Descent (computer game)
From Free net encyclopedia
| Descent {{#if:{{{image|}}}|<tr><td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;">{{{image|}}} | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Parallax Software (Descent 1 and 2) Outrage Entertainment (Descent 3) {{#if:{{{publisher|}}}|<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Publisher(s)<td>{{{publisher|}}} |
| Release date(s) | 1995 |
| Genre(s) | First-person shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single player Multiplayer {{#if:{{{ratings|}}}|<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Rating(s)<td>{{{ratings|}}} |
| Platform(s) | PC, (MS-DOS), Mac OS, PlayStation, Acorn Archimedes {{#if:{{{media|}}}|<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Media<td>{{{media|}}} |
Image:Descent.png Descent is a 3D first-person shooter video game noted for popularizing the use of portal rendering technology and providing the player with six full degrees of freedom (often abbreviated "6DOF") to move and to look around. Descent spawned two direct sequels (Descent II and Descent 3). The Descent name was used in an unrelated arcade space sim called Descent: Freespace, primarily due to copyright issues in certain regions. Descent was developed by Parallax Software and released in 1995. Although old by modern gaming standards, it is still cherished by a strong community of fans and new levels continue to be developed.
The trademark for Descent has been cancelled by Interplay in 2002. Source: USPTO entry for the Descent game trademark.
Rendering
The original Descent runs under DOS and is (with some tweaking) playable on 386-based PCs at 33 MHz. With the release of the Pentium, the performance requirements disappeared as an issue. Descent was ported to Apple's Power Macintosh in 1996 and both versions support multiplayer network play over a variety of protocols. A console port of Descent was created for the Sony Playstation, and a sequel entitled Descent Maximum followed. It's interesting to note that the Playstation version of Descent Maximum contained the same soundtrack as Descent II, but had a completely unique level set, never released on any other platform. Like the Macintosh version, the Playstation version also features a Redbook audio soundtrack, something the original DOS Descent lacks (the soundtrack came as a MIDI score).
Descent was released in 1994, one year after id Software's Doom. As was typical with those releases, Descent uses a software renderer due to the fact that affordable 3D graphics accelerator cards (referred to as add-on videocards) were not mainstream as yet. While Doom uses sprites to render enemies, Descent features fully-3D-polygonal enemies. Quake followed in the footsteps of Descent by displaying its enemies in 3D. Descent differs from Doom and subsequently Quake by using a portal system instead of BSP trees. In a portal scheme, each room is an enclosed chamber and the player moves from one chamber to another which were linked via narrow doors and tunnels. This method of rendering proved to be quite efficient for its time because the engine did not need to unnecessarily expend energy.
Perhaps the more significant improvement over Doom was that Descent used bitmap sprites only for powerups and not for opponents. With true 3D enemies, the game introduced a more frightening level of realism.
Graphics
The original Descent uses indexed 8-bit color in DOS's display mode 13h, using 320 × 200 resolution. The Macintosh and later PC versions allow higher resolutions, such as 640 x 480. The default engine uses a software renderer in which the perspective transformation for texture mapping is only performed once every 32 pixels, causing textures to appear to pop or shift when viewed from certain angles. The software renderer also uses nearest-neighbor texture filtering, as opposed to bilinear filtering or trilinear filtering used by modern video cards. Nearest-neighbor texture filtering causes aliasing artifacts, such as blocky or swimming textures.
The engine for Descent and Descent II operates on the premise of interconnected cubes. Sides of cubes can be attached to other cubes, or display up to two texture maps. Cubes can be deformed so long as their sides remain planar. Walls can also be placed at the common sides of attached cubes to support effects like doors and see-through grating. Unlike in Doom, doors are flat, the level environments are static, and enemies are polygonal instead of sprite-based. However, power-ups and most weapon effects are sprite-based. Of special note is the lighting, which takes on many gradients due to dynamic lighting and looks more natural than that of Doom. Colored lighting is used for Descent 3. This engine was impressive for its time but eventually id Software released Quake, which is truly 3D and surpassed the Descent engine.
Descent 3 utilizes an indoor and outdoor engine in tandem, collectively called the Fusion Engine. Detailed for its time, the engine allows bump-mapping (a revolutionary and eye-catching feature at the time) dynamic colored lighting, relatively complex environments, and weather effects. Unlike contemporary first-person shooters such as Unreal or Quake, Descent 3 architecture does not rely on brushes. Rather it relies on basic vertex/face modeling. It is said the original levels are mostly developed in 3D Studio Max.
Storyline
Descent: First Strike
You are one of the Post-Terran Mining Corporation (PTMC)'s Material Defenders. Unfortunately for you, S. Dravis, an executive at PTMC, is sending you on a mission to destroy PTMC's mines. An alien virus has infected the robots working there, and they've turned into killers. It's now your job to rescue any hostages, and destroy the mine, hopefully taking the robots with it when it explodes.
Descent II: Counterstrike!
After you've destroyed all of the mines in the solar system in the original Descent, you stop in the Asteroid belt for refueling. Dravis then contacts you and forces you to work some more:
"If you had studied your standard mercenary agreement, you would notice that PTMC reserves the right to keep you on retainer for up to 72 hours, post-mission. IF you choose to decline further service, PTMC will consider you in default of your contract, and your fee will be suspended, pending litigation. Good luck material defender. Dravis out."
Your ship is fitted with a prototype warp core and you are sent to clear out all of PTMC's deep space mines, the last of which seems to be some kind of artificial planet and/or alien spaceship. After completing all of this work, you are ready to go home, but instead your warp core malfunctions, sending you to an unknown location... to be continued...
Descent 3: Retribution
After a warp core malfunction, the Material Defender finds himself barely alive, and falling into the sun. Saved from death by some small-time researchers, you discover that Dravis, head of the Post Terran Mining Corporation, deliberately attempted to have you killed. Having experimented with the virus that turns robots into killers, you were just a liability. With a new GL-class Pyro, you plan on getting paid, and then kill Dravis, in that order.
Gameplay
Navigation
Although the keyboard interface for moving and rotating in full 3D space is easily learned, many players initially suffered from nausea and confusion since any viewpoint became possible. With practice, however, most people found the game fluid and very enjoyable. A bigger annoyance for casual players was getting lost in the mines (some of which were very large and complex). Highly experienced players who could memorize the mine layouts became adept enough to play the game continually upside-down.
Like Doom, Descent provides a navigational wireframe map that will display any area of the mine visited or seen by the player. Since it is truly 3D, however, navigating the map can be challenging, especially so in the shareware demo. The commercial release of Descent made map navigation more intuitive. One helpful trick is to use the "-" and "+" keys to decrease or increase the scope of the wireframe map.
Descent's continued success stems mostly from multi-player, online play where the ability to "trichord" (sliding in 3 directions at once) made ship movements unique and challenging to predict. The game continued to be popular 10 years after its release in small pockets of online players due to "trichording". The decline of the series with the release of the third, Descent 3, is widely considered to be the fault of the loss of "trichording" (which is still possible, but much less effective or necessary). This made the game similar to other flight simulators, and the series never continued into the planned Descent IV.
Multiplayer
Like Doom, Descent offers excellent competitive multiplayer game play over a LAN. Interestingly enough, Descent is also touted as being one of the first games that allowed on-the-fly joining of multiplayer games, whereas in Doom it is presumed that all players have to be queued prior to initiating the match. With the advent of Internet IPX emulators such as Kali, more and more people began to play Descent and Descent II over the Internet. Descent II was especially popular online due to its support for short packets and variable packet rate -- options which were crucial for smooth Internet play.
Levels and robots
In the original Descent, there are 27 levels corresponding to 27 different and unique mines (and also three secret levels). The first three begin on the Moon, the fourth on Venus, the sixth on Mercury, and these levels also make up the shareware version. In the commercial release, the path continues out towards Mars and on towards the moons of the gas giants Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and finally until Pluto and Charon. There are 3 secret levels, which can be accessed by secret exits that are placed as an alternative to the regular exits in certain levels.
Descent II focuses on systems beyond the solar system. The planets are Zeta Aquilae, Quartzon, Brimspark, Limefrost Spiral, Baloris Prime, and Omega. The Omega system is subdivided into the Puuma Sphere and Tycho Brahe. Each system consists of 4 regular levels and 1 secret level. The secret levels are unique in that the player can travel back and forth between the regular levels (of the same system) via teleporters; however the player may not save on the secret level.
Some of these planets have notable characteristics:
- Baloris Prime is mostly desert. According to the writers, this is because its axis of rotation is exactly perpendicular to its plane of orbit, causing a total lack of seasons on the planet's surface.
- Tycho Brahe is actually a spaceship the size and shape of a planet, easily mistaken for one until its two hemispheres separate to reveal a mechanical interior.
In certain levels, a boss robot replaces the reactor as the main objective. In the first Descent, the seventh level (which was the end of the shareware version) and the final level are cited as the most difficult. Both have large boss robots that fire powerful weaponry (the shareware boss fires Smart missiles, the final boss fires Mega Missiles) and have the ability to cloak and teleport. The final boss also gates in other robots. These two robots have gone by various names throughout time but the two most popular ones among serious descent players stand. The level seven boss is often referred to as 'Spike', due to its appearance. The final boss is often referred to as 'Steve'. The name for the final boss, however, has been controversial and has been also known as 'The Big Eye Guy' and 'Wiki Tiki'.
Descent II places a boss robot on the fourth level of each system. The final boss robot fires Earthshaker missiles and can only be damaged via a small vulnerable spot in the back; this gained some infamy when a bug (subsequently fixed by a patch) made the boss completely invincible at higher difficulty levels.
Planets come with a complementary set of "themed" robots, instead of recyling enemies like Doom. This is especially evident in Descent II and onwards; for example, Brimspark (a volcanic lava planet) bots fire yellow/orange blast or explosive weapons, while in Limefrost Spiral (an ice world) bots unleash blue/white bursts from their Spreadfire and Helix cannons.
The enemy AI was quite good for its time, with most robots being able to dodge a player's fire, making for challenging firefights and duels. There are special AI strategies that complement the bots' attacking style, with regular (firing) robots starting in sniping mode and often aggressivly pursuing if the player retreated, close-combat robots which are highly manuverable and charge the player, and certain "cunning" or "lurking" bots that track the player and only attack when it will achieve surprise.
Descent II adds bots which are extremely small and fast, plus actively roaming bots such as the Bandit (commonly referred to as the Thief-Bot) which can steal the player's weapons or the E-bandit which can drain energy/shields. Descent 3 improves on the AI significantly, leading to robots that effectively work in teams and go to fetch help if outnumbered.
Objectives
Each levels starts with the player in his ship materializing in a starting location within the mine. The player must then navigate through the mine destroying enemy robots and picking up powerups if his resources run low. The player's spacecraft has a fixed energy capacity and most weapons and tools require regular pickups of energy powerups to be able to continue firing. Killing opponents often releases such powerups. There are also permanent recharging areas called "energy centers" and players often make it a priority to seek these out first in order to give themselves an unlimited supply of energy.
In the first two games, the player has limited lives. When the ship is destroyed, it respawned at the mine's entrance. However, all the powerups (weapons, etc.) acquired thus far will be strewn about the area of death waiting to be reacquired. There is also a complementary points system, which the player can earn by destroying enemy robots, picking up powerups, and detonating the reactor. The most points will be earned by rescuing the trapped PTMC workers in each mine and safely escaping with them after destroying the reactor. Accumulating enough points will result in an extra life.
In Descent and Descent II, the goal of each level is to find a series of keys, usually in the order of blue, yellow, and red. Each key will correspond with a door of that color. Beyond the red door is the reactor. By shooting at the reactor, it can be detonated, setting off a countdown timer. The player will have to find the route back to the exit tunnel before the countdown expires and the reactor's meltdown vapourizes the entire mine. If the player cannot escape but he has extra lives to spare, he can proceed to the next level but be forced to start with minimal weapons.
Descent II has the same objectives of its predecessor but adds many puzzles and traps, some which are required to complete the level while others are used to guard valuable powerups and hostages. In contrast, Descent 3's objectives are more diverse, ranging from escort missions to an ironic mission where reactors must be defended.
Weapons
The overall gameplay is enhanced by the wide variety of weapons the player can wield. Often, they are used for their novelty and variety instead of tactical considerations. Some such as the promixity bomb, smart mine, and flash missile, were designed specifically for multiplayer.
Descent's handling of weapons in multiplayer differs from other first-person shooters. Instead of respawning primary weapons, which could potentially allow several players to pick up the same gun over time, only one player can have it at a time, forcing his opponents to destroy him in order to acquire the gun.
Descent
The original Descent features ten weapons; five primary weapons and five missiles:
Primary weapons:
- Laser - precise and efficient energy weapon with four power levels with corresponding colors, and a 'quad laser' powerup which doubles the player's cannons to four
- Vulcan Cannon - non-energy primary weapon that uses ammunition which can be picked up; an instant-impact or hitscan weapon; very weak but rapid firing - uses up much ammo to kill enemies; useful for sniping since it leaves no tracers
- Spreadfire Cannon - a medium-close ranged weapon with three energy spheres per shot, alternates between horizontal and verticle spreads; fairly fast firing and devestating in close quarters
- Plasma Cannon - rapidly fires large, fast-flying, large green colored plasma spheres in pairs; making it one of the most versatile and dangerous energy weapons although it has an extremely high energy consumption. Referred to as the "Dogfighters' best friend"
- Fusion Cannon - hold down the firing button to charge the cannon, releasing the fire button unleashes a large purple blob. Very devastating when fully charged; only energy weapon with splash/radius damage; can go through and damage multiple enemies; much maligned in multiplayer since charging impedes the ship's maneuvering
Missiles:
- Concussion Missile - basic dumbfire rocket; area damage; medium speed
- Homing Missile - less powerful but faster than the concussion missile, automatically locks on and follows a target ("fire and forget"), can be evaded
- Proximity Bomb - stationary mine that explodes at timeout or on contact; useful for delaying chasers or setting traps
- Smart Missile - heavy missile that releases a group of five homing plasma spheres that detonate on impact or timed self-destruct, allows the player to target multiple enemies
- Mega Missile - homing megaton rocket with huge area effect; a single hit is enough to kill the player, or most robots
Descent II
Descent II uses the same weapons as Descent, and also adds upgraded/complementary versions of each.
Primary weapons:
- Super Laser - extra upgrade levels five and six for the standard Lasers, although the first Super Laser pickup will instantly boost to level five regardless of current laser status
- Gauss Cannon - upgraded Vulcan Cannon that uses less ammunition and does more damage, including radius/splash damage, although it can damage the player at close range
- Helix Cannon - fast-firing rotating spread, similar to Spreadfire Cannon but has a spread of five bursts with four rotations, also higher energy consumption
- Phoenix Cannon - energy bolts that bounce off walls, allowing the player to hit enemies around corners; capable of destroying player if fired carelessly
- Omega Cannon - rapid-fire homing bolts, like lightning, that temporarily blinds its targets; uses separate energy bank that charges from main energy (Interesting note: This weapon initially caused much controversy during online play due to a bug that caused the number of bolts fired to be directly proportional to the speed of the weapon user's video-card. This caused the weapon to often be removed from the online arsenal by the host, until a patch fixing the problematic bug was released.)
Missiles:
- Flash Missile - low-powered missile that temporarily blinds/stuns its target; if used against players, a direct hit will turn his entire screen white, while near misses will cause a similar but lesser effect
- Guided Missile - can be remotely guided by the player and hitting the firing button will turn it into regular homing missile; useful for scouting or sniping
- Smart Mine - similar to proximity bomb, but releases homing golden energy pulses when it explodes. The weapon is powerful and can be used in a 'dive bombing' manuver. When performed successfully it almost always results in an instant kill.
- Mercury Missile - fastest of all missiles, similar to vulcan cannon in speed; nearly impossible to dodge
- Earthshaker Missile - excessively powerful warhead that releases smaller homing projectiles upon impact, similar idea to Smart Missile; likely to destroy player if used carelessly. True to its name, the initial impact shakes the entire level and it is capable of disorienting a player even a large distance away from the explosion. It also causes any normal light sources within the level to flicker on and off, making navigation temporarily difficult
Descent 3
Descent 3 featured many new weapons but also discarded several of the "classic" Descent weapons, although the Laser, Plasma, and Fusion Cannons, plus the Concussion, Homing, Smart, and Mega Missiles would make it.
Two new ships were added in the original Descent 3, bringing the number to three; the Phoenix Interceptor (fast and very agile, but also very weak and light payload), Pyro-GL (upgraded version of Pyro-GX in Descent and Descent II) which is a good-all-around ship, and the Magnum-AHT (Referred in multiplayer groups as the 'Tank'; Large, heavy and slow, but very tough and high ammo capacity and some of its primary weapons fire triple bursts). Descent 3: Mercenary would add yet another ship into the list, effectively making it four; the Black Pyro (PTMC's rendition of the original Pyro-GX; relatively similar in specifications to the Pyro-GL and has a striking resemblance to the Pyro-GX, although it is slightly more agile than both ships and has more missile space than the Pyro-GL. It can also fire triple bursts for one primary weapon, as well as dual-firing for some of the missiles, although the drawback to this second feature is that it cannot fire if there is only one missile left for these particular missiles):
Primary Weapons:
- The Vulcan and Gauss Cannons have been replaced by the Vauss Cannon. Vauss supposedly took the best aspects of both weapons, but left the weapon with a much-decreased firing rate. (Requires special ammunition)
- The Mass Driver is a powerful but slow-firing sniper weapon (Requires special ammunition)
- The Napalm Cannon shoots a stream of napalm that ignites enemies, but also the player if used carelessly (One stream for the Phoenix Interceptor, two streams for the Pyro-GL, and three streams for the Magnum-AHT)
- The EMD Gun is a fast-firing but weak weapon that has a limited homing ability and also uses a lot of energy; it is considered by many to be the most disappointing weapon in D3.
- The Microwave Cannon is a rapid-firing but slow-moving energy weapon that causes the enemy's view to become severely distorted.
- The Omega Cannon is a very short-ranged weapon that drains an enemy's shields and also recharges the player's shields at the same time. Unfortunately the effect is nowhere near as powerful as it was in D2 and it consumes outrageous amounts of energy.
- The Spreadfire, Helix, and Phoenix Cannons have been removed from the game.
Secondary weapons:
- The Frag Missile blasts many tiny, explosive projectiles into nearby targets upon impact. The effect, however, is highly random, making the weapon useless in open spaces.
- The Impact Mortar is a powerful bomb that bounces off walls until it is ready to detonate or hits an enemy, and it features tremendous explosive power.
- The Napalm Rocket is a missile used to set enemies on fire. This was commonly used to block off an enemy from a certain route. A direct hit from a napalm rocket is almost impossible to survive, as even the fire it leaves behind on impact often results in a kill.
- The Cyclone Missile is essentially a flechette missile. When it detonates, it features a number of projectiles that move towards the nearest targets. In theory, this is good for taking out a small group of enemies in quick order. In practice, the weapon was of very little use, either in single player or multiplayer mode.
- The Black Shark Missile is an experimental, extremely powerful missile. When used, it essentially creates a mini black hole that sucks in surrounding objects, including yourself if you're not careful. After a few seconds, the missile detonates, destroying all objects caught in the vortex.
- Descent II weapons such as the Flash, Mercury, and Earthshaker Missiles and the Smart Mine have been removed from the game (A custom level, called Earthshaker Pro 2001, created for Descent 3 has the Earthshaker as a custom weapon in that level).
- The classic Proximity Bomb is now a countermeasure.
Countermeasures:
Countermeasures were added in Descent 3 as a third weapon category but when the Proximity Bomb was included in this group, it only marginalized this type of weapon. The inherent difficulty in managing not two, but three different categories of weapon to be used simultaneously in a given situation resulted in countermeasures being given little to no attention in multiplayer.
- The Gunboy is a stationary turret that can be used to cover positions. It uses a laser to attack enemies. When an enemy comes within range, the Gunboy starts attacking it.
- The Bouncing Betty countermeasure is an all-but-useless weapon. When dropped, it falls to the ground and bounces at exponential velocities, gradually flying all over the place in a chaotic fashion. The problem with this weapon is that by the time it began moving fast enough to be useful, the battle was long over or had moved to a different location. Furthermore, it explodes shortly after reaching useful speed. Lastly, it causes very little damage.
- The Proximity Bomb was rarely used in the previous two games and the trend continues in D3. Causes very little damage, even if an opponent is hapless enough to wander into one. Many people expected the D3 Proximity Bomb would have the attributes of the D2 Smart Mine (causing little damage on initial explosion, but spewing powerful mini-warheads akin to the Smart Missile), since Smart Mines became highly popular and were very useful in D2.
- The Chaff is a droppable packet which would attract any weapons locked-on to the dropping player. Although this theoretically makes it a rather useful tool in combat, it was rarely even available for pickup in most multiplayer maps.
All Descent games have also given the player a flare to fire into dark areas for illumination. In Descent, the flare cost 1 energy per shot to fire and when energy was completely depleted from the player's ship, it was no longer available. In Descent 2, the cost to fire a flare was lowered to one energy unit per two shots, but it could still be fired (at a decreased rate) even if the player no longer had any energy. Finally, in Descent 3 the flare was made a no-energy weapon, although it cannot be fired on certain ships once the player has no energy left. Consistent throughout the series however, is the common use of the flare as a weapon used to humiliate a near-dead opponent. Since a flare could only cause one unit of damage even at the highest difficulty level, being killed by a flare is a humiliating experience.
Sequels, add-on's and expansions
In chronological order of release:
Descent Mission Builder (1995)
A commercial Descent 1 level editor, created by Brainware. Users can create their own single-player and multi-player levels with the program and then play them.
Descent: Levels of The World (1995)
A popular add-on for Descent 1, containing all of the entries from a level design competition held by Interplay in 1995. A viewer is included, allowing the player to see a preview of each map, as well as selecting ones that received a "Top 10" award or an honorable mention.
Descent II (1996)
Descent II added more weapon types, different enemy types, different mines, laser-reflecting force field walls, and transporter areas. In response to complaints that Descent's levels were mostly dull and lacked creativity, Descent II's levels were designed with a theme in mind; as an example, Level 2 "Turnabout Bore" lives up to its name since the map resembles a figure-8. There is the inclusion of difficult puzzles; most to hide valuable powerups but some are required to complete the level. A notable addition was the Guide-Bot, a companion robot the player could use to aid in navigation and other tasks. Another major improvement was the enemy robot AI with some robots not only being able to dodge fire but also do hit-and-run attacks or roam through the level. Most infamous was the Bandit or Thief-Bot which was a fast-moving and hard-to-kill enemy that attempted to steal the player's weapons and equipment; the similar E-Bandit will drain the player's energy and shields.
Graphics were still 8-bit, but multiple resolutions were supported, and it was ported to the Macintosh. After its release a patch was issued to add support for early 3D accelerators running the S3 ViRGE chipset. A patch (also from Parallax) added 3Dfx Voodoo support further down the line. The soundtrack was composed by range of musicians, from Type O Negative to Mark Walk and Skinny Puppy's Nivek Ogre. An expansion pack featured remixes of some tracks from the original score.
While the first Descent had been released as shareware with 7 levels, Descent II was released as a shorter 3 level demo. Another truncated version of Descent II was "Destination Quartzon" which featured the first 8 levels and was bundled with the Logitech Wingman Extreme joystick.
Descent Mission Builder 2 (1996)
An authorized, commercial Descent 1/2 level editor from Brainware. It gives users the tools necessary to design, create and implement levels for the commercial versions of Descent and Descent II. It is also capable of converting Descent 1 levels into Descent 2 levels.
Descent II: The Vertigo Series (1996)
An add-on for Descent II containing twenty user-made levels from a Computer Gaming World level design competition, plus the officially licensed Descent Mission Builder 2. It was lauded for its creative level design and the introduction of many exotic robots, although some levels also borrowed robots from the first Descent.
Descent II: The Infinite Abyss (1997)
A 2-CD special release of Descent II. The first disc contains Descent II with the latest patch applied (providing support for 3dfx and Rendition video cards), while the second disc is the original "Vertigo Series" add-on.
Descent 3 (1999)
Descent 3 natively supports the Direct3D, Glide and OpenGL rendering API's and has a completely rebuilt engine, capable of rendering outdoor environments with an automatic LOD (level-of-detail) terrain system. The higher resolution and renderer change makes the textures appear flatter, however, and thus the game seems less ominous and spooky, rather being more colourful and brighter than its predecessors. Although reviewers praised and lauded it, gamers failed to take note, perhaps because of the high system requirements at the time, with badly timed and themed advertising. Many people also point out that the most common control scheme at the time - mouse+keyboard - was disabled by default in multiplayer modes, in order to appease joystick users. The gameplay style also differed significantly from its predecessors, with trichording much more difficult to accomplish, and the inclusion of several disappointing weapons. Ending up, Descent 3 was not as successful as the developers were hoping for.
Descent 3: Mercenary
Image:D3 Merc Box Art.jpg Descent 3: Mercenary is an official expansion pack for Descent 3. It adds a new single-player campaign featuring seven levels, as well as the Black Pyro, three new multiplayer modes, the Descent 3 Level Editor (which allows for the creation of new levels in Descent 3) and a number of fan-made levels.
The storyline of the single-player campaign of Descent 3: Mercenary is a prelude to the actual Descent 3, which explains the events after Descent II all the way up to the first half of Descent 3. You are a pilot working under the Collective Earth Defense (CED)'s 'Special Ops' unit, and have been entrusted with the task of destroying the illegal colony that the PTMC was building on Mars. Your original mission was to place a nuclear disruptor in the colony's primary reactor before being extracted from the area, but soon after you did so, the CED abandons you to the effects of a nuclear meltdown. You escaped by seeking refuge in the colony's waste-disposal system, which survived the blast. Soon after, Samuel Dravis himself personally takes you under his wing for two missions: to wreak havoc on the CED and control the alien virus.
According to the Official D3 FAQ, 'some complained about this one as a cheap ripoff with not enough new features' [1], although it has been praised for the complexity of the single-player levels.
Descent (PlayStation)
A version of Descent was also produced for the PlayStation. It features the same levels as the PC version of Descent, but adds a remixed soundtrack, prerendered cinematics, and colored lighting effects.
Descent Maximum (PlayStation)
Descent Maximum is the spiritual counterpart of Descent II on the PlayStation. Unlike the first PlayStation Descent which was considered mostly a direct port, Descent Maximum was designed to better accommodate the console and contained 30 entirely new levels. These maps had similar themes to those in Descent II, but were generally smaller than their PC cousins.
Related titles
It is widely believed that Volition was working on Descent 4 only to have the decision changed to have the game finished and marketed as the first-person shooter Red Faction. Observant Descent fans may have noticed that Descent's opening briefing made a reference to the "Humans First" strike (see the Premise section above) where the miners rebelled against the new robot technology. This reportedly served as a basis for Red Faction, although Red Faction does not directly relate to Descent. An archived copy of the official Descent 4 website started by Volition is here: [2]
Descent: Freespace also used 3D acceleration. Because Freespace is a flight simulator, a main difference was that no player-controlled ships could strafe (though some enemy-controlled ships could), requiring the player to adopt a different strategy for dodging enemy weapons fire. As the action took place entirely in deep space, it was harder to judge one's velocity since there were fewer frames of reference. Freespace has no direct connection to the Descent series, and was given the "Descent" prefix to avoid trademark issues (in Europe, it was released as Conflict: Freespace).
It is rumored that Freespace originally had missions involving the search for the Material Defender's ship from the Descent series.
Freespace had a sequel in the form of Freespace 2 (without "Descent"), but like Descent 3, it was not very successful despite positive reviews.
Descent novels
On a side note, the Descent series also spawned a trilogy of novels written by Peter Telep and sold at several major booksellers. The titles are Descent, Descent: Stealing Thunder, and Descent: Equinox. The novels did not follow the games to the word, but expanded on the basic premise, and were very well received.
Descent movie
There were rumors of a Descent movie. NBC commissioned a script for a TV movie but then decided to be adapted for movie theaters. Interplay Productions, the owner and publisher of the Descent games, created a division called Interplay Movies that was going to develop the popular Interplay franchises of the time into movies, one of which was Descent. The last known update was in 1999, so the plans are considered dead. Interplay Movies reportedly successfully got Redneck Rampage made into a film, although it was never released.
One thing that lends credence to this Descent movie is a filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office of a 2000 abandoned trademark filing of Descent with the "Goods and/or Services" being listed as "International Class: 041 entertainment services, namely, production and distribution of live action theatrical, motion pictures and television motion pictures and animated and live action television series featuring action, adventure and science fiction stories." Source: Descent movie trademark
Source code
Image:D2X.png The source code to the original Descent (minus the audio code, which was replaced with the Allegro project) was released in 1997. The source code to Descent II and Freespace 2 has also been released. Open source projects have sprung up around these source releases and can be found on the Internet, the most popular project being D1X. D1X was a modified executable file of Descent, which added many new features such as the ability to change resolution, customizable primary and secondary weapon priority, and many other features that could be found in Descent II. After the release of the Descent II source code, the D1X project sparked another project called D2X, which went on to enhance the gameplay of Descent II. D1X and D2X also made it possible to play the games on different platforms like Linux.
Since work on the D1X and D2X projects became stagnant, a Windows specific development branch was spawned from the D2X project fixing virtually all of the issues D2X still had and adding a lot of new features, such as the ability to play Descent missions in Descent 2. Originally, this branch went by the name D2X-W32. It was ported to Linux and Mac OS X later on, and its name was changed to D2X-XL to reflect both the broader scope and greatly enhanced feature set of the project.
Since D2X-XL added lots of features, especially in multiplayer games, it became most incompatible with the original 'Descent' and 'Descent II' version. The DXX-Rebirth project keeps this multiplayer compatibility to the original game and preserves the original look&feel. It is available for Windows and Linux machines and under constant development.
External links
- General Sites
- Descent 3 Official Site
- Descent Bulletin Board
- The Second Descent Bulletin Board
- Descent Network - partially archived and no longer updated
- KoolBear.com - One of the Oldest Descent Sites still around
- PlanetDescent
- The Official Descent 3 FAQ - archived
- Moon's Descendarium - THE single player guide to Descent 1-3
- Source Code
- Game Archive and Review Sites
- Open Source Projects
- Fan Sites
- Total Conversions for Other Games