ADG Episode 7 - Descent

[@spiderjerusalem100]

I'm binge watching your videos, i love reviews of old ass games.

[@AlyxxTheRat]

Man this game was way ahead of its time. One of the first games with a full 3D engine.

[@Pixelmusement]

+Alexandria Thorne It would be more accurate to say one of the first games with a fully texture mapped 3D engine. There were tons of games before this one with full 3D polygon graphics, but no textures. :B

[@AlyxxTheRat]

@@Pixelmusement Yeah good point. It at least was one of the first to run at a decent framerate as well though.

[@pip5528]

LOL "This guy needs to die." He actually does die at the end of Descent 3 after the Guide-Bot kills him.

[@bru319]

The Descent 1 demo came bundled with an Acer Aspire that I bought in May 1996. Was living in Irvine at the time and I just drove over to Interplay and bought the full game directly from their corporate headquarters. In my opinion, Descent 2 is the best of the Descent series. I want my Gauss cannon and earth shakers. You can play Descent on a modern computer using the Descent Rebirth software which is free to download. Just do a Google search. One of the best things about Descent are the player made missions which have been created over the years. The "Descent Mission Database" has many to freely download. Some favorites include: Omicron, The Enemy Within, and Craven's House of Pain. You might need these cheat codes to survive: almighty = invulnerable, honestbob = all weapons, alifalafel = all accessories, rockrgrl = full map. You can't score points using cheat codes though.

[@ThetaGames]

This is probably my favorite video game ever made, and I still regularly play. It's fast, smooth, very interesting spatially, and has a unique and extremely cohesive industrial aesthetic. For anyone interested in playing online, check out the DXX Retro sourceports (they exist for both Descent 1 and 2) and then check out Descent Rangers and Descent Champions Ladder. Both communities are still fairly active.

[@pip5528]

It's interesting to see these older videos with more off-the-cuff voiceovers and worse audio quality and then see the big improvement in the better-sounding, better-presented, and more scripted dialog in the newer videos. Still some excellent information and funny moments is these older ones however. We all have to start somewhere.

[@Pixelmusement]

Yep! When I started I was literally working scriptless, just talking into a webcam mic as thoughts came to me. I started doing scripts as of Episode 16 and first improved the mic situation with Episode 30 once I got a proper camcorder with an OK built-in mic, then again after Episode 125 once I got a Blue Yeti USB mic. :B

[@pip5528]

@@Pixelmusement Nice! I've had a Blue Yeti since December 2017 and recently upgraded to a Rode NT1 through a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 3rd Gen. I'm definitely going to start doing let's plays of the entire Descent trilogy with that setup. I also just bought a Shure SM57 which will come in handy.

[@wardrich]

The shareware version of this game came with my first PC back in 1996, and holy crap did it blow my mind. The 3D exploration, the music, the graphics in general. Also, the amount of keys you needed to play this efficiently. I still kinda remember the keyboard layout I had - and oh god were they bad. A = accelerate Z = brake/reverse Primary weapons were 1-through however many primaries there were. Then continued from there into secondary. I think that was the whole numrow consumed. Q = Fire Primary W = Fire Secondary E = Fire Flare I get a bit foggy here, but I think... Y = Nose down U = Nose Up F = roll left J = roll right Left arrow = turn left Right arrow = turn right I don't remember, but I think I had either O and P or Up and Down set to fly up/fly down I'm almost positive that there were more buttons, as I'm almost sure I had the entire top row mapped as well, but maybe I'd adjusted keys over time to create gaps between fire buttons and pitch/yaw/roll keys. It was a big ugly mess, but this was my first computer, so having the buttons all in rows was easier for my silly kid ass to use than trying to memorize the actual keyboard layout... but that said, I still think this game seriously helped me with memorizing where all the buttons were on the keyboard.

[@wardrich]

Also, it's so weird hearing the intro music play smoothly. It used to lag/stutter a bit around the part where you pick your pilot on my old 1mhz P1... it just sounds wrong now WITHOUT the stutter lol

[@wardrich]

lol, the Spreadfire cannon graphic used to remind me of Megabyte's arm from Reboot.

I remember staying home "sick" from school and playing this game all day!

[@deano72]

the gameplay looks very smooth

[@POLE7645]

Then I'm so grateful that most of my friends grew up on those kind of games.

[@thewhyzer]

IIRC, with Descent I just used the trusty ESDF for movement + throttle control (with W&R for strafe up / down) and joystick for aiming, firing, and rotating. BTW, you have to be thankful for that guy who "needs to die", because without him you'd have no reason to "descend" into the mines.

[@ncalimendo]

This game was such a heavy hitter. Ran like silk on my DX4/100 with an AWE64 PCI card and looked incredibly rich on the 17" CRT.

[@AlexeiVoronin]

About the extra lives - the whole point of this system is that when you die, you can go back and collect all the weapons and missiles that you dropped at the place you died in... the level is not reset, enemies you've killed stay dead. Abou the homing missiles - their effectiveness is tied to the framerate, so faster PC's mean more accurate homers.

[@Pixelmusement]

+AlexeiVoronin Yeah, the homing missile issue was addressed in Descent II; part of the reason why they put a framerate counter in. As for extra lives, Descent 3 has the exact same mechanics as D1 and D2, but scrapped extra lives, so you can die as many times as you can handle. You can have respawn mechanics without extra lives. :B

[@AlexeiVoronin]

@@Pixelmusement Indeed, you can have unlimited respawn mechanics, but having a set number of lives adds to the challenge (and excitement) ;) BTW, I am also unable to play this game on the highest difficulties, despite all my years of experience.

[@axelschwei3907]

The Vulcan Cannon has actually a finite velocity. In large rooms (like the first boss fight) you see a notably lag.

[@phillippi2]

Another engine port (one that remains more faithful than D2x-XL) is D1x-rebirth. (D2x, for Descent 2) The only thing it really changes is giving the game colored lighting, as well as coop support. Also, there is now (at this time, a few years old), a spiritual successor made by the same people, called "Overload". Many fans consider it to be Descent 4; for good reason.

[@Code1D10T]

This series was so damn brilliant! Nowadays, I've been getting my fix with Miner Wars 2081, but it just isn't the same. :(

[@danoz25]

Outstanding episode, I remember playing Descent II a lot more than the original, I think they fixed a few of the quirks mentioned by the second installment

[@ThisIsGamerLisD]

Oh wow! :D You're probably one of the first people I started watching on KZbin years ago. Glad you are not dead bro!

[@Citrusrock]

I cannot wait until the rest of your episodes are up Gemini!

[@LobsterminatorX]

Another one of my favorites back then, but then again I guess this was almost everyones favorite. It was a pretty big deal.

[@2DFlightSim]

Got to disagree with the 'must use a joystick' comment - I'm a simmer who loves my joysticks, but I had a great setup with my keyboard for this game.Numeric keys 8, 4, 5 + 6 were up / down / turn left / right, 1 & 3 were strafe left & right, and 7 & 8 were rotate. Then cursors up & down for forwards & backwards - max of 3 keys to perform any possible manoeuvre. Ok it sounds complex now I write it down, but it worked very well :)

[@Christopher-N]

(3:47) Yes, I can beat _Descent_ on the highest difficulty setting, but I have to reload from my saved game several times, and I spend most of my time sniping the robots from far away, or from behind a corner. I absolutely hate encountering the _Class 2 Platform Robot_ missile variant (that's the small green robot that rapidly shoots a burst of three missiles with almost no delay between bursts).

[@NstHarlequin]

I used to play this thing with one of the first 3d headsets (tiny screen over each eye) never has the urge to hurl been stronger :) still loads of fun!

[@ThisIsGamerLisD]

Trying to explain to my COD friends why this game is awesome is like trying to explain what a rotary telephone is... or a floppy disk... or a fax machine... man my peers are ungrateful assholes.

[@525Lines]

So many old DOS games that should be re-released with new graphics. This is one.

[@RDD756]

have you tried D2X-XL

[@amshermansen]

They did make a new Descent game recently though.

[@lyianx]

They are working on a new one called Descent Underground descendentstudios.com/

[@monx]

check out Overload, made by the original team behind Descent

[@arnofleck]

I think they best way to play it nowadays is DXX Rebirth, which is very close to the original experience, but with no hassle regarding cycles or controls and graphics running nicely in HD on the 3D hardware - without really modifying the look. Regarding controls, I recommend getting pedals (from a steering wheel) in combination with joystick and keyboard. It's a fantastic way to play and makes the 6 degrees of freedom very manageable. P.S.: yes, I know this video is 7 years old, but the game really is a classic.

[@Pixelmusement]

Don't worry, I've mentioned the ports in other videos about the Descent games since this one. ;)

[@KeeperBvK2]

One of the most influential games? I wish it would have had more of an influence on other games, but as it is, it's probably one of the best games that never had much of an influence at all. The only game I could think of that was influenced by Descent is Forsaken and that's it.

[@tomspice73]

Out-of-this-world game

[@visionofdisorder]

it didn't have a direct influence in terms of its style but it was one of the first fully 3d shooters inside a fully 3d engine with textured models, a year before quake. terminator future shock was out by that time but it looked like crap compared to descent.

[@mrtyler603]

@burkhart von Klitzing Kinda late reply, but check out Overload, sublevel zero and NeonXSZ

[@POLE7645]

Yeah. That was a LONG time ago. College, getting a job and gaming really didn't gave me much time to make videos. I've been thinking about doing some, but I'm can't promise anything.

[@dhoffnun]

Oh this game. Nostalgia levels at 95%. Thumbs up.

[@KingIsaacLinksr]

Hahaha "This guy just needs to die, die die die, die die DIE DIE DIE". That cracked me up. =P

[@antdude]

I remember playing this online with Kali on a local BBS. ;)

[@manuelarturog]

It was amazing when it came out

[@SplotchTheCatThing]

Hey, I finished the game on Insane with a mouse. Some may enjoy playing with a long, hard, straight stick, but it's certainly not necessary to play *this* game well.

[@Pixelmusement]

True. This was a VERY early episode of ADG before I had started scripting them so I may not have expressed my thoughts on such things very clearly, but yes, there are plenty of people out there who play the Descent games with a mouse and keyboard and have no issues playing it that way whatsoever, but the Descent series is one of the few which definitely has joystick users in mind, especially given how much effort the devs went through with Overload to make sure TONS of joysticks were supported and properly mapped straight from a fresh install! :D

[@MD1O32]

I hate it when my Pyro-GX gets perforated and I have to take an Uber to work instead.

[@anonamatron]

I was never able to really get into this game. I think running on the ground is more mundane, but a lot less disorienting.

[@ChozoSR388]

Quick question to anyone who reads this; is it possible to configure Descent for use with a HOTAS? I've been trying to get my T.Flight HOTAS X to work with Descent for a while now, but I can't figure out how to. Any help would be exceedingly valuable. Thank you for your time.

[@Pixelmusement]

+ChozoSR388 That's the same joystick I have and it's very doable! You'll likely want to create a new DOSBox keymapper file specifically for the game since you'll have to use it to map buttons beyond the fourth button, which also requires that you turn off buttonwrap in the DOSBox config. You also may want to map the hat to keyboard keys as well instead of using the game's built-in hat support, which will also require that you set the joystick type in the DOSBox config to either fcs or ch mode. That should do it! :)

[@ChozoSR388]

+Pixelmusement Hey, that's awesome! Thanks for the info :) Are you able to get the rocker to do anything, out of curiosity? I was thinking, if it can be mapped, that'd make a great weapon switching control.

[@Pixelmusement]

+ChozoSR388 I actually use the rocker for forwards/backwards movement. In D3 I can just map it directly. I forget what I had to do to get it working in D1 and D2 in DOSBox, but I know I had it working, either directly mapped in the keymapper or mapped as the throttle but reprogrammed using the joystick's ability to do that on the fly to swap the rocker and throttle axis. Ultimately, you could just play D1 and D2 using a source port; might work out better. :B

[@MilesJKlipper]

1995?! Man I feel old xD

[@sml2933]

wow!!!Korea 1990~1997 ?

[@dox1842]

Did anyone ever play this on kali or msn gaming zone?

[@antdude]

dox1842 Me, but it was on a local BBS! :D

[@dox1842]

***** You can play this on BBS?? I loved playing minerva on multiplayer =)

[@antdude]

dox1842 Yea, with Kali. Kind of. It worked though. BTW, Kali is still alive, but outdated. :(

[@dox1842]

***** I remember it had a feature where you could dial another computer and play through the phone line. Me and my friend used to do this all the time. Man I would love it if the online community for this game was revived. I used to play this game for 12+ hours a day over the summer of 95.

[@antdude]

dox1842 Yep, direct connection over the phone line. My friends and I did that with DOOM, Duke3D, etc.

[@crazydescent]

This game is a lot better when you switch to fullscreen mode and not have the cockpit view hide 25% of the screen

[@Pixelmusement]

+droog1980 Matter of preference. I prefer the cockpit view because it adds a greater sense of immersion. Also for consideration is that on period-specific hardware, full-screen view required so much more CPU power that it would often run at a lower framerate than the cockpit view. :P

[@crazydescent]

+Pixelmusement I played this on a Pentium 1 back in the day without any problems...Anyhow I replayed the DXX Rebirth version some time ago, still one of my fav games :)

[@ThetaGames]

Cockpit-mode actually allows for a wider field of view.

[@KainXVIII]

Late to the party - but what controls scheme is everybody use for Descent? Joystick/gamepad or kbm/m?

[@Pixelmusement]

+Николай I used a keyboard only back when I was a kid, but that quickly transitioned to using a flightstick and that's how I've done it with every Descent game since. :)

[@KainXVIII]

Thanks! I don't have flightstick, but i hope that dualshock 4 will do the trick =)

[@Pixelmusement]

+Pixelmusement It should work out fairly well: Set the analog sticks for pitch, yaw, and horizontal/vertical sliding. Use one side of the bumpers/triggers to act as forward/reverse and the other side for firing primary/secondary weapons. Roll might be a little tricky though so you may want to enable auto-levelling to compensate for that.

[@TheOnlyToblin]

It's very much worth it. Buy it from GoG.com and then download the third party engine. It's pretty darn sweet.

[@johjoh4571]

it's so pretty.. it almost looks fake. like something made up for a movie rather then a real game. I wish I had played it back then : [ I was kinda young, though..

[@jean-camilgirard]

reminds me of forsaken

[@ripoutyourprejudice]

I tried to play that one, I seriously did, but the controls are ass.

[@johngleeman8347]

Beware the thief bot! Xo

[@happyhardcorepunk54]

I prefer Gunmetal (1998 Mad Genius software)

[@tankermottind]

If Samuel Dravis were a real person, Trump would appoint him to a cabinet position.