Man I friggin loved Descent II. Game was so fun and immersive. I watched that opening cinematic over and over. The soundtrack was fantastic as well.
I later went and played Descent 1 as well but 2 was the one I played the most.
2 also has the thief bot which while infuriating also lead to some of the most memorable gameplay for me. Just chasing that little piece of shit to the ends of the earth and then feeling so triumphant when I finally nabbed it and got my stuff back.
It really was incredible. Especially back then when I hadn’t had much exposure yet to that style of music. The fact that it was CD quality instead of midi really helped.
I vividly remember discovering how you could just put the game disk in a regular CD player and it’d work. Kinda blew my mind lol.
I was in a computer club in High School. So we were able to play a few games in the computer lab after school. The teacher that headed it absolutely loved playing Descent, but she was also so bad at it that it was pure blind luck if she ever actually hit anyone.
I remember playing this on my Voodoo graphics card back in the day.
I always wanted to check it out again, but there are no proper discounts of this game anymore, and the price even increased to 20€ a couple of months back. Who thinks that anybody will buy Descent with DOSBox for 20€ in 2025? Might as well just use my old pirated copy on a burned CD I have somewhere.
Playing on a Pentium with 3D accelerator was a blessing and a curse. Multiplayer Descent 2 with someone who used one was wild. The game used client-side calculations that would break if your computer was fast.
Enemy homing missile trajectory was calculated per frame, so they were extremely difficult to avoid. At the same time, weapons like the gauss or plasma beam would shoot per frame, so you could kill an opponent so fast that it seemed instantanous on their end.
I used to have an early VR headset. With 3DoF headtracking, 640x480 at 60 Hz (combined, so actually every eye got only half of that). Descent supported stereoscopic 3D and the headtracking could be added to almost every game with a mouse driver. It was bad. Really bad. Descent alone could be nausea inducing. In VR it was a literal pukefest. Still I had to try it every few months or so, because it was so cool on paper.
I remember spending hours configuring the controls to something I would like. Mouse aiming? Never heard of it!
All I remember from my scheme was that A and Z were for up and down. Orientation probably with the cursor keys. I know I had something on capslock and shift. Maybe forwards and backwards.
Worth playing with the PS1 Descent soundtrack too for a different experience (or Descent Maximum as it was across the pond), it got me in to Type O-Negative too.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Rules
1. Submissions have to be related to games
Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.
This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.
2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil
No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.
We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.
3. No excessive self-promotion
Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.
This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.
4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you’re submitting before posting to see if it’s already been posted.
We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.
5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW
Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.
No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.
6. No linking to piracy
Don’t share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.
We don’t want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.
One of the things I’ve always remembered about Decent was when you put in cheat codes it would play a little sound effect of someone saying “cheater…”
I remember getting punished by trying to use the Descent 1 cheat codes in Descent 2.
gabbagabbahey
Played the shit outra this and descent 2. Sad its gone, but it gave us my favourite space sim: Descent FreeSpace 1 & 2
I loved Descent: Freespace, but I liked X-Wing: Alliance better.
Fuck yes, Descent 2 was even better, with your small helper robot and even more cool weapons/rockets.
Man I friggin loved Descent II. Game was so fun and immersive. I watched that opening cinematic over and over. The soundtrack was fantastic as well.
I later went and played Descent 1 as well but 2 was the one I played the most.
2 also has the thief bot which while infuriating also lead to some of the most memorable gameplay for me. Just chasing that little piece of shit to the ends of the earth and then feeling so triumphant when I finally nabbed it and got my stuff back.
Descent II has maybe the most unique soundtrack I have ever heard in a game.
It really was incredible. Especially back then when I hadn’t had much exposure yet to that style of music. The fact that it was CD quality instead of midi really helped.
I vividly remember discovering how you could just put the game disk in a regular CD player and it’d work. Kinda blew my mind lol.
I was in a computer club in High School. So we were able to play a few games in the computer lab after school. The teacher that headed it absolutely loved playing Descent, but she was also so bad at it that it was pure blind luck if she ever actually hit anyone.
Played the hell out of 1, 2, and 3, along with Freespace. Planetdescent was my home for years. Shakerheads unite!
Nausea has never been as fun as it was back then.
FYI, there’s a modern Descent-like game called Overload.
It has VR support.
If you liked and miss Decent, check out Overload on Steam. It’s great.
Fun fact: Overload supports VR.
It didn’t make me motion sick, so I’m confident nothing ever will.
For those that don’t know, this was made by the original Descent devs. It’s also great on Deck.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/448850/Overload/
The resemblance is immediately obvious. Didn’t know this existed. Thanks.
It’s made by the original Descent devs and it genuinely slaps :)
Already bought it. It’s the Descent IV we never got 20 years ago. Dang, been a while since I thought of the dev drama surrounding these games.
Overload is VERY good I highly recommend, not even for nostalgia it is just a great game period.
This game holds a special place in my life. Back in the 90s we had it on the family PC and it was so awesome.
Every once in a while I play it on DOSBox. I fully recomend it. It’s an amazing game.
that was a great game
I remember playing this on my Voodoo graphics card back in the day.
I always wanted to check it out again, but there are no proper discounts of this game anymore, and the price even increased to 20€ a couple of months back. Who thinks that anybody will buy Descent with DOSBox for 20€ in 2025? Might as well just use my old pirated copy on a burned CD I have somewhere.
Playing on a Pentium with 3D accelerator was a blessing and a curse. Multiplayer Descent 2 with someone who used one was wild. The game used client-side calculations that would break if your computer was fast.
Enemy homing missile trajectory was calculated per frame, so they were extremely difficult to avoid. At the same time, weapons like the gauss or plasma beam would shoot per frame, so you could kill an opponent so fast that it seemed instantanous on their end.
I used to have an early VR headset. With 3DoF headtracking, 640x480 at 60 Hz (combined, so actually every eye got only half of that). Descent supported stereoscopic 3D and the headtracking could be added to almost every game with a mouse driver. It was bad. Really bad. Descent alone could be nausea inducing. In VR it was a literal pukefest. Still I had to try it every few months or so, because it was so cool on paper.
I would really like to try out this VR headset, almost as a technology history type project.
Unfortunately it died a few years ago.
The late 90s first VR wave was something to behold.
I played the shit out of this. I bet the controls are still hard coded in me.
I remember spending hours configuring the controls to something I would like. Mouse aiming? Never heard of it!
All I remember from my scheme was that A and Z were for up and down. Orientation probably with the cursor keys. I know I had something on capslock and shift. Maybe forwards and backwards.
You rolled with Q and W, dude.
Brilliant game.
Worth playing with the PS1 Descent soundtrack too for a different experience (or Descent Maximum as it was across the pond), it got me in to Type O-Negative too.
Civvie 11 had a good video on both Descent games.
I played terminal velocity, kind of like the ‘we have descent at home’
Also around that time there was a game Magic Carpet EA published that had a similar feel
Terminal Velocity was a fantastic game in its own right
Yes, I loved it.