Game Play | Descent 1995 gameplay
3The game requires the player to pilot a spaceship through labyrinthine mines while fighting virus-infected robots, using the ship's armaments. The player is given the clear objective to find and destroy each mine's reactor core and escape before the mine is destroyed by the meltdown.[5] For two levels (one for the shareware version), the reactor core is replaced with a boss, changing the objective that the player must destroy the boss in order to trigger the meltdown and escape before the mine blows up. To obtain access to the reactor, the player must collect the blue, yellow, and/or red access keys for each level, which are required to open doors.[5] As an optional objective, the player can also choose to rescue PTMC workers who were taken hostage by the infected robots.
Descent features a complementary points system. Players can score points by destroying enemy robots, picking up power-ups, and detonating the reactor. Bonus points are awarded upon completion of each level. These bonus points are based upon the player's shield and energy count, the skill level played, and a combination of picking up any hostages and safely rescuing them.[5]
Descent demands that players keep their sense of orientation in a fully 3D environment with a flight model featuring six degrees of freedom in zero-gravity. Traditional first-person shooter games require the player to only control two axes and their heading. By employing six degrees of movement, the player is given additional control for vertical movement and banking, introducing more movement controls than traditional FPS games. Descent's unique movement controls also increase the possibility for players to experience motion sickness or nausea – a common complaint found in reviews for the game.[6][7]
The player is given the choice to natively use a keyboard, mouse, joystick, or combinations of these devices.[5] Use of a second input device with or without a keyboard provides a greater amount of control due to the additional degrees of movement. The game also supports the use of two independently configured joysticks. One of its many supported input methods was mouselook, which at the time had not yet become standard in first person games.[8]
The game provides a navigational wire frame map that displays any area of the mine visited or seen by the player, which revolves around the player's position. Use of the slide controls (commonly the joystick "Hat" switch) allows the player to navigate to areas of the map away from their current location.[5] The use of wire-frame models meant that areas at varying distances would appear to mix together when overlapping. This was overcome in Descent 3 with the use of opaque wall brushes and lighting closely matching that found in-game. Additionally, Descent 3's map system allowed the player the ability to move the viewpoint through the tunnels in map mode.
Descent features 30 levels, three of which are secret levels. Each level is based in a mine located in various locations in the Solar System. The shareware version comprises seven levels. In the full version, the player moves on through twenty more mines in an outward pattern from Earth.
The player accesses the three secret levels located in the asteroid belt using alternative exit doors hidden in specific levels.[9][10][11]
The primary weapons in Descent use energy, with the exception of the Vulcan cannon, which uses traditional ammunition. The player's spacecraft has a maximum energy capacity of 200 units; energy is replenished from energy power-ups floating in the mines or ejected by destroyed enemies. Energy can also be topped up (to a maximum of 100 units) at "energy centers", permanent recharge locations.[5]
Descent uses shield power as health. As with energy, the ship "maxes out" at 200 shield units; unlike energy, shields can only be restored by acquiring "shield orb" power-ups.[5] If the player finishes a level with shield power or energy power below 100 units, the ship will be recharged to 100 units for the next level.
When the player's ship is destroyed, all acquired power-ups and weapons are strewn about the area as power-ups, any rescued hostages aboard are killed, and at a cost of a life, the player's ship is respawned at the original starting position. In multiplayer games, extra shield and energy pickups are also dropped upon death.
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