It's Time For the Descent Games Return

An anonymous reader writes "Gamers of a certain age will probably remember Descent, a game that combined first-person shooters with flight sims in a way that has never really been replicated. GameSpot has an article calling for a new entry in the Descent series, and it reminded me of all the stomach-churning battles I had as a kid (when the game wasn't bringing my 33MHz 486 to its knees). 'Here's where modern gaming innovations make Descent an even more tempting reboot. From the two-dimensional mines of Spelunky to the isometric caves of Path of Exile, procedurally generated levels help deliver fresh experiences to players in a number of genres. The mines of Descent would be perfect candidates for such creation, and they wouldn't have to be limited to the metallic walls and lunar geology of past Descent games.

Imagine exploring organic tunnels carved by some unknown alien creature, or floating past dazzling crystalline stalactites in pristine ancient caves. Perhaps the influences of Red Faction and Minecraft could also come into play as you bored your own shortcuts through layers of destructible sediment. All of Descent's dizzying navigation challenges could be even more exciting with the immersive potential of a virtual reality headset like the Oculus Rift or the Sony Morpheus. Feeling the mine walls close in on you from all sides could get your heart racing, and turning your head to spot shortcuts, power-ups, or delicate environmental details could greatly heighten the sense of being an explorer in an uncharted land.'"

Comments

Hell Yes!

[NDeans]

I loved playing Descent. We had our first LAN party back in the day with that game.

Re:Hell Yes!

[Lab Rat Jason]

I'm all out of mod points... but I gotta prop this up! Hell YES! I loved this game, and I loved playing with dual joysticks! I'd buy it in a heartbeat... or half a heartbeat if it was on Steam.

Re:Hell Yes!

[Jane Q. Public]

I'm all out of mod points... but I gotta prop this up! Hell YES! I loved this game, and I loved playing with dual joysticks! I'd buy it in a heartbeat... or half a heartbeat if it was on Steam.

I got the world's best game controller, in my opinion -- the Logitech Cyberman II -- for playing this game.

And think I still have it... somewhere. But I think it was made to plug into the old game controller ports that don't exist anymore. Or maybe it was the old serial ports... that don't exist anymore.

It might look funky. But the one side is a 6-degrees-of-freedom controller, with 8 buttons on the other. Beat the heck out of a joystick, because you could do all your 3D navigating with a single control... up, down, left, right, roll, pitch, yaw. It was designed just for something like Descent. In fact it was used as a 3D controller on the Space Shuttle.

I think the only other true 6DF controller out there was some sphere something. You had to use both hands to move it around so it only had a couple of buttons.

Re:Hell Yes!

[Mashiki]

I loved playing Descent. We had our first LAN party back in the day with that game.

Volition has long said that if they got the rights for it, they'd make new Freespace and Descent games. They still don't have the rights to it, so no new games. I believe the phrase that Volition used was "they'd kill to make them."

Along with the 3x speed strafe bug?

[UnknownSoldier]

Doom had a ~2x speed movement bug along North-South walls when moving forward and right and looking at a 45 degree off axis.

Descent had it it 3 dimensions. (Look, down, right, move up, left and forward)

Part of the charm of older games were the glitches that made the difficult to master but took gameplay to a whole different level.

What about Heretic?

[drakaan]

With all of the Descent love, I can't believe nobody has mentioned Heretic yet. I only played either of them a handful of times (I was more of an RTS guy than an FPS guy, so Starcraft/Red Alert/Warcraft II was more my thing), but my buddies played both. Ahh, the good old days, when Windows 2000 was fresh and new.