Game:

Descent II (1996)

Duration: 0:00

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Another header video for my next revisit playlist.

I'm surprised my TIE Fighter videos got so many views. Apparently, there's a lot of nostalgia for that game. I wish someone would make another one.

I first played Descent 1 as part of a free demo disc in a video game magazine. The full game came out a bit later, and I thought it was ok. I hated the Driller robots because their shots NEVER miss, and the game had a bad habit of laying them in wait for when I pick up a key - surrounding walls would open with Drillers inside and I'd die immediately or lose most of my shields.

Descent 2 mostly does away with enemies like that - there is still a robot that has a machine gun, but it's more of a slow shot weapon, and has a travel time. So it isn't nearly as bad. Descent 2, much like TIE Fighter, polishes the first iteration of the series (it provides a Guide Bot so you don't get lost, it allows you to transfer extra energy to the shields, and the mines are a bit more colorful. You get a boss every 4 levels.). I much prefer Descent 2 to Descent 1.

I'm playing it here using the d2x-rebirth execution wrapper. Maybe you can get a working version here: https://www.dxx-rebirth.com/ I suspect you still need a full install of Descent 1 or 2 to play each game. I'm pretty sure it's using hardware acceleration, so the rendering isn't choppy like the software rendering of TIE Fighter. This offers version 0.58 - I have version 0.60, but that doesn't seem to be available anymore.

I wish it was available in VR. I tried the game Overload, which is a spiritual successor to the Descent series. It has VR, but good lord did that make me ill. I'd really like to see what this game is like in VR. Maybe I'll just have to code a minor clone to see what it's like.

Anyway, if people are interested, I'll play through this whole game and upload these as well. I won't be playing Descent 1 (I don't like it as much) or Descent 3 (I rage quit that game - I was dogfighting with a couple robots about 2/3 or the way through that I just could not hit at all and gave up - besides, I don't think is was a better game than Descent 2 at all).

Played with a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro Joystick USB.

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