Descent (video game)

Descent
Developer(s)	Parallax Software (Descent 1 and 2) Outrage Entertainment (Descent 3)
Publisher(s)	Interplay Productions
Engine	Portal Rendering System
Platform(s)	PC, (MS-DOS), Mac OS, PlayStation, Acorn Archimedes
Release	February 28, 1995
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single player Multiplayer

Descent is a 3D first-person shooter video game noted for popularizing the use of true 3D rendering technology and providing the player with six full degrees of freedom (often abbreviated "6DOF") to move and to look around. Descent spawned two direct sequels (Descent II and Descent 3). The Descent name was used in an unrelated arcade space simulator called Descent: Freespace, primarily due to copyright issues in certain regions. Descent was developed by Parallax Software and released in 1995. Although old by modern gaming standards, it is still cherished by a strong community of fans and new levels continue to be developed.

Descent 3 constituted a major technical upgrade of the first two program versions, introducing many at its time ground breaking graphical techniques like portal rendering, procedural texturing, advanced lighting, etc. and was probably the graphically most advanced game of its time. The backside of this was that it was very taxing for the hardware.

The trademark for Descent was allowed to lapse by Interplay in 2002.

Rendering

The original Descent runs under DOS and is (with some tweaking) playable on 386-based PCs at 33 MHz. With the release of the Pentium, the performance requirements were no longer an issue. Descent was ported to Apple's Power Macintosh in 1996 and both versions support multiplayer network play over a variety of protocols. A console port of Descent was created for the Sony PlayStation, and a sequel entitled Descent Maximum followed. The Playstation version of Descent Maximum contained the same soundtrack as Descent II, but had a completely unique level set, never released on any other platform. Like the Macintosh version, the Playstation version also features a Redbook audio soundtrack, something the original DOS Descent lacks (the soundtrack came as a MIDI score).

Descent was released in 1994, one year after id Software's Doom. As was typical with those releases, Descent uses a software renderer due to the fact that affordable 3D graphics accelerator cards (referred to as add-on videocards) were not mainstream as yet. While Doom uses sprites to render enemies, Descent features fully-3D-polygonal enemies. Quake followed in the footsteps of Descent by displaying its enemies in 3D. Unlike Doom and its successor Quake, Descent does not use BSP trees to speed up rendering, but a system of connected cubes forming bigger rooms and tunnels connecting them. This geometry allowed for very efficient visibility culling, and the first true three dimensional rendering environment of the time.

Another significant improvement over Doom was that Descent used sprites (two dimensional bitmaps) only for powerups and not for opponents. With true 3D enemies, the game introduced a higher level of realism.

Graphics

The original Descent uses indexed 8-bit color in DOS's display mode 13h, using 320 × 200 resolution. The Macintosh and later PC versions allow higher resolutions, such as 640 × 480. The default engine uses a software renderer in which the perspective transformation for texture mapping is only performed once every 32 pixels, causing textures to appear to pop or shift when viewed from certain angles. The software renderer also uses nearest-neighbor texture filtering, as opposed to bilinear filtering or trilinear filtering used by modern video cards. Nearest-neighbor texture filtering causes aliasing artifacts, such as blocky or swimming textures.

The engine for Descent and Descent II operates on the premise of interconnected cubes. Sides of cubes can be attached to other cubes, or display up to two texture maps. Cubes can be deformed so long as they remain convex. To create effects like doors and see-through grating, walls could be placed at the connected sides of two cubes. Descent introduced an elaborate static lighting scheme as well as simple dynamic lighting, where the environment could be lit with flares or (in Descent II) darkened by shooting out lights - another advancement compared to Doom.

Descent 3 utilizes an indoor and outdoor engine in tandem, collectively called the Fusion Engine. The engine supports bump-mapping (a revolutionary and eye-catching feature at the time) dynamic colored lighting, relatively complex environments, and weather effects. Unlike contemporary first-person shooters such as Unreal or Quake, Descent 3 architecture does not rely on brushes (three dimensional bodies forming the level walls, doors, etc). Rather it relies on basic vertex/face modeling (where two dimensional planes form the walls). It is said the original levels are mostly developed in 3D Studio Max.

Storyline

Descent: First Strike

The player is one of the Post-Terran Mining Corporation (PTMC)'s Material Defenders. Unfortunately, Samuel Dravis, an executive at PTMC, sends the player on a mission to destroy PTMC's mines. An alien virus has infected the robots working there, and they've turned into killers. It's now the player's job to rescue any hostages, and destroy the mine, hopefully taking the robots with it when it explodes.

Descent II: Counterstrike!

After the player has destroyed all of the mines in the solar system in the original Descent, he stops in the Asteroid belt for refueling. Dravis then contacts him and forces him to work some more:

"If you've studied your standard mercenary agreement, you would notice that PTMC reserves the right to keep you on retainer for up to 72 hours, post-mission. If you choose to decline further service, we will consider you in default of your contract, and your fee will be suspended, pending litigation. Good luck Material Defender. Dravis out."

The player's ship is fitted with a prototype warp core and he is sent to clear out all of PTMC's deep space mines, the last of which seems to be some kind of artificial planet and/or alien spaceship. After completing all of this work, the player is ready to go home, but instead his warp core malfunctions, sending him to an unknown location...

Descent 3: Retribution

At the opening movie of Descent 3, we see the player's ship drifting, unfortunately, into the sun. The player himself was unconscious at this point. At the very last moment, just as his ship began to burn up due to excess heat, what seemed to be a salvage vessel of sorts saved the ship, as well as his life. After using some bizarre tools including a drill and saw, the player was extracted from his ship, and it - or rather, what was left of it - was disposed in the sun.

The player finds out later that a research team on Mars, the Red Acropolis Research Team, were the ones who had found him by chance. He also finds out to his grief that his ship - the only part of the PTMC that he liked - was destroyed.

A little while afterwards, the player sits with the director of the research team, Katelyn Harper. She tells him of strange things that were happening in the PTMC, as well as the fact that one of her acquaintances, Jerry, a worker in the PTMC, was killed by a robot. What made the Red Acropolis Team suspicious of the PTMC was when they denied that they had ever employed Jerry, even though he had worked with them for years. The Red Acropolis Research Team had tried to notify the Collective Earth Defense (CED), a large anti-terrorist and police group, of the PTMC's actions, but according to her, the CED did not listen to the Red Acropolis Research Team - the PTMC was so great that it even overshadows the CED.

Katelyn Harper also tells the player that while he was clearing the PTMC's mines of the virus, the PTMC were actually testing and modifying it. The virus, she said, was extremely advanced nanotechnology, capable of reprogramming a robot in just seconds. She wants to stop the virus, and she wants the player for the job. After some persuasion and offers from her, including a new ship, a few weapons at the Red Acropolis Team's disposal, and even a GuideBot, the player gives in:

"Okay, okay, I'll go. But only this once, understand? The PTMC owes me a lot of money and I intend to collect it."

At this point, the player is shown an animation. Katelyn Harper says that the PTMC had deliberately sent a signal with a pre-programmed overload sequence to his ship, causing its warp core to malfunction and release huge amounts of radiation - too large an amount for the player to handle. Her team had followed this signal and found him.

Gameplay

Navigation

Although the keyboard interface for moving and rotating in full 3D space is easily learned, many players initially suffered from nausea and confusion since any viewpoint became possible. With practice, however, most people found the game fluid and very enjoyable. A bigger annoyance for casual players was getting lost in the mines (some of which were very large and complex). Highly experienced players who could memorize the mine layouts became adept enough to play the game continually upside-down.

Like Doom, Descent provides a navigational wireframe map that will display any area of the mine visited or seen by the player. Since it is truly 3D, however, navigating the map can be challenging, especially so in the shareware demo. The commercial release of Descent made map navigation more intuitive. One helpful trick is to use the "-" and "+" keys to decrease or increase the scope of the wireframe map.

Compared to other 3D shooter games, Descent never became particularly popular; probably due to its increased demand to the player's ability to keep his orientation in a fully 3D environment with a 6dof flight model. Also learning to effectively exploit (tri-) chording - increasing movement speed by simultaneously pressing the acceleration controls for several movement directions - steepened the learning curve. The challenge this poses attracted and still attracts players though, and make it a continued success over 10 years after the first game of the franchise appeared. All games of the series still have their fans who regular play online matches, but despite its short comings in gameplay and weapon balance, Descent 3 - due to its relatively modern engine - still is the most played game of the three.

While Descent has its niche due to its unique type of gameplay, it never became a blockbuster like more easily accessible ground-oriented 3D shooter games. Plans by the original makers to create a sequel were scrapped due to the dissatisfactory sales numbers of the game, and due to rights ownership issues.

Some Descent players used a special controller, the SpaceOrb to play the game. The SpaceOrb was basically a standard game pad, with a tennis ball mounted where the left hand goes. By twisting, and pulling the ball in different directions, the player had full six-degrees of movement, in a very intuitive manner. Players using the SpaceOrb had a significant advantage over keyboard users, or keyboard and mouse users.

Multiplayer

Like Doom, Descent offers excellent competitive multiplayer game play over a LAN. Descent is also touted as being one of the first games that allowed on-the-fly joining of multiplayer games, whereas in Doom it is presumed that all players have to be queued prior to initiating the match. With the advent of Internet IPX emulators such as Kali, more and more people began to play Descent and Descent II over the Internet. Descent II was especially popular online due to its support for short packets and variable packet rate -- options which were crucial for smooth Internet play.

Levels and robots

In the original Descent, there are 27 levels corresponding to 27 different and unique mines (and also three secret levels). The first three begin on the Moon, the fourth on Venus, the sixth on Mercury, and these levels also make up the shareware version. In the commercial release, the path continues out towards Mars and on towards the moons of the gas giants Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and finally until Pluto and Charon. There are 3 secret levels, which can be accessed by secret exits that are placed as an alternative to the regular exits in certain levels.

Descent II focuses on systems beyond the solar system. The planets are Zeta Aquilae, Quartzon, Brimspark, Limefrost Spiral, Baloris Prime, and Omega. The Omega system is subdivided into the Puuma Sphere and Tycho Brahe. Each system consists of 4 regular levels and 1 secret level. The secret levels are unique in that the player can travel back and forth between the regular levels (of the same system) via teleporters; however the player may not save on the secret level.

Some of these planets have notable characteristics:

• Baloris Prime is mostly desert. According to the writers, this is because its axis of rotation is exactly perpendicular to its plane of orbit, causing a total lack of seasons on the planet's surface.
• Tycho Brahe is actually a spaceship the size and shape of a planet, easily mistaken for one until its two hemispheres separate to reveal a mechanical interior.

In certain levels, a boss robot replaces the reactor as the main objective. In the first Descent, the seventh level (which was the end of the shareware version) and the final level are cited as the most difficult. Both have large boss robots that fire powerful weaponry (the shareware boss fires Smart missiles, the final boss fires Mega Missiles) and have the ability to cloak and teleport. The final boss also gates in other robots. These two robots have gone by various names throughout time but the two most popular ones among serious descent players stand. The level seven boss is often referred to as 'Spike', due to its appearance. The final boss is often referred to as 'Steve'. The name for the final boss, however, is controversial and has been also known as 'The Big Eye Guy' and 'Wiki Tiki'.

Descent II places a boss robot on the fourth level of each system. The final boss robot fires Earthshaker missiles and can only be damaged via a small vulnerable spot in the back; this gained some infamy when a bug (subsequently fixed by a patch) made the boss completely invincible at higher difficulty levels.

Planets come with a complementary set of "themed" robots, instead of recyling enemies like Doom. This is especially evident in Descent II and onwards; for example, Brimspark (a volcanic lava planet) bots fire yellow/orange blast or explosive weapons, while in Limefrost Spiral (an ice world) bots unleash blue/white bursts from their Spreadfire and Helix cannons.

The enemy AI was quite good for its time, with most robots being able to dodge a player's fire, making for challenging firefights and duels. There are special AI strategies that complement the bots' attacking style, with regular (firing) robots starting in sniping mode and often aggressivly pursuing if the player retreated, close-combat robots which are highly manuverable and charge the player, and certain "cunning" or "lurking" bots that track the player and only attack when it will achieve surprise.

Descent II adds bots which are extremely small and fast, plus actively roaming bots such as the Bandit (commonly referred to as the Thief-Bot) which can steal the player's weapons or the E-bandit which can drain energy/shields. Descent 3 improves on the AI significantly, leading to robots that effectively work in teams and go to fetch help if outnumbered.

Objectives

Each levels starts with the player in his ship materializing in a starting location within the mine. The player must then navigate through the mine destroying enemy robots and picking up powerups if his resources run low. The player's spacecraft has a fixed energy capacity and most weapons and tools require regular pickups of energy powerups to be able to continue firing. Killing opponents often releases such powerups. There are also permanent recharging areas called "energy centers" and players often make it a priority to seek these out first in order to give themselves an unlimited supply of energy.

In the first two games, the player has limited lives. When the ship is destroyed, it respawned at the mine's entrance. However, all the powerups (weapons, etc.) acquired thus far will be strewn about the area of death waiting to be reacquired. There is also a complementary points system, which the player can earn by destroying enemy robots, picking up powerups, and detonating the reactor. The most points will be earned by rescuing the trapped PTMC workers in each mine and safely escaping with them after destroying the reactor. Accumulating enough points will result in an extra life.

In Descent and Descent II, the goal of each level is to find a series of keys, usually in the order of blue, yellow, and red. Each key will correspond with a door of that color. Beyond the red door is the reactor. By shooting at the reactor, it can be detonated, setting off a countdown timer. The player will have to find the route back to the exit tunnel before the countdown expires and the reactor's meltdown vapourizes the entire mine. If the player cannot escape but he has extra lives to spare, he can proceed to the next level but be forced to start with minimal weapons.

Descent II has the same objectives of its predecessor but adds many puzzles and traps, some which are required to complete the level while others are used to guard valuable powerups and hostages. In contrast, Descent 3's objectives are more diverse, ranging from escort missions to an ironic mission where reactors must be defended.

Weapons

The overall gameplay is enhanced by the wide variety of weapons the player can wield. Often, they are used for their novelty and variety instead of tactical considerations. Some such as the promixity bomb, smart mine, and flash missile, were designed specifically for multiplayer.

Descent's handling of weapons in multiplayer differs from other first-person shooters. Instead of respawning primary weapons, which could potentially allow several players to pick up the same weapon over time, only one player can have it at a time, forcing his opponents to destroy him in order to acquire it.

Descent

The original Descent features ten weapons; five primary weapons and five missiles:

Primary weapons:

• Laser - precise and efficient energy weapon with four power levels with corresponding colors, and a 'quad laser' powerup which doubles the player's cannons to four
• Vulcan Cannon - non-energy primary weapon that uses ammunition which can be picked up; an instant-impact or hitscan weapon; very weak but rapid firing - uses up much ammo to kill enemies; useful for sniping since it leaves no tracers
• Spreadfire Cannon - a medium-close ranged weapon with three energy spheres per shot, alternates between horizontal and vertical spreads; fairly fast firing and devastating in close quarters
• Plasma Cannon - rapidly fires large, fast-flying, large green colored plasma spheres in pairs; making it one of the most versatile and dangerous energy weapons although it has an extremely high energy consumption. Referred to as the "Dogfighter's best friend"
• Fusion Cannon - hold down the firing button to charge the cannon, releasing the fire button unleashes a large purple blob. Very devastating when fully charged; only energy weapon with splash/radius damage; can go through and damage multiple enemies; while this is a difficult weapon to master in multiplayer, due to the fact that the player's ship will move involuntarily when charging up the Fusion Cannon, it is extremely potent in the hands of a skilled pilot, who will be able to kill other pilots with just one charged-up hit

Missiles:

• Concussion Missile - basic dumbfire rocket; area damage; medium speed
• Homing Missile - less powerful but faster than the concussion missile, automatically locks on and follows a target ("fire and forget"); can be evaded
• Proximity Bomb - stationary mine that explodes at timeout or on contact; useful for delaying chasers or setting traps
• Smart Missile - heavy missile that releases a group of five homing plasma spheres that detonate on impact or timed self-destruct, allows the player to target multiple enemies
• Mega Missile - homing megaton missile with huge area effect; a single hit is enough to kill players and most robots

Descent II

Descent II uses the same weapons as Descent, and also adds upgraded/complementary versions of each.

Primary weapons:

• Super Laser - extra upgrade levels five and six for the standard Lasers, although the first Super Laser pickup will instantly boost to level five regardless of current laser status.
• Gauss Cannon - upgraded Vulcan Cannon that uses less ammunition and does more damage, including radius/splash damage, although it can damage the player at close range.
• Helix Cannon - fast-firing rotating spread, similar to Spreadfire Cannon but has a spread of five bursts with four rotations, also higher energy consumption.
• Phoenix Cannon - energy bolts that bounce off walls, allowing the player to hit enemies around corners; capable of destroying player if fired carelessly.
• Omega Cannon - rapid-fire homing bolts, like lightning, that temporarily blinds its targets; uses separate energy bank that charges from main energy. This weapon initially caused much controversy during online play due to a bug that caused the number of bolts fired to be directly proportional to the speed of the weapon user's video-card. This caused the weapon to often be removed from the online arsenal by the host, until a patch fixing the problematic bug was released.

Missiles:

• Flash Missile - low-powered missile that temporarily blinds/stuns its target; if used against players, a direct hit will turn his entire screen white, while near misses will cause a similar but lesser effect.
• Guided Missile - can be remotely guided by the player and hitting the firing button will turn it into regular homing missile; useful for scouting or sniping.
• Smart Mine - similar to proximity bomb, but releases homing golden energy pulses when it explodes. The weapon is powerful and can be used in a 'dive bombing' maneuver. When performed successfully it almost always results in an instant kill.
• Mercury Missile - fastest of all missiles, similar to Vulcan cannon in speed and virtually impossible to dodge.
• Earthshaker Missile - excessively powerful warhead that releases smaller homing projectiles upon impact, similar idea to Smart Missile; likely to destroy player if used carelessly. True to its name, the initial impact shakes the entire level and it is capable of disorienting a player even a large distance away from the explosion. It also causes any normal light sources within the level to flicker on and off, making navigation temporarily difficult.

Descent 3

Ships

Because the player's original ship - the Pyro-GX - was destroyed, he has been given a replica of the Pyro-GX, known as the Pyro-GL. The Pyro-GL is a good all-round ship which is relatively agile and can carry a good amount of ordnance.

On Level 5, the Red Acropolis Research Team's base of operations, the Red Acropolis Research Facility, was attacked and destroyed by the CED when the PTMC framed the player for assassinating its president, a terrorist act. During the attack, a CED Phoenix Interceptor crash-landed in a remote area of Mars. On the next Level, the player is assigned to recover this craft before the CED does. If he succeeds, he is rewarded with the usage of the Phoenix, a very fast and agile ship which suffers from weak shields and light payload.

On Level 9, the Red Acropolis Research Team must prove to the CED that they are not terrorists. In order to do that, however, they will need to build a ship that is more heavily armed than both the Phoenix and Pyro-GL. The player is assigned to escort and protect a covert cargo transport that will trespass a PTMC spacecraft factory on Mercury in order to get the components required to build this new ship. If the player is successful, he is rewarded with another new ship; the Magnum-AHT. The Magnum-AHT is known in multiplayer groups as the 'Tank'. It is very large, heavy and slow, but as an advantage, it has stronger shields than the other two ships and can carry the most number of missiles out of all three ships. It can also fire triple bursts for some of its primary weapons.

Descent 3: Mercenary would add yet another ship into the list, effectively making it four; the Black Pyro. This is the PTMC's rendition of the original Pyro-GX. It is relatively similar in specifications to the Pyro-GL and has a striking resemblance to the Pyro-GX, although it is slightly more agile than both ships and has slightly more missile space than the Pyro-GL. It can also fire triple bursts for one primary weapon, and is capable of dual-firing for some of the missiles, although the drawback to this second feature is that it cannot fire if there is only one missile left for these missiles.

Unlike the original Descent 3 campaign where the player can choose his ship at the start of the Level once two or more ships are available, the Descent 3: Mercenary campaign does not allow the player to do so. In addition, unless a modification called Black Pyro Justice is used, the Black Pyro cannot be used in the original Descent 3 campaign in singleplayer mode.

Weapons

Descent 3 featured many new weapons but also discarded several of the "classic" Descent weapons, although the Laser, Plasma, and Fusion Cannons, plus the Concussion, Homing, Smart, and Mega Missiles would make it.

The Black Pyro's Plasma Cannon fires differently from the other ships; instead of a regular firing rate, the Black Pyro features a faster, intermittent pulse-like fire.

Primary Weapons:

• The Vulcan and Gauss Cannons have been replaced by the Vauss Cannon. Vauss supposedly took the best aspects of both weapons, but left the weapon with a much-decreased firing rate.
  The Vauss fires differently for the Pyro-GL and Black Pyro; instead of firing dual bursts, it fires in a sequential left-right order, effectively increasing the Vauss' firing rate but doing less damage. Requires special ammunition.
• The Mass Driver is a powerful but slow-firing sniper weapon that requires special ammunition.
• The Napalm Cannon shoots a stream of napalm that ignites enemies, but also the player if used carelessly.
  The number of streams differ on different ships; one stream for the Phoenix Interceptor, two streams for the Pyro-GL and Black Pyro, and three streams for the Magnum-AHT.
• The EMD Gun is a fast-firing but weak weapon that has a limited homing ability and also uses a lot of energy; it is considered by many to be the most disappointing weapon in D3.
• The Microwave Cannon is a rapid-firing but slow-moving energy weapon that causes the enemy's view to become severely distorted.
  Only the Magnum-AHT is capable of firing triple bursts for this weapon. Other ships fire in a sequential left-right order.
• The Omega Cannon is a very short-ranged weapon that drains an enemy's shields and also recharges the player's shields at the same time. Unfortunately the effect is nowhere near as powerful as it was in D2 and it consumes outrageous amounts of energy.
  The Black Pyro is the only ship capable of firing three streams for this weapon. The other ships are only capable of dual streams.
• The Spreadfire, Helix, and Phoenix Cannons have been removed from the game.

Secondary Weapons:

• The Frag Missile blasts many tiny bits of shrapnel into nearby targets upon impact. Although it is possible to destroy an enemy by "fragging" its side, the effect, however, is highly random, making the weapon useless in open spaces.
• The Impact Mortar is a powerful bomb that bounces off walls until it is ready to detonate or hits an enemy, and it features tremendous explosive power.
• The Napalm Rocket is a missile used to set enemies on fire. This was commonly used to block off an enemy from a certain route. A direct hit from a napalm rocket is almost impossible to survive, as even the fire it leaves behind on impact often results in a kill. If a Napalm Rocket hits a wall, it will release small fiery projectiles that burn anything that touches them.
• The Cyclone Missile is essentially a flechette missile. When it detonates, it features a number of projectiles that move towards the nearest targets. In theory, this is good for taking out a small group of enemies in quick order. In practice, the weapon was of very little use, either in single player or multiplayer mode.
• The Black Shark Missile is an experimental, extremely powerful missile. When used, it essentially creates a mini black hole that sucks in surrounding objects, including the player if he is not careful. After a few seconds, the missile detonates, destroying all objects caught in the vortex.
• Descent II weapons such as the Flash, Mercury, and Earthshaker Missiles and the Smart Mine have been removed from the game.
• The classic Proximity Bomb is now a countermeasure.

Countermeasures

Countermeasures were added in Descent 3 as a third weapon category but when the Proximity Bomb was included in this group, it only marginalized this type of weapon. The inherent difficulty in managing not two, but three different categories of weapon to be used simultaneously in a given situation resulted in countermeasures being given little to no attention in multiplayer.

• The Gunboy is a stationary turret that can be used to cover positions or alert the player of the presence of an enemy. It uses a laser to attack enemies. When an enemy comes within range, the Gunboy starts attacking it.
• The Bouncing Betty countermeasure is an all-but-useless weapon. When dropped, it falls to the ground and bounces at exponential velocities, gradually flying all over the place in a chaotic fashion. The problem with this weapon is that by the time it began moving fast enough to be useful, the battle was long over or had moved to a different location. Furthermore, it explodes shortly after reaching useful speed. Lastly, it causes very little damage.
• The Proximity Bomb was rarely used in the previous two games and the trend continues in Descent 3. It does very little damage, even if an opponent is hapless enough to wander into one. Many people expected that it would have the attributes of the Smart Mine (causing little damage on initial explosion, but spewing powerful mini-warheads akin to the Smart Missile), since Smart Mines became highly popular and were very useful in Descent II.
• The Chaff is a droppable packet which would attract any weapons locked-on to the dropping player. Although this theoretically makes it a rather useful tool in combat, it was rarely even available for pickup in most multiplayer maps.

Flares

All Descent games have also given the player a Flare to fire into dark areas for illumination. In Descent, the Flare cost 1 energy per shot to fire and when energy was completely depleted from the player's ship, it was no longer available. In Descent 2, the cost to fire a Flare was lowered to one energy unit per two shots, but it could still be fired (at a decreased rate) even if the player no longer had any energy. Finally, in Descent 3 the Flare was made a no-energy weapon, although it cannot be fired from the Phoenix and Magnum-AHT once the player has no energy left while flying these ships. Consistent throughout the series however, is the common use of the Flare as a weapon used to humiliate a near-dead opponent. Since a Flare could only cause one unit of damage even at the highest difficulty level, being killed by one is a humiliating experience.

Sequels, Add-Ons and Expansions

In chronological order of release:

Descent Mission Builder (1995)

A commercial Descent level editor, created by Brainware. Users can create their own single-player and multi-player levels with the program and then play them.

Descent: Levels of The World (1995)

A popular add-on for Descent, containing all of the entries from a level design competition held by Interplay in 1995. A viewer is included, allowing the player to see a preview of each map, as well as selecting ones that received a "Top 10" award or an honorable mention.

Descent II (1996)

Originally planned as an expansion (and not a sequel) to Descent, Descent II added more weapon types, different enemy types, different mines, laser-reflecting force field walls, and transporter areas. In response to complaints that Descent's levels were mostly dull and lacked creativity, Descent II's levels were designed with a theme in mind; as an example, Level 2 "Turnabout Bore" lives up to its name since the map resembles a figure-8. There is the inclusion of difficult puzzles; most to hide valuable powerups but some are required to complete the level. A notable addition was the Guide-Bot, a companion robot the player could use to aid in navigation and other tasks. Another major improvement was the enemy robot AI with some robots not only being able to dodge fire but also do hit-and-run attacks or roam through the level. Most infamous was the Bandit or Thief-Bot which was a fast-moving and hard-to-kill enemy that attempted to steal the player's weapons and equipment; the similar E-Bandit will drain the player's energy and shields.

Graphics were still 8-bit, but multiple resolutions were supported, and it was ported to the Macintosh. After its release a patch was issued to add support for early 3D accelerators running the S3 ViRGE chipset. A patch (also from Parallax) added 3Dfx Voodoo support further down the line. The soundtrack was composed by range of musicians, from Type O Negative to Mark Walk and Skinny Puppy's Nivek Ogre. An expansion pack featured remixes of some tracks from the original score.

While the first Descent had been released as shareware with 7 levels, Descent II was released as a shorter 3 level demo. Another truncated version of Descent II was "Destination Quartzon" which featured the first 8 levels and was bundled with the Logitech Wingman Extreme joystick.

Descent Mission Builder 2 (1996)

An authorized, commercial Descent and Descent II level editor from Brainware. It gives users the tools necessary to design, create and implement levels for the commercial versions of Descent and Descent II. It is also capable of converting Descent levels into Descent II levels.

Descent II: The Vertigo Series (1996)

An add-on for Descent II containing twenty user-made levels from a Computer Gaming World level design competition, plus the officially licensed Descent Mission Builder 2. It was lauded for its creative level design and the introduction of many exotic robots, although some levels also borrowed robots from Descent.

Descent II: The Infinite Abyss (1997)

A 2-CD special release of Descent II. The first disc contains Descent II with the latest patch applied (providing support for 3dfx and Rendition video cards), while the second disc is the original "Vertigo Series" add-on.

Descent 3 (1999)

Descent 3 natively supports the Direct3D, Glide and OpenGL rendering API's and has a completely rebuilt engine, capable of rendering outdoor environments with an automatic LOD (level-of-detail) terrain system. The higher resolution and renderer change makes the textures appear flatter, however, and thus the game seems less ominous and spooky, rather being more colourful and brighter than its predecessors. Although reviewers praised and lauded it, gamers failed to take note, perhaps because of the high system requirements at the time, with badly timed and themed advertising. Many people also point out that the most common control scheme at the time - mouse+keyboard - was disabled by default in multiplayer modes, in order to appease joystick users. The gameplay style also differed significantly from its predecessors, with trichording much more difficult to accomplish, and the inclusion of several badly balanced and overly powerful weapons. Ending up, Descent 3 was not as successful as the developers were hoping for.

Descent 3: Mercenary

File:D3 Merc Box Art.jpg

Descent 3: Mercenary box art

Descent 3: Mercenary is an official expansion pack for Descent 3. It adds a new single-player campaign featuring seven levels, as well as the Black Pyro, three new multiplayer modes, the Descent 3 Level Editor (which allows for the creation of new levels in Descent 3) and a number of fan-made levels.

The storyline of the single-player campaign of Descent 3: Mercenary is a prelude to the actual Descent 3, which explains the events after Descent II all the way up to the first half of Descent 3.

The player is a pilot working under the CED's 'Special Ops' unit, and has been entrusted with the task of destroying the illegal colony that the PTMC was building on Mars. His original mission was to place a nuclear disruptor in the colony's primary reactor before being extracted from the area, but soon after he does so, the CED abandons him to the effects of a nuclear meltdown.

The player escaped by seeking refuge in the colony's waste-disposal system, which survived the blast. Soon after, Samuel Dravis himself personally takes the player under his wing for three missions: to wreak havoc on the CED, control the alien virus and take full control of the PTMC.

According to the Official D3 FAQ, 'some complained about this one as a cheap ripoff with not enough new features', although it has been praised for the complexity of the single-player levels.

Descent (PlayStation)

A version of Descent was also produced for the PlayStation. It features the same levels as the PC version of Descent, but adds a remixed soundtrack, prerendered cinematics, and colored lighting effects.

Descent Maximum (PlayStation)

Descent Maximum is the spiritual counterpart of Descent II on the PlayStation. Unlike the first PlayStation Descent which was considered mostly a direct port, Descent Maximum was designed to better accommodate the console and contained 30 entirely new levels. These maps had similar themes to those in Descent II, but were generally smaller than their PC cousins.

Related titles

It is widely believed that Volition was working on Descent 4 only to have the decision changed to have the game finished and marketed as the first-person shooter Red Faction. Observant Descent fans may have noticed that Descent's opening briefing made a reference to the "Humans First" strike (see the Premise section above) where the miners rebelled against the new robot technology. This reportedly served as a basis for Red Faction, although Red Faction does not directly relate to Descent. An archived copy of the official Descent 4 website started by Volition is here.

Descent: Freespace also used 3D acceleration. Because Freespace is a flight simulator, a main difference was that no player-controlled ships could strafe (though some enemy-controlled ships could), requiring the player to adopt a different strategy for dodging enemy weapons fire. As the action took place entirely in deep space, it was harder to judge one's velocity since there were fewer frames of reference. Freespace has no direct connection to the Descent series, and was given the "Descent" prefix to avoid trademark issues (in Europe, it was released as Conflict: Freespace).

It is rumored that Freespace originally had missions involving the search for the Material Defender's ship from the Descent series. Freespace 2 also contains references to Descent; its opening score has the same tune as the opening sequence in the PlayStation version of Descent 2, and contains a ship codenamed the 'Horus', the name given to the Material Defender in the PlayStation version of Descent 2. The ship is reminiscent of the PyroGX and fires its forward lasers in the hallmark quad formation of the Descent craft.

Freespace had a sequel in the form of Freespace 2 (without "Descent"), but like Descent 3, it was not very successful despite positive reviews.

Descent novels

On a side note, the Descent series also spawned a trilogy of novels written by Peter Telep and sold at several major booksellers. The titles are Descent, Descent: Stealing Thunder, and Descent: Equinox. The novels did not follow the games to the word, but expanded on the basic premise, and were very well received.

Descent movie

There were rumors of a Descent movie. NBC commissioned a script for a TV movie but then decided to be adapted for movie theaters. Interplay Productions, the owner and publisher of the Descent games, created a division called Interplay Movies that was going to develop the popular Interplay franchises of the time into movies, one of which was Descent. The last known update was in 1999, so the plans are considered dead. Interplay Movies reportedly successfully got Redneck Rampage made into a film, although it was never released.

One thing that lends credence to this Descent movie is a filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office of a 2000 abandoned trademark filing of Descent with the "Goods and/or Services" being listed as "International Class: 041 entertainment services, namely, production and distribution of live action theatrical, motion pictures and television motion pictures and animated and live action television series featuring action, adventure and science fiction stories."

Source code

D2X

D2X

The source code to the original Descent (minus the audio code, which was replaced with the Allegro project) was released in 1997. The source code to Descent II and Freespace 2 has also been released. Open source projects have sprung up around these source releases and can be found on the Internet, the most popular project being D1X. D1X was a modified executable file of Descent, which added many new features such as the ability to change resolution, customizable primary and secondary weapon priority, and many other features that could be found in Descent II. After the release of the Descent II source code, the D1X project sparked another project called D2X, which went on to enhance the gameplay of Descent II. D1X and D2X also made it possible to play the games on different platforms like Linux.

Since work on the D1X and D2X projects became stagnant, a Windows specific development branch was spawned from the D2X project, fixing virtually all of the issues D2X still had and adding a lot of new features, such as the ability to play Descent missions in Descent 2. Originally, this branch went by the name D2X-W32. It was ported to Linux and Mac OS X later on, and its name was changed to D2X-XL to reflect both the broader scope and greatly enhanced feature set of the project.

D2X-XL adds lots of features, yet retains full compatibility with the original game, and can be turned from having the original, pixelated retro look to fully smoothed and filtered with a mouseclick. It is the most complete, feature-rich and stable as well as due to many optimizations fastest Descent 2 version around.

Another Descent 2 source port called D2X-Rebirth has sprung up recently. It differs from D2X-XL insofar as its main goal is not to enhance the original game, but to simply recreate the original Descent 2 look and feel for modern operating systems. Development is currently in progress and is encompassing work on a software renderer allowing to port it to a wide variety of hardware not offering OpenGL support, like e.g. game consoles.

External links

• General Sites
  • Descent Mission Builder Official Site
  • Descent 3 Official Site
  • Descent Bulletin Board
  • The Second Descent Bulletin Board
  • D3 HELP - vast site to help you play online Descent 3
  • Descent Network - partially archived and no longer updated
  • KoolBear.com - One of the Oldest Descent Sites still around
  • PlanetDescent
  • The Official Descent 3 FAQ - archived
  • Moon's Descendarium - THE single player guide to Descent 1-3
• Source Code
  • Descent II and Descent: Freespace source code
• Game Archive and Review Sites
  • Descent at MobyGames
  • MobyGames' entry for the Descent Series
• Open Source Projects
  • The D1X project
  • The D2X project
  • The D2X-XL project - this site also offers a lot of complementary info and a huge level archive, as well as DLE-XP, a level editor for Descent 1 and 2
  • The DXX-Rebirth project
• Fan Sites
  • Descent Site from Holger Bredel
  • Descent Fan Fiction
• Cheat Codes
  • Descent cheat codes
  • Descent 2 cheat codes
  • Descent 3 cheat codes