Descent 1-3

I noticed that the Descent series did not have a thread, so like X-Com and Freespace, I've given it a spot on the forum.

I once played Descent 3 long ago, but for some reason I had stopped playing and never played it again for a long time. After playing a demo I found on the Freespace: Silent Threat disc, I reinstalled it and got back to having loads of fun blasting robots to pieces.

Because I had not played Descent 3 in a long time, I was surprised that it is a both a Space Sim and Metroidvania, something I find very fascinating.

I had just beaten Level 4 (the one with those damn trains at the beginning), but now I'm kind of stuck on Level 5, where you must defend five reactors from massive hordes of robots. Since the reactors are spaced so far apart, and because the robots keep swarming in so fast, it's overwhelmingly hard for me to keep up with them.

Man, such good memories of these games. Sketchy memories because I was like 9 or so when I played these games, and didn't speak much english so I didn't quite catch the plot.

Wish they were on Steam to give them a whirl.

Well, Freespace 2 is on GOG.com, so I guess you can at least find Descent 3 there. However, as with X-Com, I was able to play a copy lent from my dad. Seriously, he has copies of just about any from the last century.

When I fought the two PTMC Mercenaries at the end of Level 4, I noticed they they were using the Super Laser and Vauss Cannon from the demo version of the game (I recognized the sounds and visual effects of the former and latter respectively). YNTKT

They're all on GOG. 1&2 are bundled together.

That's great!

I wonder if my dad might also have a copy of the expansion pack for 3...

So far, the robots I hate the most are the Tubbs and the Stinger. The former because they're Damage Sponges, and the latter because they remind me of Chryssalids.

I still remember my first encounter with them in the demo. When I entered the room, a bloodcurdling screech came out of nowhere. When I saw the Stinger's build and huge claws, I immediately thought of the Chryssalids. The demo's omission of background music and lack of appreciable lighting in most sections added to the effect when I ran into them.

Don't have the expansion pack, sadly.

Got past Red Acropolis, Nomad Caverns, and the PTMC bases on Ceres and Europa. Now I'm headed to the Spacecraft Factory on Mercury.

Honestly, who in their right minds would set up shop on Mercury? That place is so close to the Sun that it's like a huge furnace. Then again, it would probably make it easy to use solar power, hence the huge-ass solar panels I saw on the factory.

I played the second game long ago, as we had a full version (through a magazine), but I didn't play the first one until some years ago and only pirated. I bought them on GOG a while ago, but it seems that I got a bit rusty. It wasn't so bad, but in the first level (not sure if first or second game), I lost because the level blew up through a self-destruction sequence. It's not that I was too slow, I could have made it in time, but I had navigation problems: I always missed the exit. Yeah. Still, I got into the second level, as if the game took pity on me. I think I'll restart anyway.

I didn't hear many good things about Descent 3, so my interest is rather limited. Maybe I'll still get it some time, though.

I never played the other two, but I know for sure that the best thing 3 has over them is that it's stages are not restricted to tunnels. It got this new engine that allowed it to create sprawling surface environments, and let me tell you, they are really something. The best example I can think of would be Stage 4, which is set in the dense futuristic cityscape of Seoul, Korea.

When I was sabotaging the thermal regulation systems in the Fuel Refinery on Europa, I couldn't help but imagine warning messages spoken by the Announcer from Portal 2.

I have them all (including expansions), and I'm quite surprised that not so many games tried to follow their lead of full 6DoF gameplay, save for a few titles like Forsaken, Terracide, and to a much lesser extent, Shattered Horizon.

That said, playing the first two games with modern source ports feels a bit constrained, if for no other reason than me playing the original DOS versions with the Spacetec SpaceOrb 360. THE Descent controller. Apparently, they removed the turn speed limit, so it's actually considered cheating in some circles like DescentBB, but I always played them singleplayer (thus not breaking Competitive Balance against other human players unfairly) and just found it to make it a little less Nintendo Hard more than anything.

Also, if anyone's up for a co-op run through the entire series, I'm interested.

I played through the Proving Grounds.

Okay, so I went from breaking out of prison to being forced into a gladiator championship?

What the hell, PTMC?

Now I am stuck on the frakking battleship cause I can't find the switch that shuts off the frakking forcefield blocking off the frakking ENGINE ROOM!

I note that most of my searches for Descent 3 have Level 2 on the top of the list. Great stage that one was. Awesome music and Deadly Neurotoxin.

...Okay, the stuff you release in the prison isn't really Neurotoxin, but I like to think it's a Neurotoxin.

Just found out that there's a way around the forcefield.

Derp derp. I am dumb.

OKAY! EXPEDIATOR IS DONE! ONTO THE SATELLITE!

Those stupid purple piranha robot bruisers are all over the place. Whenever they show up, I impulsively scream "I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU!"

And what's with the monitors with cats on them? Lolcats in the future, maybe?

And now I've beaten the final stage! Dravis is dead and a winner is me!

The last stage was a real bitch, I admit. Mostly because I was making the same mistake I made on the Expediator, where I was looking too hard in all the wrong places.

I never really noticed before, but I swear that Material Defender sounds a lot like Edison Trent from Freelancer.

Just checked out IMDB, and he's not. Though I was a bit shaken by how similar he sounded.

And now I'm playing again on what appeared to be the normal difficulty (normal, to me, being the one between the easier and harder settings). I confess that I had cheated a little in my last game by switching back and forth between easy and very easy on certain stages, so this time I will stick to the difficulty I chose.

I was taken aback by the spike in enemy intelligence when I started. By the time I cleared Level 2, my death counter had already hit somewhere around 10, because I wasn't prepared to face robots that weren't incompetent.

Recently got the GOG version of Descent 3, which included the expansion, Mercenary.

Unfortunately, that means I no longer have my other playthroughs or player accounts, so I have to start all over again.

Mercenary really upped the ante compared to the original campaign, but I suspect I got that impression from starting on that one first while I was still rusty.

This remains one of my favorite nostalgia franchises of all time, and this and Freespace 2 were the last games I ever had that I could play effectively with my joystick.

Has the Space Flight Sim genre died out? If so, then where did it die?

Technically Related Fun Fact: My dad has never played Freespace 2. He's often too preoccupied with work or MMOs like Lord of The Rings Online to try it.

I'm pretty sure that Freespace 2 was the last major entry in the space sim genre. I'd say lack of sales is the culprit.

I'm not looking forward to getting the Pyro-GL in Mercenary. For one, it's more impractical than the Pyro-GX, and another, it's uglier than the GX. Seriously, those horn-like fins on the rear just don't fit.

"Has the Space Flight Sim genre died out?"

Not if the continued production of the Evochron series is any indication, along with other indie projects...but nothing with AAA blockbuster-level production values.

"I'm pretty sure that Freespace 2 was the last major entry in the space sim genre. I'd say lack of sales is the culprit."

You're saying Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos wasn't major at all? I'm reasonably sure it released a few years after Freespace 2, and then there's Freelancer to take into account (much to the bane of flight stick fans), then Dark Star One after that...

Then again, Freespace had all the media attention, so everything else pretty much went under the radar by comparison, and still does to this day.

Anyway, why hasn't Volition made the third game yet? I'm guessing it's because Interplay still has the Freespace IP rights?

I think it's because Volition no longer exists.

However, the Freespace SCP (Source Code Project) made up for the lack of a Freespace 3. They've made tons of other campaigns, such as Blue Planet.

BACK TO DESCENT!

Now that I've got the hang of the game again, I've started playing the Mercenary campaign again. This time around, I'm working on the bad side, namely, for Samuel Dravis, after the C.E.D. left me to die at a martian colony. I'm now flying the Black Pyro-GX, and despite my earlier skepticism, it's a beauty.

The game took some creative liberties to the ship to remind me that I'm working for the bad guys. Besides painting the Pyro black, I was also given a red Guide-Bot and green flares. They also characterized the robots more, especially the Guide-Bot.

Another great thing about Mercenary: It features puzzle bosses (of a sort).

On the Alien Planetoid stage, I had to fight the Alien Queen, basically a bigger and meaner version of the Space Bees that live in the planetoid. She couldn't be beaten head-on in a fight, since she retreats to her chamber when she's badly hurt and recharges her health back to max before resuming the slaughter (of you). Instead, I had to repair the thruster of a wrecked ship in the chamber, and since the thruster's exhaust port just so happened to be pointed at Queen Space Bee's recharge spot, I was able to incinerate her by firing up the engine at full throttle.

At first, I had no idea how to beat her, since I was used to the bosses in the main campaign that you only had to shoot at until they stopped moving. I was forced to consult the FAQ for answers, and it turns out that I could have used Guide-Bot to help out in that fight.

-facepalm-

I can't believe that I forgot the biggest lesson I learned in the game. Never underestimate the Guide-Bot.

The next stage takes me to Schweitzer's lab on Planet Tiris. This campaign's version of Tiris is a lot better than the normal campaign's, especially the ruins section. It looks a lot better, since the walls don't look like cobblestone blocks in Minecraft, and there was also a point where I had to make an Indy Escape. I just couldn't contain my joy from fleeing a giant boulder as it pursued me through a tight corridor, while robots I passed by were flattened into metal pancakes behind me.

edited 19th Apr '12 9:52:01 AM by DemoralizedAnt

Changed my mind. I HATE this version of Tiris.

Once I got to the research facility itself, I found that they had placed heavy gun-and-missile turrets on every hallway and corner. These guns are really bothersome, since unlike the other heavy missile turrets I've seen that only shot Concussion Missiles, they use autocannons and Homing Missiles (the latter being the most frustrating).

On another note, I've taken to calling my Guide-Bot Stephano, his namesake being PewDiePie's bronze statuette companion. However, the accursed character limit forced me to shorten it to "Stphano".

I could easily imagine the Red Guide-Bot being like Stephano.

And now Mercenary has been completed!

I must say that the final boss put the final boss for the normal campaign to shame! That thing was like the physical manifestation of Bullet Hell! Also, it sounded very creepy, kind of like a distorted Dalek.

Despite the final stage being full of Sniper Stormtroopers, the boss accounted for virtually all of my deaths (roughly over twenty).

@Rest of the Thread: I am very disappoint. From how such a great game Descent is, I thought the thread would get more attention than this.

Recovering from the embarrassment that my lack of navigating skills brought, I started Descent again. Only to realize that, to win a level you don't have to go back to the entrance after the self-destruction sequence starts, but to a seperate exit. And in the first level it's in the same room as the self-destruct thingy. That makes my previous failure even more embarrassing.

For the first time, I also watched (or rather read) the mission briefing at the beginning (instead of just skipping it). It was quite amusing to see the Material Defender snarking through it (in his thoughts, at least), while the PTMC guy (forgot his name, but as far as I know he only gets on in the second and third game)... well, "briefs" him.

It seems that it gets more challenging in the third mission. I have quite a bit more trouble and my shields actualy fell below 100 one time. Of course, a game getting harder is a rather normal thing. But I also seem to get better at navigating.

I also played a bit of Descent 2. It seems that it's a bit harder due to faster pacing. Energy powerups seem to be rarer too. And this game is loud. It's as if they thought "hey, we have this awesome soundtrack, much better than the midi stuff from the first game, so we should make sure that the player hears it".