[Duke of Hazzard]

I wasn't impressed with Maximum. The PSX was weak and the D2 levels were very convoluted, so they had to create much simpler levels for the game to run acceptably. I remember Viper saying D1 for the PSX was the slowest thing ever.

The controls may have forced the simplification of the levels, too.

[Person of Color]

DustFalcon85, on 15 March 2015 - 06:17 PM, said:

Which those few levels are amazing Viper? Name them.

The first secret level is THE greatest level in the series, hands down. It's probably my favorite level in a 90's game, ever. It's wonderfully logical and abstract, and cerebral. It's also interconnected in a surprising way, is full of secrets, and takes God knows how many runs to finally explore everything. You also get physically punished for fucking up - certain places become permanently locked out. I think the series' biggest fault is that it didn't have more levels like this. "Segment City" is the definition of a perfect game level.

Level 2 is one of the greatest levels in the series. It's nearly perfect. I love the hidden puzzle for the Helix cannon. What a fantastic pain in the ass. It should be called the Patriarchy Cannon, because all it does is overwhelm, rape, and oppress.

Level 1 is great, and level 4 is great as well.

Level 3 sucks. Hard. Fuck level 3. It's everything wrong with Descent 2 in one level.

The rest of the levels are pretty average at best, usually they're just there and you want to get out of them because you hope the next one will be better. The best D2 levels are smaller and resemble D1 levels. The fact that the guide bot is literally needed for most of the levels is proof they fucked up.

[Duke of Hazzard]

Person of Color, on 17 March 2015 - 10:23 PM, said:

The first secret level is THE greatest level in the series, hands down. It's probably my favorite level in a 90's game, ever. It's wonderfully logical and abstract, and cerebral. It's also interconnected in a surprising way, is full of secrets, and takes God knows how many runs to finally explore everything. You also get physically punished for fucking up - certain places become permanently locked out. I think the series' biggest fault is that it didn't have more levels like this. "Segment City" is the definition of a perfect game level.

Level 2 is one of the greatest levels in the series. It's nearly perfect. I love the hidden puzzle for the Helix cannon. What a fantastic pain in the ass. It should be called the Patriarchy Cannon, because all it does is overwhelm, rape, and oppress.

Level 1 is great, and level 4 is great as well.

Level 3 sucks. Hard. Fuck level 3. It's everything wrong with Descent 2 in one level.

The rest of the levels are pretty average at best, usually they're just there and you want to get out of them because you hope the next one will be better. The best D2 levels are smaller and resemble D1 levels. The fact that the thief bot is literally needed for most of the levels is proof they fucked up.

IMO the Alien levels (Puuma Sphere) are pretty interesting, but they had to ruin them with Boarsheads, fast-firing Spiders and even faster, annoying Spawns. There's also an overabundance of Lou Guards in them, too.

The lava levels suck because unlike in D1 the lava falls hurt you in D2. Terrible mechanic, only serves to force you to use Energy2shield even more.

[Person of Color]

The lava levels are also the most mundane, and oh my God the fourth one is just fucking bullshit. The boss battle is just easy as hell but the level itself is a hideous boring open room mess with enemies that cause too many deaths. Also I remember the Ice Boss (Level 16) being utter bullshit with it's homing "super flash missles" that did a fuckton of damage while blinding you (WHY?! WOULD?! YOU?! DO?! THAT?!).

The Boarshead is also a bullshit enemy. Minibosses were terrifying and suspenseful. 1-3 shot kills with a slow fire rate, terrifying growl, slow movement, AI that actively hunted you, and crazy strong armor. They legit make me jump to this day at times and go into full panic mode.

Why make another one of those? Just create an unbalanced pile of shit that looks weak and gay. "More is more" is why Descent 2 falls flat compared to it's father.

[Duke of Hazzard]

Person of Color, on 18 March 2015 - 07:36 PM, said:

The lava levels are also the most mundane, and oh my God the fourth one is just fucking bullshit. The boss battle is just easy as hell but the level itself is a hideous boring open room mess with enemies that cause too many deaths. Also I remember the Ice Boss (Level 16) being utter bullshit with it's homing "super flash missles" that did a fuckton of damage while blinding you (WHY?! WOULD?! YOU?! DO?! THAT?!).

The Boarshead is also a bullshit enemy. Minibosses were terrifying and suspenseful. 1-3 shot kills with a slow fire rate, terrifying growl, slow movement, AI that actively hunted you, and crazy strong armor. They legit make me jump to this day at times and go into full panic mode.

Why make another one of those? Just create an unbalanced pile of shit that looks weak and gay. "More is more" is why Descent 2 falls flat compared to it's father.

Easy for you! I never beat D2 above Rookie difficulty.

To beat the Limefrost Spiral boss I pick up the cloak just before the boss room and bombard him with Gauss and Megas until he dies. If my cloak runs out before he's dead, I reload, because I won't be able to kill him.

The idea of the Boarshead is good (a plasma bot that fires the plasma missiles) but in practice it only leads to frustration since Smart Missiles are a very powerful weapon to give to a regular enemy. Even if the Boarshead misses you, the missile hits a wall and the blobs home onto you and destroy you. The Fusion Hulks in D1 topped the charts with Fusion Cannons and in D1 they dared not give anything higher than Fusion (like Smart and Mega Missiles) to an enemy that wasn't a boss. In D2 however they give Megas to a mid-game boss, Smart Missiles to a standard enemy and the last boss has the blue nukes of doom that kill you in a single hit every time. They do warn you not to confront the Boarshead directly, though, which is wise since it's a horribly overpowered enemy.

At the very least the Bulk Destroyer (Gauss bot) is a weakling. If it was a Driller 2.0 (like it should have been in theory) it would've caused a lot of ragequits.

It may have had to do with D2 being conceived as an expansion to D1 originally. Or it suffered from the same problems sequels in the 90s had: give players basically the same game except with different items and harder. (XCOM TFTD is another example)

[DustFalcon85]

In the meantime check out this another 6DOF game called Sublevel Zero. I put this on my wishlist on GOG.com.



http://www.gog.com/game/sublevel_zero

[Person of Color]

Ehhh, it's mediocre.

It's a hipster version of Descent with a clunky inventory system, unbalanced enemies, and lousy atmosphere.

I just played it for 20 minutes and honestly it tries to be a modern game...that's why Descent 3 sucked. It pushed me away pretty fast.

I wouldn't spend money on it, personally. Too bad I just did.

[MrFlibble]

I checked if there was a demo available, and apparently the game was originally developed for Ludum Dare, and that earlier version (several versions, in fact), is/are available here for Windows and Mac.

[Edit] Played the free/trial version a bit, and indeed it does not feel much like Descent for whatever reason - all the characteristic constituent gameplay elements are present. It's nice though, but definitely not super exciting.

[icecoldduke]

MrFlibble, on 14 October 2015 - 01:17 PM, said:

I checked if there was a demo available, and apparently the game was originally developed for Ludum Dare, and that earlier version (several versions, in fact), is/are available here for Windows and Mac.

[Edit] Played the free/trial version a bit, and indeed it does not feel much like Descent for whatever reason - all the characteristic constituent gameplay elements are present. It's nice though, but definitely not super exciting.

I disagree. I think the art style has evolved nicely into, what I would have expected, from a next-gen Descent game.

[Person of Color]

It sucks cock. It looks like hipster Williamsburg bullshit.



WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING TO THAT IP?!

THIS IS A LAWSUIT FARM, BOY!

I WANNA TRY THE UNITY!

I WANNA TRY THE UNITY!

LOOK AT ME DADDY I'M A GAME DESIGNER!

OH LOOK AT ME DADDY I'M A GAME DESIGNER!

[Daedolon]

The Sol game that got C&D from Descended studios looked better.

[MrFlibble]

icecoldduke, on 15 October 2015 - 04:18 PM, said:

I disagree. I think the art style has evolved nicely into, what I would have expected, from a next-gen Descent game.

I have played the trial version (v3.0.2) a bit more. I think that the ship didn't initially "feel" like the one from Descent because of different movement and/or acceleration speeds (I'm still not sure). However once I got accustomed to it I should say that the developers have tried to stay rather faithful to the original gameplay, while adding stuff like random levels and bonus upgrades.

The level design in the trial version reminded me of Daggerfall's random dungeons. It's nice and functional (and a bit buggy as it seems), but of course completely hand-crafted levels as in the original Descent games would probably be more challenging and interesting to explore. However I think Sublevel Zero is still a pretty nice experiment, at least it its initial development stages. Of course not having played the final product I can't say much about it.

[icecoldduke]

MrFlibble, on 16 October 2015 - 12:47 AM, said:

I have played the trial version (v3.0.2) a bit more. I think that the ship didn't initially "feel" like the one from Descent because of different movement and/or acceleration speeds (I'm still not sure). However once I got accustomed to it I should say that the developers have tried to stay rather faithful to the original gameplay, while adding stuff like random levels and bonus upgrades.

The level design in the trial version reminded me of Daggerfall's random dungeons. It's nice and functional (and a bit buggy as it seems), but of course completely hand-crafted levels as in the original Descent games would probably be more challenging and interesting to explore. However I think Sublevel Zero is still a pretty nice experiment, at least it its initial development stages. Of course not having played the final product I can't say much about it.

The ship is completely different . From what I was told in there chat room it is because of licensing issues. Interplay owns the Descent name, but Parallax owns the "PTMC", Robots, Pyro GX, etc, and apparently rights to those bits are in the same boat as Blood at the moment. So its basically going to be a reboot of Descent with basically the same premise but a different ship style, different shadow organization, etc.

[MrFlibble]

icecoldduke, on 16 October 2015 - 02:46 AM, said:

The ship is completely different . From what I was told in there chat room it is because of licensing issues. Interplay owns the Descent name, but Parallax owns the "PTMC", Robots, Pyro GX, etc, and apparently rights to those bits are in the same boat as Blood at the moment. So its basically going to be a reboot of Descent with basically the same premise but a different ship style, different shadow organization, etc.

I wasn't referring to the ship's design at all. I meant how it "feels" when you move around the levels. Even though I basically use the same WASD controls when playing Descent as the default control scheme in Sublevel Zero, it took some getting used to before I could properly navigate the levels, dodge projectiles and aim in the latter. I'm guessing that this is related to movement and acceleration speeds (or possibly mouse sensitivity), but I'm not sure.

It is perfectly understandable that the developers cannot use designs from the original Descent because they are copyrighted. However I think that in this game, the action, physics and the titular 6DoF movement are the key features, in addition to the level design of course.

Slightly off-topic, a while ago I was trying to find if there had ever been a free open content game data project for Descent similar to Freedoom. Indeed there was one called Freescent which regrettably never really took off. However, I also found another project which apparently did not use the Descent engine for whatever reason, but everything was made from scratch. The project was called Flight Back. The project seems to have been abandoned as well. Some information and videos can be found here and here.

[icecoldduke]

MrFlibble, on 16 October 2015 - 01:16 PM, said:

I wasn't referring to the ship's design at all. I meant how it "feels" when you move around the levels. Even though I basically use the same WASD controls when playing Descent as the default control scheme in Sublevel Zero, it took some getting used to before I could properly navigate the levels, dodge projectiles and aim in the latter. I'm guessing that this is related to movement and acceleration speeds (or possibly mouse sensitivity), but I'm not sure.

It is perfectly understandable that the developers cannot use designs from the original Descent because they are copyrighted. However I think that in this game, the action, physics and the titular 6DoF movement are the key features, in addition to the level design of course.

Slightly off-topic, a while ago I was trying to find if there had ever been a free open content game data project for Descent similar to Freedoom. Indeed there was one called Freescent which regrettably never really took off. However, I also found another project which apparently did not use the Descent engine for whatever reason, but everything was made from scratch. The project was called Flight Back. The project seems to have been abandoned as well. Some information and videos can be found here and here.

It would be great if people could just use the old descent code as a base for making a new game, it's a shame the Descent and Descent 2 code are still under Parallax's restrictive license.

[MrFlibble]

icecoldduke, on 16 October 2015 - 01:27 PM, said:

It would be great if people could just use the old descent code as a base for making a new game, it's a shame the Descent and Descent 2 code are still under Parallax's restrictive license.

It is my understanding that the license allows for the creation of derivative works as long as they are non-commercial. A free game could be created, although it would have some restrictions on distribution which do not apply to Freedoom for example (I'm guessing that it would not be possible to include that hypothetical game with commercial Linux distros).

However, with the general scarcity of Descent-like games, I think it's a good thing if people are motivated to create more such games from scratch.

[Lunick]

Steam page for the game http://store.steampo...com/app/360950/

[Striker]

Waiting to see PoC's opinion on the game, now that it's out.

[Person of Color]

I just bought it. If I have time later today I will try it out.

[Striker]

Anyone get to try it yet?

[Person of Color]

I haven't had a chance yet.

[DustFalcon85]

BREAKING NEWS: The Descent games 1-3 have been removed on GOG.com. Here's the explanation below. http://www.gog.com/f...from_sale/page1

Quote

Due to changing hands and in-flux legal agreements, we just had to remove Descent 1+2 & Descent 3 + Mercenary from our catalog, effective immediately.

We do want to apologize for not being able to give everyone more of a heads-up, and we will be doing our best to bring them back.

Did Interplay sell the Descent IP to Descent Studios or Volition? I want to know whats going on.

[MusicallyInspired]

Good thing I got those...

[Carl Winslow]

Lucky me I still have hard copies of all this shit, AND backups on my PC and external HDD.
I mean god, who would even pay for a game that's not gonna have any of it's staff left to recieve that money?

[Person of Color]

I still have the discs and manual for Descent: The Definitive Collection. Mine is the older 1.4a so the fucking music actually works.

The manual is a legit paper back book. Over 100 pages.

[Inspector Lagomorf]

I don't have jack and shit. So I'm pissed.

[MusicallyInspired]

I used to own Descent II on CD. Got it from a school scholastic book order. Lent it to a friend to listen to the music, whose brother stole it and lost it in his friend's truck. I don't lend things out idly anymore.

[MrFlibble]

Person of Color, on 25 December 2015 - 07:11 PM, said:

The manual is a legit paper back book. Over 100 pages.

And 150+ items on the reference list (at least 25% in foreign languages)?

[Duke of Hazzard]

The Descent games are still on my library, I guess it's only affected the sale.

I own Descent II legit on CD, though. And it happens to be better since the music is right.

[MrFlibble]

BTW, does anyone know if those MP3s that Interplay had available for download from their site are still legit to distribute?