Descent (PC/DOS) 1995 "Lunar Outpost" Parallax Software Corp, Interplay Entertainment
72Descent is a spacecraft-based first-person shooter and shoot 'em up video game developed by Parallax Software and released by Interplay in 1994-1995 for DOS, and later for Macintosh, PlayStation, and Acorn Archimedes. It is best known for popularizing a subgenre of first-person shooters taking advantage of the six degrees of freedom. It is also the first first-person shooter to feature entirely 3D graphics. The player is cast as a mercenary hired to eliminate the threat of a mysterious extraterrestrial computer virus infecting off-world mining robots. In a series of mines throughout the Solar System, the protagonist pilots a spaceship and must locate and destroy the mine's power reactor and escape being caught in the mine's self-destruction, defeating any opposing robots along the way. Players can play online and compete in either deathmatches or cooperate to take on the robots.
Descent was a commercial success. Together with its sequel, it officially sold over 1.1 million units as of 1998. It was also near-universally acclaimed. Commentators and reviewers compared it to Doom and praised its unrestrained range of motion and full 3D graphics. The combination of traditional first-person shooter mechanics with that of a space flight simulator was also well-received. Complaints tended to focus on the frequency for the player to become disoriented and the game's potential to induce motion sickness. The game's success spawned expansion packs as well as two direct sequels in the series: Descent II (1996) and Descent 3 (1999). It also led to the crowdfunding of Descent, a prequel to the original due to release in 2019.
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