe version?
      Alyx won’t talk much if you don’t play the Steampipe version.

      I’ve played lots of mods with custom NPC’s which are normally NPC citizens that have custom voices. I find the voice acting to mostly be awful and it makes the whole experience feel cheap and fake. I didn’t want that.

      My aim here was to create a full HL2 episode and so only Alyx would do!

      Merle Dandrige is the actress who voices Alyx. She recorded hundreds of voice clips for the HL2 games. Obviously the lines of dialoge are only going to be so relevant to the situation.

      Unless I had hired Merle (which I’m sure Valve have it in her contract she’s forbidden to portray Alyx outside of the official HL2 games) I dont really see how I could have made her comments more relevant.

      In the end I opted for her to comment on the puzzle or challenge right in front of the player, rather than talking about the overall story and their goals.

      Reply
      1. Ade

        I think it’s a subtlety he’s referring to.
        In your mod, she’s responding/reacting with 1 liners to things already there or actions you already performed. In the game, she seems more independent and says stuff in advance, and has more complex scripts. Like when she saves you from the police and you just follow her while you take a lift, listen to her talk, while she buys you a drink and opens up a secret door and talks some more. But that’s hard to mod when you have your own story.

        Reply
        1. Jim_Partridge

          I did think I could add a little more chit chat at the begining in White Forest. She’s pretty quiet there.
          Outside of that, there isn’t really much space for that kind of dialogue. Theyr’e on the move much of the time with lots happening and very few of Alyx’s lines fit the scenarios they’re in.

          The hardest part of getting all this working was listening to line after line of dialogue trying to find just the right tone of voice to fit the bill in each case.
          Takes ages….

          I did want to be careful not to replay an obvious scene from the original HL2 games that would be recognised.

          That scene where she first meets Gordon, she’s far more distant because they’ve just met, her tone of voice says, I don’t know you that well yet, and you can hear it.

          Much of the other chit chat dialogue is very specific to the circumstances they’re in (eli’s lab, playing ball with dog, etc..) so its not really usable.

          Reply
  19. ddot1960

    First time I have ever commented on a mod or map ever. Been playing mods and maps since forever. THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST MODS EVER!!! I have no right to judge but…..WOW!!! Yes there are faults but ya gotta walk through and figure it out for yourself, especially in the tunnels. Loved every minute(hour) of it!!!

    Reply
  20. ddot1960

    Classic HL2 stuff, like said and nuff said!!!

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    1 Hour, 20 Minutes
    Reply
  21. Blue Lightning
    Play It Now!

    Me likes.

    Although I don’t like the Ep2 Portland Oregon NW forest setting and said so many times, this mod has my respect. A long and large mod that reminds us of Ep2, since much of what it used is from Ep2. Not perfect, it has some issues. But in terms of quality and overall fun, plus some replay value, this mod has it.

    Nice use of the crane BTW, first time I have used it since HL2 and I remembered how! The player goes from forest sections to long underground tunnel roads, back outside, and then into a large underground mining system. Somewhat long driving sections were a nice feature as well. Battles were fun, not too many but just enough. Puzzles galore. Mabye a few too many in fact.

    Mapping was good, but a bit linear and sometimes a little mazey (when indoors). Even though the maps were beautiful, I had a hard time believing the structural architecture at times. I would think: “Would that building really be built against a rock like that?” “Would those kind of pipes that I am walking through really be in the mines, and then lead to right there?” “does that structure over there make much sense”? These questions I would sometimes ask myself. It was a close call. I guess most of the stuff that I questioned can be justified and make sense…but only just.

    Wind noise is missing which is a down side…But other ambient sounds were abundant. The mine environment was nice…but maybe we had to be in it a tad too long?

    Parts of the driving section were really cramped, a common problem with the mods that include vehicles. Especially when driving through the mines…although that was ultra-fun!

    To sum up, adventure is there, as well as pretty environments, some fun gameplay as well. I would have to say “play it now”

    Reply
    1. Blue Lightning

      Let me clarify something too…when I said “too many puzzles”, that also means too many chokepoints, since puzzles are essentially chokepoints. It almost got a PIL because of this. However, the positive points of the mod rose it to PIN…but only barley.

      Reply
      1. Jim_Partridge

        Ah well, can’t please everyone all of the time…

        Reply
  22. Pedro_The_Swift

    I must be the only one with this problem,,
    I use my mouse buttons to go forwards and backwards (complete 3d control in one hand)
    but I cant de-activate the forcefields,,

    any ideas?

    Reply
    1. Jim_Partridge

      Use the alt fire key

      Reply
  23. datguykirt

    This game binds right-click to take down the combine force fields.
    I’m left-handed. While the game options accept that my mouse is left-handed, and so I shoot using “Mouse 1” which is the right-side button for me, the binding is now reassigned and I can’t take down the force fields. How can I correct this problem?

    Reply
    1. Jim_Partridge

      When it says right click it means alt fire. Just hit the alt fire button

      Reply
  24. Jim_Partridge

    Can anyone comment on their best and worst elements of Deep Down?
    What did you enjoy the most, what did you dislike the most, what would you like to see more of?

    Reply
  25. JG
    Play It Now!

    I feel this is one of those mods that has several good ideas, but might be too long for its own good. That, if you took the better elements and condensed them into something 50-75% as long, you might have a better end result. Still, it’s a fun, solidly executed piece of work and a welcome respite from the mod drought we’ve been having.

    Per the author’s request, I’m going to break this down into the best and worst elements of the mod.

    Best Elements:

    – Ramming Combine and Zombies with the jalopy and plowing through all those carefully placed stacks of crates. Somewhere, a Combine Soldier with supermarket display experience shed a tear.

    – The “chase” with the APC and subsequent battle with it was cool. Once I reached the end, I wondered if it followed me, and sure enough it came barreling around the corner and my heart jumped for a moment.

    – All the outdoor segments are uniformly well done visually. It looks and feels like Episode 2.

    – The rolling beam was a clever set piece and well executed.

    – I appreciated the attempt to create a unique “boss” encounter at the end. Like Phillip, I think it was a bit too rigid, but it felt plausible and I liked the concept behind it. Having to make your way underfoot, so to speak, was clever and felt dangerous.

    – It’s fairly well balanced. There was one part early on where I dropped off a roof and lived and I did eventually find enough health hidden here and there to recoup it.

    Worst Elements:

    – I don’t think Alyx was utilized well. The problem wasn’t with the carefully chosen dialog, it was her purpose for being in the mod at all. There was too much robotic “Go here” or “Do this” or “Can you open that?” Alyx always feels like a burden in this mod because she never does anything useful for you as a player. Part of it, of course, is Alyx’s limited speech and animation set. I get that. But aside from being the modder’s voice in the world giving the player a bunch of errands, she doesn’t contribute very much to the mod.

    – Phillip might say that a mod is “designed” to be good, but you can overdesign things too. I echo what Ade was saying about the puzzles, so let me try to explain my perspective on that. When I say puzzles, I’m referring to the fact that nothing is straightforward in this mod. How many times do you see an unreachable item in a cage where you need to use the Gravity Gun to pull it up and over the cage wall? Yes, it’s fine a couple times, but after the fifth time you start to feel like a lab rat trying to extract cheese.

    – The beauty of the outdoor areas never really translated to the interior spaces. The concrete vehicle tunnel is too big and empty with harsh angles that reminded me of the train levels in Half-Life 1. The mines are bland and there seem to be a lot of cut-and-paste corridors. Those aspects hurt the feeling of progression in the mines, since it doesn’t feel like you are going anywhere.

    – The terrain tends to be too lumpy and cramped for the jalopy. That, along with a couple major jumps, lead to a lot of physics frustration as the game tries to deal with the high-speed jalopy landing on top of a bunch of crates.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Easy
    Playtime:
    1 Hour, 15 Minutes
    Reply
    1. Jim_Partridge

      Nice observations and I agree with you on most elements of what could have been done better. The lab rat element is intended to simply give the player more to do than just enter room and shoot stuff. I think you’re right I could have used more variety in that respect.

      And your right that much of the driving areas are repeating templates more detailing would have prob sold this better.

      Next time I will do much better!

      Reply
      1. JG

        It doesn’t even have to be complicated. One of the parts I remember was noticing the small health power-ups stashed under a shelf and partially hidden by those large wire spools. That only required some tangential exploration of the area and it felt rewarding. This is something the “Shock” games do really well, but of course they have tons more items than Half-Life does.

        I think the mines in Episode 2 are dull, even when Valve did them. If I had to take a few guesses why, it’s probably the severe lack of things to interact with, the consistent lighting, no cool views of places you came or went, uninteresting enemy spawns… I could go on. The point is, you had an uphill challenge to make it interesting for me in the first place. A couple moments that stood out were the large circular “waterfall rooms,” which were cool. I also liked the Fast Zombie that was playing dead in plain view. Being a modder, I know the poses the normal Zombies sit in when they are waiting for the player to arrive – so they are rarely surprising – but I guess I’m not familiar with the Fast Zombie poses because that worked well. 🙂

        A couple bugs, one of which probably isn’t your fault at all. One of the physics puzzles – the one with the door and the counterweight elevator – didn’t restore from a saved game correctly. On reload, the mine cart that holds the door shut was ridiculously heavy and could only be inched along with the Gravity Gun for some reason. Another was at the level transition where you have the three Antlion Grubs on the wall – I think a set of those Grubs must travel with you to the next level because when I killed them I got two Grub corpses for each one.

        Reply
        1. Jim_Partridge

          The leap up fast zombie was shamelessly stolen from Ep2. I simply pulled him out of an existing map but its a nice shock when it happens.

          The grubs that are dupicated between maps 4 and 5 are caused by the change level functionality. Whatever npc entities are in the field of play when you change level will be carried through with you. Those bugs are there in both maps so they are duplicated.
          The interesting question is, will they add to the achievement count or not? If you get the achievement with 3 bugs left over then we know we’ve got a problem. Lol…

          Reply
          1. JG

            It’s actually whatever NPCs are within the trigger_transition, so if that trigger contains the grubs, they would migrate to the next level. If it really mattered, you could probably use the OnMapTransition output of a logic_auto to determine if the following level needed to spawn its own set of grubs or not. 🙂

            Reply
            1. Jim_Partridge

              Theyre not within any triggers in my map…
              And any combine still in the tunnel between map 1 and 2 get transitioned too.

              Think I’m right…

              Why must you fill this thread with you lies!!! 😛

              Reply
  26. BayTheMoon
    Personal Favourite

    This is just about one of the best mods I’ve played. Superb visuals, great puzzles. I played it on easy (something I never usually do) because I didn’t much like the opening sequence and just wanted to get past it. However, as has been mentioned by others, once you get outside, the mod opens up and you get taken to surprising places. I shall be playing it twice more, on medium and on hard, simply because it’s worth it. I had no difficulty getting it to run. Great fun, can’t wait for more. Is there any more? I want more? Gimme more! Nicely done Mr Partridge, nicely done.

    Edit
    Fav bits
    The crane and getting machinery to work, I’m a sucker for puzzely mechanical stuff. And mowing down creature with the car.
    Not-so-fav bits
    Thought Alex was a bit of a waste of space. Not keen on trying to do Evel Knivels with the car. Too much like hard work for little reward.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Easy
    Playtime:
    2 Hours, 2 Minutes
    Reply
  27. Joe_Freeman

    Well, I am not sure what is going on. As of Thursday 6-13-13 and another Steam auto-update (I am using the steaming pile Beta) now none of my quicksaves work and at least half of my manual saves and autosaves do not work. This is very frustrating! It either goes to a black screen or back to main menu page. I am assuming this is because of the latest (Thursday) update because up until then everything was fine and I was having a blast with this mod!

    Just in case it matters it started in the screenshot 21 area and now I am at screenshot 34……

    Reply
    1. Jim_Partridge

      Sorry to hear that Joe.
      Not sure I can help you on this. It’s a beta so issues bound to crop up.
      Doesn’t take that long to play through the mod once you’ve been through it once. Suggest you start again and speed through…

      Reply
      1. Joe_Freeman

        Finally, Steaming pile updated itself again yesterday and now all the saves work properly. Now I can play the way I like. I am one of those people that doesn’t like to just run through.

        Reply
  28. keywc
    Maybe?

    Before beginning this review, I’d like to warn you about steampipe. As it breaks most mods, make sure to backup your steam folder. I got 3 backups, each one before every update that broke mods. This allows me to play old mods such as coastline to atmosphere.

    To the review, now !

    ~~~ transition ~~~

    Unfortunately, this mod was filled with bugs and other issues. As phillip says, it needed a bit more playtesting. The first thing that appears when I create a new game is “Node graph out of date”. Sure, why not, it only lags a big on the loading of a map.

    The voice acting is great for a mod (even though there are no animations or facial animations). Alyx was just as annonying as in episode two (that’s a good add for me). I don’t really see the point of the randomizer as it only gives health packs at the beginning of the game…

    The first chapter was great. The puzzles, fights and car races were balanced, and overall it was fun. Then comes the tunnel part. It seems like all the glitches in the world fell on me. The apc boss was awkward as it only shot at alyx. I did not see how to open the gates and continued on foot… No forcefields blocked me, and the next chapter loaded… With a shotgun. What ?

    Steampipe breaks the saves, so I needed to reload the chapter. It only gave me a crowbar and a gravity gun, but that’s enough to kill the two combines you’ll encounter. If you play this game, try to keep the car with you all the time.

    The infected tunnels were getting a lot creepier without alyx (sadly, that was a bug) and I was running out of ammo. It’s been months since I felt this : the need to rush and use all of your weapons effectively.

    The final battle was enjoyable, but lacked music when fighting hunters and to kill the advisor, I just shotgunned him to death, while he did nothing. Then alyx appeared out of nowhere and the game ended.

    Overall, I would have rated this mod 5 stars if it was playtested more. The glitches clearly ruined my experience, and need to be fixed.

    Below is an album of random screenshots I took (warning : spoilers) :
    http://imgur.com/a/jxmQG

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    1 Hour, 27 Minutes
    Reply
  29. vancanucksfan
    Play It Now!

    Very nice mod! I am not converting to the new versions until I have to, so I used the helpful syntax above for a new gameinfo.txt file. The game showed up as something strange in my Steam games list, but it seemed to work fine. I guess I missed out on the dialogue with Alyx, but sometimes that is a good thing. I really liked the puzzles and thought they had just the right level of difficulty. Nice design throughout. I was a little surprised at the large open area with all of the fuel barrels scattered around. I was expecting a boss battle with the Ant Lion guard or something really large but it turned out to be fairly easy. All in all a real nice mod that I will definitely play again after I convert to the new file format

    Reply
  30. Fodderstompf
    Play It Now!

    This was very much a amazing piece of work both visual and game play wise.
    The maps where very well worked out and I enjoyed the feeling of process by completing task X to get Y going as in. not having solved puzzles before even being clearly aware of them it tends to be a fairly common problem in Mods But not here no!
    You can clearly see he involving from the earlier released Daylight which had its decent amount of flaws
    The combat could have been a tad more challenging as in enemy quantity and placement but not bad at all overall.

    Spoilers ahead,In depth post mortem

    Starting out in a white forest esque Base camp with loads of forecasting of the task ahead And some great combine headcrab canister use& Rebells combat I verry much like the setup used there for a intro

    Up next we get some great combine combat in a abounded Hotel ish settlement climbing upwards the settlement and get the car back from the canal we ditched it in earlier brilliant.

    I would have given it a personal favourite if it wasent for the fairly dark grey uninspired long second tunnel its by far my least fav part of the mod.
    i did not really struggle to get trough it but I just disliked the setting very monotone coloured and straightforward not as good as the tunnels in the original half life game ore half life1.

    Onwards we get a map I think he released early er as a beta and I have played it before back then I enjoyed it and doing it over again was no different I like driving the car into the mineshafts sqausing zombie’s on the way

    Exploring Further down the caves on foot and for me the best part of all Climbing up a industrial mine ing outpost with water below and some great zombie,combine npc combat just as much as being involved I very very much enjoyed this part and must be the part that impressed me to make it one of my favourite releases
    (i had seen a couple of his prototyping of the puzzles on his blog including the big rolling pipe so I expected seeing it in the mod and I will say the setting has been greatly improved compared to the testing earia)

    Closing in on the combine adviser We can note this by the technology and use of combine ish turrets,walls increase of soldiers and it just hypes you up for some great fighting and architecture unfortunately the author did end really deliver to my hopes,set-ups from the previous maps.

    Entering a big mineshaft (that did not look that combine esque) with a combine strucure in the middle we get set out to disable 3generaters in difrent side passages of the mine usualy protected by a strider,ore hunters but the combat didend really feel that close as I hoped to neither and it wass kind off a lett down.

    Having disabled the generators A adviser emerges from his shell and we get the delightful change to shoot it up Huray this may sound delightful but in reality its a fairly basic shoot ‘m up but we can’t hold the author to blame.
    As mentioned in the audio interview and known by many mappers alike the advisor does not have any combat code movement code ore anything alike forcing you to trigger whatever you want to happen in clunky innovative ways.
    considering that it was a very good fight.

    Story wise there’s only that much you can do with the assets available(models,textures props sounds,conversation) without going trough the hassle of making them yourself and maybe making it just less good then without custom content.

    Basicly you get send out on the hunt for this adviser by your fellow rebels.
    And along your adventure you get the well known alyx to tag along with you.

    The journey where set out to make doesn’t sound like its a long way but in reality as in every game ever things don’t quite work out and alyx gets abducted by the bastards we set out to kill all along with the few voice quotes available James did a great way rearranging them to fit the context of hunting the combine trash down,and freeing humanity of the overlord plague.

    All in all a great Mod And you should Play It Now!

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    1 Hour, 35 Minutes
    Reply
  31. jrw1945

    wow-wow vary nice work thanks

    Reply
  32. dougjp
    Play It Now!

    Great mod! A lot of thought obviously went into its design, the puzzles etc. Challenging and clever, yet not aggravating, the definition of the best ones. I played the non-steampipe (modified gameinfo version), and don’t feel like I missed anything critical to the gameplay.

    Speaking of that gameinfo.txt Shift F2 thing, to change where there are ” marks in this thread? Don’t do it everywhere you see ” 🙂 Only on the first line! Maybe I misread the instructions, quite possible. There’s no way I’m switching over to steampipe unless they force me. There aren’t enough new maps and mods and I’ve played them all, so I’m going back and replaying any I can get to work.

    Waiting for the next chapter!

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    1 Hour, 30 Minutes
    Reply
    1. Sparks

      DougJP, it’s not shift-F2, it’s shift-2 and yes, if you have copied & pasted lj4linux/GUEST’s text from above then you DO need to replace all the double apostrophies with speech marks, or steam won’t recognize the formatting of gameinfo.txt and will show ?Half Life (which is its best guess) for the mod’s name in the Library tab. Read here.

      Reply
      1. dougjp

        Sorry, I meant shift – 2.

        When I did all the double apostrophies with that, it showed up in the steam game list as the @ symbol before the name. When I just did the first line and left everything else unchanged, it showed up properly in the game’s list in Steam as Half-Life 2: Deep Down. Worked better for me obviously but sorry if I mislead others who found a different result.

        Reply
        1. Sparks

          It’s cool. Weird result – once again, steam does different things for different people. Trial & error I guess; doesn’t matter how you get there!

          Reply
  33. Jim_Partridge

    Got Mod Of The Week over at PC Gamer!!!

    http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/06/16/mod-of-the-week-deep-down-for-half-life-2-episode-two/

    Me did good! Me get cookie!

    Reply
    1. lj4linux

      I would bet on you. 🙂

      MAN IS GOOD! DESERVE COOKIE!

      Reply
  34. antgib
    Personal Favourite

    First time I’ve left a comment but have been playing HL since the beginning. First, Philip brilliant work, I’ve had many years of pleasure from HL and this site is all anyone needs, one day you will be in the new years honours list.
    Anyway we digress, for me this mod is brilliant, after the odd installation I didn’t look back, the story line is good and it is challenging enough without having to cheat.
    If this is what James Partridge does I cannot wait for his next release, please.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Hard
    Playtime:
    3 Hours
    Reply
  35. Dirk

    I’m stuck in a basement with a ladder I can’t reach. I know I have to climb it and walk along the wire mesh cage to reach a door, but I can’t jump high enough and there’s nothing to stand on.
    The ladder is attached to a yellow support and there are two fans in the roof. I reached this area down a sewer ladder during the APC sequence. Can someone please give me a clue to what I’m doing wrong?
    BTW I was attacked by a fast zombie and a crab while in the cage corridor; I can’t figure where they came from?

    Reply
    1. Jim_Partridge

      Go find the rest of the ladder and put it in place.

      Reply
      1. Dirk

        Thanks, Jim, I missed it in the dark; just walked over it!

        Reply
  36. Dirk
    Play It Now!

    Great mod, a lot of fun. I really appreciate the amount of time and effort that modders put in to give the rest of us a few hours entertainment.
    I did have a problem at the very end, though. I disabled all the ball generators and returned to the hub. Nothing happened, so I thought I had missed something and went out again searching. The only thing I found was a comment on this page about a Combine Advisor activating and having to fight it. It just didn’t activate, so I shot it anyway. End of game. Strange?

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    3 Hours
    Reply
  37. Zekiran

    So far so good, though I’m wondering: espionagedb7’s “half life” movie poster appears in the game plastered to a fence near the magnet crane. … Did you credit him and/or ask for permission to do so? I’m sure he’d love to see it, though right now his net is crap. Jesse’s a really nice guy, so I certainly hope that it was an “ask for permission” rather than just a ‘take it because it’s cool” thing…

    Reply
    1. Jim_Partridge

      An interesting point and I did consider it as a point of courtesy however…

      …the poster is displayed along side Valve official content that is not shipped with HL2. I didn’t ask Valve for their permission to display the L4D posters either…

      At no point have I claimed that the HL2 poster was created by me, nor did I claim the L4D posters were either that it is displayed alongside.

      If anyone enquired about the origin of the poster I would certainly never claim that it was created by me, as clearly the L4D posters were not either.

      Including the poster in my mod without asking for permission to do so is no different to posting the image to my blog without permission. Both are equally a form of distribution and should be treated in equal measure.

      If the creator wished to prevent such distribution there are image control formats available to prevent such usage.

      I doubt that the creator would be upset that his work were showcased in such a widely popular mod along side valve official content in equal stature. If he were then I would remove the poster immediatly upon request.

      The mod is free and I am not benefiting from the creators work or potentially taking money from him by including it.

      The poster is a very minor (point of interest) element of the mod. If it were a major element of the mod then I might agree with you.

      Its just a mod… made for fun, lets not take things too seriously…

      …but you are certainly right that it would have been polite to ask permission.

      Reply
      1. Zekiran

        As an artist yourself, wouldn’t you rather be asked than told? Just saying – I don’t think he’ll have any issue with it, he’s very cool like that. I was just surprised to see someone else’s hard work (that poster is uniquely his, using elements from existing art, it’s not Valve’s work like the l4d poster is) so it made me wonder whether he had anything to do with the mod. I’m sure he’d like to see a link to the mod on that deviation upload! 😀 But he IS on deviantart and has stated that he’s having some financial issues preventing him from being online right now. I’m sure he’ll be very happy to see it, just kind of nice to point some effort his way because he does some incredibly good design work in general.

        Also as an artist… I have to ask you: did you read my fanfic that won one of Phillip’s contests, Abandoned? Because this mod shows a *tremendous* number of similarities to it. It’s **obviously not** “copied” (<– I want to stress that) because there are also significant differences, but the presence of certain items (the mine, the hotel with gas and hoppers, etc) while most likely coincidental, I *did* state that I'd like to have had my story changed *into* a mod, and this one comes fairly close to it. It would be cool to know whether great minds are simply thinking alike, or if you'd read it and it somehow influenced you. I like to know where I've slopped my imagination over to others lol.

        ASIDE from that!

        I have however reached a point in the mod which seems to be buggy as heck and can't figure out how to fix, aside from just … trying and trying and trying. I hope the spoiler tags work.

        [spoiler] the mine area with the rope and weight puzzle to lift the gate is stuck, it gets to the point where the carrier vibrates as a ragdoll would, and I can neither remove nor add any weight to it at all. It just sticks and won't lower or raise anything. It's obviously in a precarious location for such an action, so if it gets 'out of alignment' it seems to really screw everything. I see from screenshot #53 up there (in that area) that it's possible to get the car past that gate, but I can't do it. Was this something that I should easily be able to do? Lift the short beams out to reduce the weight, or pull the longer ones from the prior little crawlspace tunnel, and put them in? I can do neither.[/spoiler]

        Maybe I've just missed something along the way.

        **edit** Okay I got it to finally open…
        [spoiler]The weights spazzed out, nearly killed me (from 90 to 8 health) but finally allowed me to open the gate. This area seems very wiggy, do-able but really that took way more effort than I expected it to purely because of the interaction of the source physics.[/spoiler]

        Carry on. 🙂

        Reply
        1. Jim_Partridge

          Good points well made.
          I’ve actually already asked the community to take deep down and use it or improve it however they see fit. Its on the sdk level design forums. Its why I shipped the hammer maps files with the game in the first place. I honestly believe that if I put something out there it Belongs to everyone to do with as they please.

          Reply
  38. Zekiran
    Play It Now!

    Well I got past my issues near the middle of the mod, and have finished!

    Overall this is a superb mod, well worth playing and certainly not worth all the fuss about people whining that they have to use steampipe. Get over it. Valve is moving things, and it *already is* mandatory, you just haven’t gotten all the moving done yet. Just freakin get over the steampipe issue, folks, it’s here to stay and won’t go away even if you huff and stand angry in the corner.

    ***

    Okay!

    Good points about this mod:

    Great mapping. Physically I liked how it looked start to finish. My housemate came wandering by during one of the deeper mine parts and commented on how amazing it looked, too.

    Good balance between action and puzzle events.

    Excellent use of scripted lines by Alyx I thought, though she might have wanted to be a bit worn out at the end, as that was a little chipper “hi how are you yay” given how she was last seen… 🙂

    I like lighting zombies on fire.

    Weak points about this mod:

    Some of the maps were very dark pretty much all the time, and while I like having the flashlight separate from my sprint it still got a bit tiresome to *have* to have the flashlight out. Yet again in this mod there was a ‘ladder I couldn’t see” even though once I saw it it was PAINFULLY obvious (I don’t mean the half-ladder, I mean one attached to a wall that blended in because of the lack of distinctive lighting).

    Puzzles were sometimes harder to execute than figure out – my issue in the post above a case in point, the physics got in the way of completing the puzzle and that should have been worked out by playtesters.

    I don’t like getting sniped by something when I have no idea what to do next. – that brings the only ‘low” point.

    Low point about this mod:

    Wandering yielded very little exploration, and almost no exposition. There were times when I was pretty much stuck about where to go or what to do because there were no physically present indicators. Valve uses lighting techniques, visual cues that direct the eye toward a specific thing, or blocking the “bad” way by subtle methods rather than harder ones.

    My suggestions:

    More playtesting by varied people. Improve the lighting in certain areas and that might affect how easily people figure out what to do / where to go, and thus make the flow of the game play faster and overall better. Figure out where people get stuck thinking or just wandering in circles, and concentrate on those areas, because basically the rest is all very firmly done.

    Good work, might play it again.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Easy
    Playtime:
    4 Hours
    Reply
  39. Dysprogue
    Maybe?

    I am going to preface this review by saying that I played the broken version of this mod (the one without steampipe) so this may have affected the quality of the mod I played, I’m not entirely sure what is affected by steampipe.
    So you wake up in a base similar to White Forest and Alyx is downstairs standing next to the Gravity gun. This section introduces the random item generator and the force field killer these are both cool additions and satisfying to use although the novelty of the random item generator wears off quickly when you need something from it.
    The assault and escape from the base is well done although I felt that the driving sections afterwards lacked flow, they were too often broken up by puzzles and difficult to navigate environments (looking at you tunnels) later on the caves got a better balance and the player got a proper opportunity to drive. The puzzles themselves are decent although a couple of puzzles aren’t really consistent with Half Life 2’s visual language or mechanics but they are still easy enough to figure out.
    Combat areas are mostly fun and impressive looking although there are areas that lack sufficient cover to deal with some enemies and some places enemies see you before you see them and can really screw you over if you are low on health.
    Environments are impressive looking, some areas like the tunnels feel a bit rushed but the general environment art is impressive looking and fun to navigate although watch out for ramps next to doors, the doors do clip through a few ramps.

    The finale felt like it could have had more variation and there is a platform you can jump to and get stuck on which is slightly frustrating but its still fun.

    In summary it’s a decent mod which may have suffered from Steampipes introduction. It’s a generally good quality mod with neat ideas that are implemented with varying degrees of success (for example APC, not so successful) but when the ideas pay off, they really pay off.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Hard
    Playtime:
    3 Hours, 15 Minutes
    Reply
    1. Jim_Partridge

      Just out of interest, when you rate this mod as a maybe, what exactly are you comparing it against? What would rate a personal favorite?

      I can’t really see anything that you hated in your review. What spoiled this for you?

      Reply
      1. Dysprogue

        I’d imagine this is a bit late to be useful but anywhoo… I played this a while ago so from memory I was comparing mods to the likes of Human Error or Research and Development which would be 5 stars in my books 3 stars was for decent quality I totally ignored the recommendation text back then. Suffice it to say my scoring system has changed since then.
        I think the tunnel section let it down a fair bit, the chase didn’t really work and it was all a bit narrow. As I stated in the review I was playing the mod without steam pipe so I think there were bits that were legitimately broken but were not necessarily your fault (I can’t remember specific bugs).

        Reply
  40. fred

    I love the game references in those posters.

    Reply
  41. MisterAddy
    Play It Now!

    I realise I’m pretty late writing this review so I’ll try not to repeat what others have said. Overall I really enjoyed the release, I thought the combat was very engaging and varied. The difficulty level seemed just right. The environmental puzzles are also consistently good, I don’t understand how they could be considered too difficult. I also thought Alyx was integrated really well into the gameplay, considering the difficulty in finding appropriate dialogue for her.

    The graphical quality is very good in the outside areas and I thought the use of 3D skybox was excellent to show the distant mountains. Some of the interior areas are a bit sparse, but it doesn’t usually detract from the overall atmosphere. There are however quite a few graphical bugs, like gaps between displacements and the ability to see outside the map in a few places. I feel like just a little more polish and testing was needed. This extends to other areas as well, for example I think I lost Alyx before I was supposed to, she got stuck in the waterfall cave.

    There were a couple of things I personally didn’t like such as the L4D posters which seemed out of place, but that’s just me. I also thought a little more custom VA could have replaced the on screen text.

    Other than those small issues I thought it was a fantastic mod.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    1 Hour, 30 Minutes
    Reply
    1. Ade

      I’m sorry, “custom VA’?

      Reply
      1. PlanetPhillip

        Voice Acting.

        Reply
        1. MisterAddy

          Yeah that’s what I meant, looks like I wasn’t very clear sorry.

          Reply
  42. Frederick

    Very enjoyable mod – thanks to the designer and to phillip for hosting it.

    My only complaint is that it included the dumbest feature of HL2, the Magnusson weapon. Think for a moment what any soldier would say to a scientist who said go throw this ball of cotton candy at the enemy and then detonate it with a pistol shot IF the cotton candy doesn’t fall apart on its own while you are exposing yourself. The scientist would be eating that ball in one gulp.

    Big thank you to the designer for providing an alternative to the fluffy ball of crap. I was able to rocket the striders instead. If there wasn’t that alternative, I would have stopped playing the mod immediately, just like I never bothered to finish HL2 Ep2. Life is too short to tolerate silliness.

    Reply
  43. Zepharaim Cochrane

    Watching the video walkthrough/playthrough I agree its near Valve quality in parts especially the start and not quite to much elsewhere, I’d like to concentrate on these:

    Getting to the first big puzzle with the exploding barrels and descending ramp, I didn’t have much trouble with that, although I understand that others have been complaining a lot.

    The big, open area with the crane very nicely put together, nice, airy, feel to it. There are some problems with it Alyx obviously waits for you to do something, and after I emerge from the building she still stands there like shes still waiting for something this is confusing. More particularly when you get in the crane and the Combine soldiers appear I spent a good deal of time picking off the soldiers from above by dropping cars on them, wondering why Alyx isn’t joining in and then realising it’s a waste of time because the soldiers just keep spawning – it took me several playthroughs to realise that she’s only “released” when you pick the jalopy up from down in the valley then she goes after the soldiers and they stop spawning. I think the designer obviously had a very linear gameplay in mind and didn’t think that other players might have different strategies.

    The open area could have been better utilised I felt, the area felt underpopulated there were ample opportunities for soldiers ambush the player and make him/her fight for every inch of the ground, making the crane the reward for beating them off, giving a sense of achievement making them appear mostly after you’re in the crane made me feel like I was missing all the fun after such after such a sparsely populated area.

    Ok on to the tunnel area the race with the armoured car, nice idea, except that I didn’t play it the way it was intended apparently and as soon as it appeared and a rocket was launched I hit reverse and backed around the corner. Eventually decided to go in guns blazing only to find the vehicle stuck against the far gate shooting at me I far too easily picked up the RL and launched a couple rockets at point blank range under the gun’s sight and took it out where it promptly vanished into thin air. No fire, no exposions, it just vanished. Some kind of scripting error I figure!.

    I agree with the video playthrough, the two gates felt confusing and its not obvious that you’re supposed to walk to the second one I kept looking for a switch or something to release the first gate. Also I didn’t figure to lift the grate couldn’t figure that one out, I thought they were part of the scenary!
    The area could have had a few zombies/zombine to liven up the area a bit, again it felt underpopulated and well, a tad boring.

    The bit where you have to have to use the ladder to escape, again I just didn’t figure out that you where supposed to do that, I didn’t notice the broken ladder lying on the ground it wasn’t easy to spot in the dark tunnel and too similar in colour, again I kept looking for a switch to turn the fans on to suck me up and over the platform to the door and again used the playthrough to see what to do here after some frustration in trying to figure it out –

    The second big ramp area, in the tunnels where you have to open the gates and jump over theres a major bug here in that if Alyx steps out beyond the gate she won’t budge and won’t even get back in the car oh dear. Also if she steps off the deck/platform she just floats in mid air as if standing on an invisible platform. This is another area that could definitely have done with some more testing. She’s supposed to get captured according to the video playthrough? Well it never happened to me she just followed me all the way to where you abandon the car and that was it, she just stood there refusing to move and I had to leave her behind. Tried everything to get her to move but nope, wouldn’t budge. Overall she felt underused, and a bit of a dead weight, I appreciate that to do anything interesting with her character other than just following the player around like a loyal pet requires scripting and is probably beyond the capability of the average mod, and the voice acting certainly is.

    Loved the puzzle of the hanging platforms, took a little while to figure that one out, likewise the various cabins you have to enter to escape the area. Fantastic sense of space and some devious puzzles there. The sniper who rolls down in a truck was inspired. The mines area was my favourite and probably the best area of the mod. Of those my fave was the battle with the Hunters on the bridge, I always thought they were underused in Ep2. Pretty damn entertaining.

    The ending was a little flat to be honest, I thought, is that it? It probably suffers from the fact that Alyx as I said was left behind earlier and she isn’t here waiting for me. (I had to watch the video playthrough to see what was supposed to happen)

    There could have been more combat, it felt like there were a lot of vast areas with just the odd skirmish here and there. One of the reasons Metastasis works so well is the tight, pitched battles which create a sense of urgency. This was lacking here, it felt leisured, slow even.Some of the set piece battles with the striders got a little repetitive, got a distinct sense of djà vu more than once. Also the level of difficulty was quite variable, the first one was much the hardest, the third one I think I literally just shot the Magnusson at the thing, fired, and that was that, over in about 30 seconds. The first one however I spent way to much time trying to get a clean shot with the gravity gun. Died so many times!

    Sorry if that sounded all negative, overall its a pretty damn decent mod and I can appreciate the amount of time and effort that must have gone into creating it (actually I can’t, I can only imagine, and I imagine it was a lot) so thanks for the gameplay!

    Reply
    1. Zepharaim Cochrane

      Hmm, it looks like I don’t have steampipe beta installed which may account for the scripting errors. I may have to enable it and replay.

      Reply
      1. Sparks

        Fair warning – it will break your mods if you do.

        Reply
      2. Jim_Partridge

        You dont need Steampipe Beta anymore. Now all versions of HL2 are on Steampipe… the fact you were not on Beta would have had no effect on your game.

        Reply
  44. Hec
    Personal Favourite

    Well, as many have noticed, this work oozes quality, indeed it feels like a very realistic combat mission into the HL2 universe, and that’s maybe the best thing I loved about this mod.

    Combat always was entertaining and with a big gap to think and battle in many strategic ways against the CMB, and also the views were just beautiful, that trip in the jalopy, it really deserves to be call a worthy and decent trip in the muscle jalopy car. So this is a lesson for many modders, look, if you are planning to use some jalopy section in your mod, this is the way it should be. Long distance roads, that make the player feel they have travel far distances between A and B points, and also some puzzle or mini combat in the middle.

    Now, also the structure of the mod is well planed and is clear the different environments in the mod as you pass throughout all the chapters.

    Then, I may say the weak points I found in this mod, maybe are related to “space” terms, at the very end we pass through a big open area into the mine where we found 2 Hunters, I love hunter battles but that part was not challenging at all, I mean I just walk away far from the Hunters in there and killed them with some magnum shoots, maybe some more hunters or combines in there would be just perfect to raise the action.

    Also at the very end is kind of repetitive, bit I would have place so much more CMB troops to defend the generators, after all, if your mission as Gordon is to kill that Advisor, I supposed his place would be protected as hell by their CMB lackeys, also to beat that Advisor’s butt was really easy. Just a pulse shoot from my AR2 and he was crap blowing in the air LOL :). What I mean is I expected the bad guy wanted me dead by the telepathic pain he was trying to give me, maybe to low the health of the player in that part would come handy, as a realistic gameplay term.

    Overall this is a great piece of work, maybe this will be the best mod for HL2 in 2013, and tough my recommendation feels more like a green PN, I just have to recognize the great work of Jim’s and give a fair PF blue one.

    Oh also I loved the L4D propaganda in the With Forrest inn section ;).

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    2 Hours, 15 Minutes
    Reply
  45. sebalius

    I extracted the game to the Sourcemods folder and it shows up in the Steam menu ok, the game seems to start with a black screen and does nothing else but shows an error:-

    “Can’t find background image
    materials/console/startup_loading.vtf”

    Thats it, anybody know a cure for this so I can finally get to play this mod.

    Reply
  46. slurm23
    Personal Favourite

    There are so many reviews for the mod that I would be hard pressed to write something fresh. All major points were already made… So I’m writing this only to add another badge to the mix.

    I find the mod exceptional – especially the level design is top notch. This is true in terms of diversity, locations, riddles, and balance. It is pure joy to play this mod.

    It is graphically beautiful too, but I found the tunnels and caves a bit monotonous towards the end. Only graphically though, as a level design device they suited the setting perfectly. All in all, highly recommended!

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Hard
    Playtime:
    3 Hours, 15 Minutes
    Reply
  47. rikersbeard

    I must say that this mod in pretty good and I’ve reached the crane but have no clue what to do!
    Phillip’s in game picture no.16 & 18 kind of illustrate my problem. Sure the explosive barrels in they cage had a yellow cover, sure Alyx made mention of this, but I never thought of firing on them in case I killed her!
    Instead I climbed using that yellow cover like a box and got on the roof. From there is was obvious, to me the drop was too far for Alyx in the car and the ladder down just confirmed my supposition that I needed to proceed on foot. You know Alyx always appears if by magic later on!
    The layout favoured the running approach so I continued into the area where the crane resided unaware I was missing Alyx and the car!
    Once in the crane I began to realise something was wrong, I thought maybe I was clearing a path for Alyx in the car, but after tossing a few crates around getting shot at and getting more confused, I reached for Custom Gamer’s play through on here!
    I let real world physics influence my gaming when I should have been thinking more. “Dukes of Hazzard”!
    I’ve played so many mods yet I still got completely the wrong end of that particular stick!

    Reply
    1. Jim_Partridge

      Hmm… feedback noted for next time.
      Don’t know of many others that struggled but was definitely a flaw in my design that the player could continue forward without the car at the ramp.

      I guess i could have filled the lower area with toxic sludge to prevent that. I think I had that in there at one point.

      Reply
  48. TolisXTRM
    Play It Now!

    This is a really, really great mod.

    The mapping was done perfectly, the textures were great, and it was really lengthy. Though, it has a lot of driving, which I seem to find really great, but others may not really like it.

    Also, some of the puzzles were really glitchy and the end is kind of boring.

    Overall, you should really try this mod out.

    Reply
  49. rikersbeard
    Play It Now!

    Great Half Life 2 mod with a functioning Alyx and plenty of driving and puzzling. Action too, lots of it especially towards the final climax! I forgot the car in my first run past the house roof jump, so I restarted from there. Thanks to the play through here!
    My personal highlight was the climbing puzzles after the epic mine derby. Here I learnt that not all padlocks need to be broken! I got a real sense of achievement working through that and the sense of scale was nice visually.
    The end fight was sort of strange compared to the rest of the mod but it did feel like a scene form HL2 and would have fitted in seamlessly. Nice work.
    The issues I had were; a static hunter fight, they fought but never got off the bridge and a few floating weapons!
    Secondly; the early tunnel ride was too dark and I snagged on the barriers too many times, especially after my first run was easy!
    A good mod overall. Nothing new, but I t was all class.
    I used the straight download as the modified ‘gameinfo’ file failed to load.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Easy
    Playtime:
    2 Hours
    Reply
  50. Emnu
    Play It Later

    The Good
    I liked the length, cool locations and mechanics. The mines and the rooftop part stuck out to me as the most fun parts.

    The Bad
    The mapping wasn’t the greatest, some of the visuals were quite weird. Also I hated the annoying tunnels chapter where that APC was shooting at me, I don’t know why but that chapter stuck to my head as my least favourite. Also another thing is that for some reason Alyx dissappeared at one point in mines and I never saw her again o_O ALSO another thing, the voice acting at the start nearly destroyed my ears.

    The Summary
    It has some weird sides to it, but overall it’s a great map and is worth a playthrough.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Hard
    Playtime:
    2 Hours
    Reply
    1. Jim_Partridge

      Agreed. Map 3 is the weak point. It was really just a filler section to get from map 2 to map 4.
      Didn’t turn out that well and was kinda stuck with it.
      Thanks for the review. Always helpful.

      Reply
  51. geekofalltrades
    Maybe?

    Let me note first of all that I’m on the fence between three stars and four – but ultimately, I’m going to go with three.

    I remember playing Deep Down once before, closer to its release, and not being able to finish it because I couldn’t figure out where to go. This time through, I did figure it out – but only after getting stuck in the same place. In the tunnel where you drive alongside and then destroy an APC, you run up against a gate that you need to open in order to proceed. There’s nothing nearby that opens the gate. It turns out that the solution is to proceed on foot down the tunnel – for a long, bare distance. The first time I played, the tunnel was so bare that I thought I must be doing it wrong – surely I’m supposed to be driving through this, not walking? If I were supposed to walk, there would be something here. It turns out there was something – there were a couple flares, and, when you round the corner, some Combine shooting at you in the distance that serve to draw you along. It certainly wasn’t very intuitive, though.

    Overall, Deep Down was decent, but didn’t really do anything to stand out. The levels were blocky, uninteresting, and impractical.

    Kill some antlions, only to round a corner and find Combine. Why weren’t those two factions clashing?

    Several times, you would find a hopper mine attached to the top of an explosive barrel. But it served roughly the same purpose as a hopper, with the exception that you couldn’t save it for later – so what was the point?

    There’s a floor turret to destroy, and a crate of infinite grenades to ensure that you do it – but that crate is at the opposite end of the room, in the floor turret’s range of fire. If you run out of grenades – which you will, because the turret doesn’t stay active for quite long enough to comfortably line up a toss – then you have to run the gauntlet and take damage from the turret in order to reload. Not very sporting.

    Alyx was annoying, as she always is, but not as annoying as she sometimes got in the Episodes.

    The strongest section in this mod is the opening vehicle section, but driving soon devolves into twisting and turning through cramped, blocky tunnels, stopping occasionally to clear out an obstacle. (I wish Alyx would stay in the car – it was annoying waiting for her to clamber in every time.)

    The final battle had you disabling five Combine generators. After disabling each, you had to backtrack through a central hub area where the end boss, a Combine advisor, resided. There was no danger posed in the backtracking – all it did was take time.

    As I write the review, I feel more and more comfortable with the three-star rating vs. four. Deep Down could stand to be shorter and a lot more polished.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    1 Hour, 30 Minutes
    Reply
    1. Jim_Partridge

      What a great review. Thanks so much for giving such detailed feedback. I learned so much from this release. Looking back I’m tempted to do a redux version with completely new map 3. scrapping the tunnels and doing and outdoor section…

      Reply
  52. Reuben
    Play It Now!

    This was a great mod. The situations were really fun and it alternated well between action and making me think.

    My main criticism is that the areas weren’t themed very well. The mine couldn’t decide if it was infested by zombies, antlions or combine. I think an area works well if it focuses on one specific thing, and then that focus can be shifted later to keep the mod interesting.

    I also found a lot of places where you can get out of bounds pretty easily if you’re good at jumping, but it didn’t detract from the experience too much.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    2 Hours, 30 Minutes
    Reply
  53. Poopbeam
    Play It Later

    A pretty great mod! I wouldn’t call it Valve quality but there certainly were several bits that made me think back of HL2 for sure!
    I think that it’s a bit rough around the edges, the mapping is kind of blocky and the ending was pretty underwhelming, but all in all it was pretty fun!

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Hard
    Playtime:
    2 Hours
    Reply
  54. Steve
    Play It Now!

    What a great mod this is!! From start -> crane we have superb map design with great details. I loved exploring these places and it combined driving, openworld feel, and action well to seem like a much bigger area. It’s great to play and so much fun.

    Second parts in the tunnel where a little off, for me. Firstly, I saw the armoured truck and put my foot down all the way to the end. Saw the rocket launcher and panicked picked it up thinking it’ll be here any moment. But it never came. I backtracked and it had gone lol

    I didn\t really ‘get it’ with regards to the map design here and being initially blocked and moving on foot wasn\t obvious and a bit daft. Otherwise it was a good interlude level, I thought!

    The later parts are fun. Really good fun and very different doing the jumps in the car, etc, etc. Loved it! However, it didn’t really work towards the very end with the Hunters and Striders… it felt too open and with long walks… I dunno.

    TBH, I think the game could have ended after using the crane and driving away with the rocket vehicle as a final obstacle before escaping. Everything that followed (ignoring the tunnel itself) could have been made into a separate mod completely – and then expanded within its own world. It was brilliant, don’t get my wrong, but it felt like two mods stuck together lol.

    Fantastic fun overall, one to play again and again!!!

    Reply
  55. DarkShift
    Play It Now! - revised

    In those harsh times where Episode 3 is as much officially dead as unofficially alive, it’d be better to remember that mod which is perhaps the most “Valve-like” experience we can take for the HL2Ep2 aftermath.

    Even though it isn’t in Arctica, it puts the player in a gameplay where every gameplay experience done by VAlVe is re-done here but in a different way, for example there is an amazing sequence where we fight a sniper only hiding behind Mine Carts, an amazingly dynamic Muscle Car sequence, etc…

    It seems the dev’ wanted us to do again the best moments of the HL2 era in a melting-pot of quality, culminating with a fight against the face of the enemy’s leadership : an Advisor!!!

    Overall, in that pool of unofficial Ep2 sequels, DD will probably stay as a strong contender for the 1st place.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    3 Hours, 30 Minutes
    Reply
  56. DarkShift
    Personal Favourite

    In those harsh times where Episode 3 is as much officially dead as unofficially alive, it’d be better to remember that mod which is perhaps the most “Valve-like” experience we can take for the HL2Ep2 aftermath.

    Even though it isn’t in Arctica, it puts the player in a gameplay where every gameplay experience done by VAlVe is re-done here but in a different way, for example there is an amazing sequence where we fight a sniper only hiding behind Mine Carts, an amazingly dynamic Muscle Car sequence, etc…

    It seems the dev’ wanted us to do again the best moments of the HL2 era in a melting-pot of quality, culminating with a fight against the face of the enemy’s leadership : an Advisor!!!

    Overall, in that pool of unofficial Ep2 sequels, DD will probably stay as a strong contender for the 1st place.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    3 Hours, 30 Minutes
    Reply
  57. Old Scratch

    Once again, I download and install a great mod, only to have it not work. This time, it’s not showing up in Steam. I closed Steam before putting the data where it belonged (DeepDown folder in the sourcemods folder); upon restarting Steam, it won’t show the mod in the list. I just ran Forest train without an issue, as well.

    This is immensely frustrating. Thanks in advance for any help.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    1 Minute
    Reply
  58. Old Scratch
    Play It Now!

    Finally got it figured out. Sorry for the frustration.

    Overall, a nice mod. I did have to refer to the walkthru a couple times to get past some rather inscrutable parts (the shipping containers/forklift section, the hotel/crane section, a couple others), some of the battles were really difficult–I[‘m with one of the previous reviewers, those damn “Manguson devices” are utterly worthless. ANY combat outfit that approved the manufacture of those devices ought to die, for sheer incompetence, not to mention Manguson getting a stint in a Combine prison for such a goofy “weapon”. I think the Pentagon would make sure he never saw the light of day again had they found out about that.

    Otherwise, it was an enjoyable mod, excellent settings and textures, very fun to play. I look forward to more from them, especially if they can make installation thru Steam a reality.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    3 Hours
    Reply
  59. GaxiCuliao

    I have a couple of problems with the mapping but is pretty good overall

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    3 Hours
    Reply
    1. PlanetPhillip

      The recommendation image has been removed as the text is too generic and short.

      Reply
  60. James19
    Play It Now!

    Amazing mod. The details on almost every map until the last maps were amazing, although the two or three last maps had some few details and felt somewhat rushed in the development. But at the same time most of the ideas from the creator were too much for what we have for modding, so congratulations for developing such a great mod with so few elements towards the end.

    It felt like a Real Journey from White Forest to the Advisor Chamber. Very good use of all my weapons, very good use of the enviroment, excelent choice of enemies until the very last enemy (Didn’t knew the advisor had damage animations), fantastic pace.

    My two problems were didn’t knew how to put the car after all the hostel and magnet thing (turns out you had to jump from the roof to the sewer) and before the last minutes of the game, a room locked which you needed to jump to a tiny and dark irom beam, so you can walk around the room and surprise the two combines in there. But besides that everything was clean, clear, simple, and funny.

    Excelent!

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Hard
    Playtime:
    4 Hours
    Reply
  61. Rirakith
    Play It Later
    Sorta fun I guess.

    Don’t get me wrong, I like this mod. It’s well made. I definitely didn’t get bored of it. There were just 2 issues I had. The first one being that, The gameplay is really meh.

    What I mean by this, is that throughout the game, I did not feel at all connected to Alyx or my environments. I felt like she was just a weight I was dragging with me that sometimes (rarely) told me what was going on or shot something. SPOILER: Also, during the chapter Hotel Hostel, I felt really bored and wanting to leave ASAP. One last thing. SPOILER: the final boss against the advisor felt very much like a chore instead of an actual fun bossfight.

    Again, don’t get me wrong. This is a good mod. I just feel the gameplay could be improved on a little bit.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    1 Hour, 15 Minutes
    Reply
  62. Sethy3030
    Personal Favourite

    “The Adventure continues soon…”

    I hope so. The Mod ist perfect.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    4 Hours
    Reply
  63. Stef
    Play It Now!

    It was a good mod, lots of action 🙂

    I liked a lot the car progression, the prefabs and creativity

    It was for me perhaps a little too long would have like to find back the car at the end and make a final ride with Alix would have benefit of some cutscenes

    defenetly worth playing

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    2 Hours
    Reply
  64. Avantgarde95
    Play It Now!

    Super fun mod!

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    2 Hours
    Reply
  65. geezer1857
    Personal Favourite

    Definitely play in now if you haven’t yet.
    Not sure how many hours it actually took me to get through the game because I started and stopped a number of times.
    Overall, I found it to be a really good game that has a lot of action and different tasks that need to be completed to progress.

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Easy
    Playtime:
    4 Hours
    Reply
  66. Daken50
    Play It Now!

    What can you say. Deep Down should be a part of everybody’s play list. I can see it easily inserted in to the actual HL2 series. The one little room with the fence and the dead combine, it’s used in several of this mappers maps. Kinda cool.

    Reply
  67. Whimall56
    Play It Now!

    it has gibs

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Medium
    Playtime:
    1 Hour, 15 Minutes
    Reply
  68. JetBlueChest
    Personal Favourite

    I am really impressed with Jim’s work. I’m also proud he responded to my video that her was really happy. Much love Jim. Keep it up:)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REA9rMZ3jM8&list=PL5MfhJVT6wIKbXxhAvpcJxjx8m-uEG42x&index=131

    Installed:
    Manually
    Difficulty Played At:
    Easy
    Playtime:
    35 Minutes
    Reply
    1. JetBlueChest

      he not her. (i typed quick)

      Reply

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