This is a remake of the original Half-Life mod The Challenger Deep. This re-designed mod has been in development for more than 7 years. It follows the same storyline as the original.
This mod has one of the most unique atmospheres I have ever seen. Underwater environments are criminally underused in Half-Life mods.
Challenger Deep 2 starts slow, you walk around the beautifully created underwater research lab, learn the basics of diving and using oxygen tanks (which this mod uses a lot) and start collecting the optional 20 presents along the way. The presents are scattered around the facility from start to finish, you don’t get a reward for collecting all of them, they are like the creator explains "a fun side quest ".
After the classic catastrophe, you stumble upon your first and most dangerous enemy: Water.
Scarcity of oxygen tanks and ichthyosaurs combined with the huge levels makes the water feel like a real enemy. Of course you also have your standart grunts, zombies, gargs, vortigaunts etc. Another neat feature is terminals. You can read the computer terminals to better understand your situation, see other scientists logs etc. It’s fun and extends the mods playing time, speaking of time, this mod is long. Took me nearly 3 hours to finish this time around. There is a part where a scientist accompanies you on your journey, I will not give any spoilers but I will say this: keep an eye out for him, you never know…
While this sounds all well and good, there is a huge problem with this mod and that's pacing. The maps are extremely big and detailed but that actually hurts the mod. Most of the time you wander around without any idea where to go and what to do, and even if you know the correct path, it takes far too long to travel from point A to B. I think some maps needed to be shrunk down and streamlined while others kept their impressive size.
Besides that issue, this is a well crafted mod, miles better than the first one. Speaking of the first Challenger Deep, you don't have to play that one to enjoy this mod. Despite the "2" in it's name, this is a remake of the first.
+Level design, its top notch. Way better than the first challenger deep.
+Difficulty is fairly middle of the line.
+Quite long, took me about 3 hours.
+Great use of oxygen tanks
+Probably the best use of long jump module I've seen in a mod.
-Ammunition a bit to ample
-Bad performance on some of the maps (I counted 3)
-some bugs like managing to get the scientist to come into the room with me (when he supposed to be on the escape pod). Breaking his script that was supposed to make him open the door for me.. after running around a bit.
-Fight with the giant alien spiders was also a little to middle of the range difficulty wise. Should have doubled their health.
-Ending was a bit to easy. But hey, endings where never great for the mods I've played.
A VAST improvement over the previous mod, with greater level design and firefights!
The mod is also substantially longer, with great atmosphere and a better focus on the story and just what the scientists in challenger deep were doing at the bottom of the ocean.
It does come with it's hitches, however.
There are frame-rate issues here and there, and the larger open areas make fights overwhelming at times and hard to navigate.
However, it is a great remake of the original.
Give it a go :D
Such an amazing mod.
Could've used some additional testing as it suffer from a few bugs. A few levels are also poorly optimized with some very varying framerate especially the big open rooms.
Otherwise this a very good mod with some great and open level design. Pretty much blows away the original which was the definition of quantity over quality.
Most disappointingly however, the ending is extremely short and to be honest quite weak leaving you with a few unsolved questions.
Good
An underrated classic.
The Challenger Deep 2, despite of the "2", is not a sequel of the original, but rather it's a remake.
It's a massive improvement of the original as the original is, let's just say, very janky and aged poorly.
The maps are really well designed (typical DocRock) and they're quite large.
The mod extensively uses the cut item, Air tanks. The air tanks restore your air supply and you can swim longer.
Now the issues.
The level design, while good, it's confusing in some parts as there's no hint for what you need to do or where to go and they suffer from poor pacing. Also, some levels have quite poor optimization where you get low framerates.
The scripts in some levels are quite broken, for example where you need to escort the scientist.
Other than that, it's a well made mod, you should play it.
I haven't played the original dut to low ratings overall.
But this remake is amazing!
buen mod tiene una buena historia, nada mas
This was a pretty good mod if you're looking for something that relates to the canon games. It was difficult, at least for me, to figure out how to progress at times. Otherwise, it was fun.