Descent is probably my most time-displaced series. Meaning I played the first game in the 1990's, then Descent 2 (+ the Vertigo addon) about 10 years later (2008/2009), and Descent 3 (+ the Mercenary addon) almost another 10 years later - around 2016/2017. It's been a long journey.
I could never get into the original Descent as a kid regardless of how impressive it was because I'd get lost and frustrated. They really addressed that in the sequel with the helper-bot and getting rid of the hitscan enemies was extremely welcome. The higher resolution made things much less messy looking as well. Descent was a landmark game for its technology, but Descent 2 made it better in every way.
The 4th game in the series: Descent Underground is currently on kickstarter and only has a few days to go. So if you want to see a new game in the series, hurry and kickstart this project!
Cyberbrickmaster1986 I've looked over the Kickstarter page for that game and am worried... It has the distinct feeling of a larger company trying to make a "sequel" to something on name-value only, with no regard for the continuity and fan base built around it. The designs they've shown so far too look incredibly generic and there's also a lingering worry that content may end up behind a paywall given the way the rewards for backing have been portioned out.
@@DarkElfDiva I bought Overload very soon after its release; remember you're replying to a comment made SEVEN years ago back when we didn't even know Overload was being made! ;)
You have quite the lengthy challenge ahead of you then. If you do get through all three and want more, I recommend looking into Overload which is a modern game made by the same devs and effectively plays as though it were a proper Descent 4, just without the name. ;)
+Badness The Island Car The two map formats are almost identical but there are some differences, such as the data for the dynamic lighting in D2 since you can shoot out some of the lights there, so I don't think you'd be able to load a D1 map straight into D2, but an editor should be able to convert between the two level formats, with minor alterations to account for differences in textures and whatnot.
You know, coming back to this reminds me, I was meaning to see if I could order a physical copy of the game's original release, if it wasn't too expensive -- just to experiment with how difficult it might be to make a CD-image of a different version of the CD work with GOG's dosbox setup. I always preferred building maps for this game over the original because with the shootable triggers it's a lot easier to give the player a little bit of choice in the way they interact with the level environment, and that makes building things more fun.
Love this game, but the guided missle secrets, one-use switches and not being able to save in secret levels are a huge pain. Oh, and that one secret level where the thief bot instantly respawns every time.
Kinda hard to imagine Parallax Software still exists to this day, and that they haven't got royalties for their games from interplay since 2007.Which is why both this game, the original, and 3rd game were (hopefully temporarily) pulled from gog. Darn. At least 1&2 are available on steam..
+WesleyB Crowen Something about that situation seems... odd... Parallax Software originally split into two companies: Outrage and Volition, with Volition still around to this day. In fact, I think I have an old PC Gamer magazine which goes in-depth into this when it was happening. It doesn't make sense that Parallax Software could still exist in some fashion...
+Pixelmusement Hey, you're right, I completely forgot about that. "Parallax Software still exists and still owns the copyrights to the Descent games." - www.gog.com/forum/general/descent_12_descent_3_removed_from_sale/post142 Did they reform, OR..?
WesleyB Crowen Or waitaminute... I seem to have a vague recollection that Parallax Software did continue to exist after the split... I can't remember what the reasoning was but I do recall that the split was mostly to create two separate dev teams that could do their own thing, almost as though Parallax was the parent company of Volition and Outrage, as opposed to the two companies becoming completely separate entities... I could be mistaken... I don't have access to my PC Gamer mags so I have no way to look this up.
Games should be hard so children are being challenged. I recommend parents to get this game for their children. Let them play games, but only difficult ones. Also, they learn to read their contracts in the future...
Honestly if you're playing Descent 1 or 2 now just use an Xbox style controller. Even if you don't use a source port believe it or not it works after some configuration and it's perfectly suited to the game.
MIDI sequences are nothing special, you say? I grew up with those songs! Of course, I tend to prefer the CD music for whatever reason, but I love the MIDI songs and the number of different ways you can get them to sound based on what device you use, soundfonts included.
Pixelmusement They were memorable to me. :P Also, I feel like you didn't mention that this game does have 3D acceleration options, namely for 3DFX, S3 (Virge specifically), and Rendition cards.
+Sam Wittsell The 3D acceleration options for D2 are kinda excessive because there were so many variants and I have little knowledge of them, so I skipped mentioning them because I wasn't sure on the details or where to look for more, plus I'm sure I'd've forgotten one or more of the accelerated variants if I tried. :P
@@Pixelmusement What I mostly meant was that the MIDI sequences are generally more accessible to the average person than the more niche industrial music on the CD Audio tracks.
I'm a minority, but I kinda disliked Descent 2, even though I LOVED D1. Mostly thanks to the thief bot. That guy bothered me WAY more than it should, and kinda ruined the game for me.
I don't like D2 too. It's okay against robots, but Deathmatch is really bad because it only ever involved one weapon, the Gauss Cannon. This primary weapon is completely unbalanced compared to the others. No otherprimary weapon has blast damage if you don't hit accurately, and no other weapon has self-multiplying ammo. Somehow after a few minutes everyone had 40,000 rounds with them. Also, if I remember correctly, if you collect a weapon with 40,000 rounds you have 4:30 minutes of continuous fire, and the direction of the attacker is also impossible to tell. Once you were really hit, the ship became uncontrollable so that you could hardly defend yourself. In addition, as the difficulty level increases, this weapon does more and more damage. These are all points that are not available with any other weapon in this game. This may be ok against robots, but it completely ruined the gameplay in deathmatch for me. In addition, the base damage of the Fusion Cannon has also been halved. 💀
@@Pixelmusement It has it's good parts... but it still completely fails to answer the central questions of the first two games. Which, I suppose, is completely fine when they were planning at the time on making more of them. But less fine when that didn't actually happen.
@@SplotchTheCatThing Actually, a fair point there is that the Descent lore bleeds into the Overload lore, so there might be hints in the Overload lore as to those happenings, though I haven't yet done a full playthrough of Overload yet to know for certain. :B
This is one of my all time favourites too. I grew up with it on PC and to this day remains one of the coolest first person shooters I know.
Descent II introduced me to Skinny Puppy back in the day, which quickly became one of my favorite bands.
Descent is probably my most time-displaced series. Meaning I played the first game in the 1990's, then Descent 2 (+ the Vertigo addon) about 10 years later (2008/2009), and Descent 3 (+ the Mercenary addon) almost another 10 years later - around 2016/2017.
It's been a long journey.
Get ready for Descent Underground.
I could never get into the original Descent as a kid regardless of how impressive it was because I'd get lost and frustrated. They really addressed that in the sequel with the helper-bot and getting rid of the hitscan enemies was extremely welcome. The higher resolution made things much less messy looking as well. Descent was a landmark game for its technology, but Descent 2 made it better in every way.
+Christopher
Blair The irony being that Descent 2 is also WAY harder. ;)
One of my favorites too.
Great episode. Just in time for the Descent kickstarter to actually make it??
The 4th game in the series: Descent Underground is currently on kickstarter and only has a few days to go. So if you want to see a new game in the series, hurry and kickstart this project!
Cyberbrickmaster1986 I've looked over the Kickstarter page for that game and am worried... It has the distinct feeling of a larger company trying to make a "sequel" to something on name-value only, with no regard for the continuity and fan base built around it. The designs they've shown so far too look incredibly generic and there's also a lingering worry that content may end up behind a paywall given the way the rewards for backing have been portioned out.
@@Pixelmusement Try Overload instead. It was made by the original Descent devs.
@@DarkElfDiva I bought Overload very soon after its release; remember you're replying to a comment made SEVEN years ago back when we didn't even know Overload was being made! ;)
@@Pixelmusement You're welcome.
I played the Descent games and always enjoy the first hour or so but quickly get overwhelmed. FreeSpace however I could play for hours.
I remember playing this as Descent: Maximum on on the PS. Good times. Shame they never upgraded it for DualShock support.
I never release the Guidebot. I specifically wanted to be able to beat this game without its help ;)
I have never finished any Descent game, but I recently got 1,2 and 3 , so im working through 1 right now.
You have quite the lengthy challenge ahead of you then. If you do get through all three and want more, I recommend looking into Overload which is a modern game made by the same devs and effectively plays as though it were a proper Descent 4, just without the name. ;)
can you use d1 maps into descent 2
+Badness The Island Car The two map formats are almost identical but there are some differences, such as the data for the dynamic lighting in D2 since you can shoot out some of the lights there, so I don't think you'd be able to load a D1 map straight into D2, but an editor should be able to convert between the two level formats, with minor alterations to account for differences in textures and whatnot.
With the Descent 2 Vertigo Edition (1.2) you can directly. D2x-Rebirth is based on that version, so that applies to it too
You know, coming back to this reminds me, I was meaning to see if I could order a physical copy of the game's original release, if it wasn't too expensive -- just to experiment with how difficult it might be to make a CD-image of a different version of the CD work with GOG's dosbox setup.
I always preferred building maps for this game over the original because with the shootable triggers it's a lot easier to give the player a little bit of choice in the way they interact with the level environment, and that makes building things more fun.
You have certainly been doing these a while
+wolvenar 18 days short of 10 years! :D
@@Pixelmusement Wow
Love this game, but the guided missle secrets, one-use switches and not being able to save in secret levels are a huge pain. Oh, and that one secret level where the thief bot instantly respawns every time.
D2 is absolutely the hardest game in the Descent series by a wide margin. :B
Kinda hard to imagine Parallax Software still exists to this day, and that they haven't got royalties for their games from interplay since 2007.Which is why both this game, the original, and 3rd game were (hopefully temporarily) pulled from gog. Darn. At least 1&2 are available on steam..
+WesleyB Crowen Something about that situation seems... odd... Parallax Software originally split into two companies: Outrage and Volition, with Volition still around to this day. In fact, I think I have an old PC Gamer magazine which goes in-depth into this when it was happening. It doesn't make sense that Parallax Software could still exist in some fashion...
+Pixelmusement Hey, you're right, I completely forgot about that.
"Parallax Software still exists and still owns the copyrights to the Descent games." - www.gog.com/forum/general/descent_12_descent_3_removed_from_sale/post142
Did they reform, OR..?
WesleyB Crowen Or waitaminute... I seem to have a vague recollection that Parallax Software did continue to exist after the split... I can't remember what the reasoning was but I do recall that the split was mostly to create two separate dev teams that could do their own thing, almost as though Parallax was the parent company of Volition and Outrage, as opposed to the two companies becoming completely separate entities... I could be mistaken... I don't have access to my PC Gamer mags so I have no way to look this up.
They split into Outrage (defunct) and Volition (still going), who were responsible for Red Faction, Saints Row, etc.
Games should be hard so children are being challenged. I recommend parents to get this game for their children. Let them play games, but only difficult ones. Also, they learn to read their contracts in the future...
Honestly if you're playing Descent 1 or 2 now just use an Xbox style controller. Even if you don't use a source port believe it or not it works after some configuration and it's perfectly suited to the game.
MIDI sequences are nothing special, you say? I grew up with those songs! Of course, I tend to prefer the CD music for whatever reason, but I love the MIDI songs and the number of different ways you can get them to sound based on what device you use, soundfonts included.
+Sam Wittsell I meant the specific ones in D2. There's only a handful and they're not very memorable compared to what D1 had to offer. :P
Pixelmusement They were memorable to me. :P Also, I feel like you didn't mention that this game does have 3D acceleration options, namely for 3DFX, S3 (Virge specifically), and Rendition cards.
+Sam Wittsell The 3D acceleration options for D2 are kinda excessive because there were so many variants and I have little knowledge of them, so I skipped mentioning them because I wasn't sure on the details or where to look for more, plus I'm sure I'd've forgotten one or more of the accelerated variants if I tried. :P
Well, D2 W95 is 3D-accelerated also, but of course you wouldn't talk about that because this is strictly a DOS show.
@@Pixelmusement What I mostly meant was that the MIDI sequences are generally more accessible to the average person than the more niche industrial music on the CD Audio tracks.
I'm a minority, but I kinda disliked Descent 2, even though I LOVED D1. Mostly thanks to the thief bot. That guy bothered me WAY more than it should, and kinda ruined the game for me.
+Marcelo Sampaio Yeah, I've heard this before. D2 is also significantly more difficult than D1, even when not counting the Thief Bot.
The same for me! With a modern port like dxx-Rebirth, you have the option to remove it from the game alltogether (among some other options).
I don't like D2 too. It's okay against robots, but Deathmatch is really bad because it only ever involved one weapon, the Gauss Cannon. This primary weapon is completely unbalanced compared to the others.
No otherprimary weapon has blast damage if you don't hit accurately, and no other weapon has self-multiplying ammo. Somehow after a few minutes everyone had 40,000 rounds with them. Also, if I remember correctly, if you collect a weapon with 40,000 rounds you have 4:30 minutes of continuous fire, and the direction of the attacker is also impossible to tell.
Once you were really hit, the ship became uncontrollable so that you could hardly defend yourself.
In addition, as the difficulty level increases, this weapon does more and more damage.
These are all points that are not available with any other weapon in this game.
This may be ok against robots, but it completely ruined the gameplay in deathmatch for me.
In addition, the base damage of the Fusion Cannon has also been halved. 💀
So, if this game was called Counter Strike, what would CSGO be called...?
+Tiggers Tail Probably "Global Offensive: Descent" ;)
This isn't happening!
XD
+Splotch the Cat-Thing I still like how Descent 3 bookends the story quite well. :)
@@Pixelmusement It has it's good parts... but it still completely fails to answer the central questions of the first two games.
Which, I suppose, is completely fine when they were planning at the time on making more of them.
But less fine when that didn't actually happen.
@@SplotchTheCatThing Actually, a fair point there is that the Descent lore bleeds into the Overload lore, so there might be hints in the Overload lore as to those happenings, though I haven't yet done a full playthrough of Overload yet to know for certain. :B
@@Pixelmusement When I first played Descent 3, and I saw the Pyro GX falling into that star, I literally cried. It was like losing an old friend.