Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Vretsu on February 11, 2009, 07:15:53 pm
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So, basically, you fly down into a giant pit-tunnel and shoot things? That's what the name implies.
I found this game on GoG.com and I want to know if it is worth purchasing.
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It's an old game. My middle school had a copy for an old '98 computer. It was pretty good. You clear out little mining tunnels and installations with your ship, find new weapons, lather, rinse, repeat, etc.
The farthest I got was level 8 in three days. It was so-so to a guy used to Halo.
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ITS AWESOME
:p
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^What he said. :nod:
For its time, Descent was revolutionary. Full 360 degrees of movement, not to mention the robots being rendered as 3D models rather than sprites as was standard at the time. Yet the whole thing ran very smoothly, performing on-the-fly loading of nearby rooms to keep everything unbroken.
Basically, yes, you fly through mines, blowing up the computer-virus-infected mining robots, searching for the fusion reactor to blow up and then run as fast as you can to the emergency exit. You can also rescue hostages for bonus points, but if you die, they die, and they can't be picked up twice. Exploration will reveal hidden rooms with more powerful weapons.
Very challenging: the enemies are pretty tough, even on lower difficulties, and the mines are huge 3D mazes, often with secret passageways and hidden traps. You do have a map that fills itself in as you go, but the darned thing gets a little difficult to read on the later levels. Length is good as well: there are 27 levels + 3 secret ones.
Had two sequels: Descent II and Descent 3. Descent II was pretty much identical to the first, but with more robots, more weapons, and more varied levels. Descent 3... I did not like very much, since it changed the graphics completely, replaced nearly all the weapons (with sucky ones), and the gameplay became puzzle-based rather than exploration/blowing **** up. It did have an interesting story, though, which the first two were lacking.
I love Descent and its sequel (although not the third), so I'm reccomending you get it.
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people made fun of me for playing descent 2 when they were all playing doom. i find that amusing.
what makes descent 2 the best descent is the ****ing destroyable lights. you could knock out every light in the level and would have to keep shooting flares to see what you were doing. the ai was pretty ****ing awesome too. its the only game where i was really paranoid about being followed or getting ready to be hit by a kamikaze lurking around the corner or that the wall in front of me would disappear and reveal a robot horde. if you find a little robot and he gets away chances are he will come back with company.
of course i played that game to death and cant really spend more than a few minutes playing it at any given time wthout getting bored.
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people made fun of me for playing descent 2 when they were all playing doom. i find that amusing.
Descent not equal to Doom. Greater than. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrHAMzV_OII) :cool:
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Descent was fun, but I wanted to curl the level designer's spine around a lamp post because the levels were all so needlessly complex, a trend that continued into Descent II.
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The Descent series is fantastic. All three of the games were top notch for their time, and are still a lot of fun to play today. They have remained fresh because there hasn't been any game like that since then. Descent 3 was basically the last 6DOF FPS.
You will need D2X-XL (http://www.descent2.de) to play the first two games on modern computers. We used it here two or three years ago and set up numerous HLP multiplayer games with it, but I have been having several issues with the current version of it.
Descent was fun, but I wanted to curl the level designer's spine around a lamp post because the levels were all so needlessly complex, a trend that continued into Descent II.
FPSs in general were all like that back then, but I could handle them fine. In fact, I played Descent 1 so many times that I still know most of its levels by heart. :P
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There's a trailer for Descent 3 on the Freespace discs.
But yeah, for five bucks, get the original. You'll be glad the graphics and geometry are so simple when you have to find your way around the maze.
Or you could just find the old demo, that has I think 7 levels in it.
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Greatest game ever, except Descent 2 and Descent 3 are better
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D3's learning curve is ridiculously steep. It took me years to beat Level 4.
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I'm guessing you got stuck on the train part? That was just a matter of observing the train patterns carefully before you went into the tunnels, and saving frequently.
The singleplayer was harder than most games but reasonable, at least up to the hotshot difficulty. The multiplayer was a different story though. I played it constantly in 1999 and became fairly good at it, but there were quite a few players around who I couldn't hold a candle to. D3 had some of the best multiplayer I've seen in an FPS, but it was also arguably the hardest FPS to master online and allowed a truly great player to dominate lesser players unlike any other game out there, even arena shooters like UT and Quake. Unfortunately, I suspect this is the main reason why 6DOF FPSs lost popularity and were never seen again after D3. :(
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All of Descent's learning curves were steep. Complex Maps in old school FPSes were like getting lost in New York, while complex maps in Descent were like getting lost in the small intestine.
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They did a good job at making some distinctive rooms and areas though, so you can mentally bookmark where you are.
And D2 had the GuideBot (wrool!)
Mine was named Colin.
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lol why "Colin" ?
D3 has a guidebot too.
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I shot the guide bot and he was like 'Whoa there!'
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The Guide-Bot (mine never had a name... I couldn't think of any good ones) became less useful on the final levels though. Sooooo many times he'd fly right into a wall or grate or forcefield, when we had to find a way around it.
That said, he was indispensible on some levels. Level 16, IIRC, had a maze right before the exit that you couldn't explore beforehand, so I was very happy to have him along there.
I also found it hilarious when he'd run into a Prox Bomb and say "Ouch!" :p
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lol why "Colin" ?
Colin (a.k.a. part #222319B) is a small, round, melon-sized, flying security robot which Ford Prefect enslaves to aid in his escape from the newly re-organized Guide offices in Mostly Harmless. "Its motion sensors are the usual Sirius Cybernetics garbage." Ford captures Colin by trapping the robot with his towel and re-wiring the robot's pleasure circuits, inducing a cyber-ecstasy trip.
Ford uses Colin's cheerfulness to break into the Guide's corporate accounting software. Colin also saves Ford's life when the Vogons fire at him with a rocket launcher after Ford feels the need to jump out of the window. Colin was last seen being sent (at the risk of possible lonely incineration) to look after the delivery of the Guide Mark II to Arthur Dent in the Vogon postal system.
Colin was named after a dog belonging to a girl Ford had "fond memories" of: Emily Saunders. Colin appears in Mostly Harmless and in the radio series he was played by Andrew Secombe.
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mine was called bob
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Descent 3 is still the only multiplayer game I partake of regularly (though I'm just starting to get back into it after a long hiatus), and for good reason. I have never found another game out there that gives me the same level of adrenaline rush. It really all has to do with the fact that the Descent series is (essentially) the only six-degrees-of-freedom game out there. You're given complete freedom of motion to the point where terms like "up" and "down" don't matter anymore, and you can pull off some really ridiculous maneuvers. Dogfights tend to turn into insane furballs of massive weapons fire and ships strafing and twisting every which way. I always particularly enjoyed D3's CTF mode, since it could get ridiculously fluid and fast-paced with two well-balanced teams. The sadly-underplayed Assault mode was a lot of fun, too, as were one or two of the user-created gametype mods floating around (yay Instareap!) I played a bit of D2's multiplayer some time ago, and while still enjoyable, I didn't really have nearly as much fun with it as I did with D3.
As far as singleplayer goes, I'm still ashamed to admit that I've never made it through the original game without cheating, even on the easiest difficulty. :p I need to go back and try it with the new D1X project, so I'm actually able to dodge homing missiles. D1 had by far the darkest feel of the series; some of those bots are friggin' scary. (I'm looking at you, Fusion Hulk...) D2's was rather fun, though the whole find keys/blow up reactor-or-boss/escape mine routine started to drag after a while. I think I honestly preferred D3's singleplayer the most; though it wasn't the best-executed thing around, it introduced some mission-based elements and a (at least in my mind) much-needed storyline to most of the game. The Mercenary expansion for it had some fantastic level design going on.
(Also to be noted are the cutscenes in the last two games, particularly D2's, which were spectacular for their time. The ending of D2 was one hell of a cliffhanger when I was first subjected to it. :D)
Bottom line? For $6 a pop, you can't lose. :)
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Descent 3 is like one of the best ever games I've ever played. It was revolutionary at its time, the SP very well planned. Myself, I haven't played MP so I can't really comment on that.
Anyway, like Mongoose said, $6 for the game there is no way you can lose.
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All of Descent's learning curves were steep. Complex Maps in old school FPSes were like getting lost in New York, while complex maps in Descent were like getting lost in the small intestine.
except the small intestines has no intersections :) there's only one path, one way in, one way out. XD
But I get your point lol.
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Yeah, but I challenge you to know which way is in and which way is out once you're in them :P
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Easy. You go in one side, and never let yourself get turned around.
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I always particularly enjoyed D3's CTF mode, since it could get ridiculously fluid and fast-paced with two well-balanced teams. The sadly-underplayed Assault mode was a lot of fun, too, as were one or two of the user-created gametype mods floating around (yay Instareap!)
One of the best things about D3's CTF was that it had a 4 team variant, and that mode actually used to be played often in the Quadsomniac map back then. That added an extra strategic element to it, since you could rapidly increase your score by collecting multiple flags at once.
My favorite game type was Monsterball. There were some balancing issues with it, but it was something truly unique that I haven't seen anything like in any other game.
As for Assault, that is the mode from UT. :p You probably mean Entropy.
All this talk of Descent makes me want to get the HLP multiplayer sessions going again at some point. I was actually watching several demos of our old D2 games just last month. I probably won't have time for it until the summer though.
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Easy. You go in one side, and never let yourself get turned around.
Ignore the sea of digesting food and cilia.
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All this talk of Descent makes me want to get the HLP multiplayer sessions going again at some point. I was actually watching several demos of our old D2 games just last month. I probably won't have time for it until the summer though.
I'd do it. :)
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My guidebot's name was jerkass
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2RnjPXyYPQ
and
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzDxilKnU8Q
where the commercials I remember seeing on TV that got me interested in the game, indecently that game led me to freespace, and we all know how big of an impact that had on my life.
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As for Assault, that is the mode from UT. :p You probably mean Entropy.
That's kind of sad, since I've never even played UT. :p (In my defense, though, there was a user-created mod called Assault that involved destroying reactor structures in enemy bases.) Yes, I did mean Entropy.