Does anyone remember Descent?

[yoshimitsu]

Do any of you remember playing Descent back in the 90s? It was one of my first games when I was little and has been one of my favorites ever since. There's never been anything quite like it in terms of player movement, it pioneered 6 Degrees of Freedom for gaming which allowed the player to pilot their ship in any direction (including vertically) at will. This led to a unique style of game which has been imitated but never matched, until now

http://preparefordescent.com/

 

For the last three years a small team of dedicated fans has been working to create a spiritual successor, that aims to recapture the magic of Descent in the Unreal 3 engine. This new project, titled Sol Contingency, is about to release its initial closed Beta today, soon to be followed by an open beta and full release later this month. The current iteration is a fully functional multiplayer game that will be released for free in order to promote an upcoming Kickstarter campaign with the aim to create a larger singleplayer game and expanded multiplayer in Unreal 4.

 

Just thought I'd share something that makes me feel as excited for gaming as I did when I was 7!

[nbohr1more]

I guess I'll retort with, "Does anyone remember this highly acclaimed Doom 3 mod that was an attempt to recapture Descent"

 

http://www.moddb.com/mods/into-cerberon

 

and grumble about the fact that it died.

 

Pretty interesting UE4 project nonetheless.

[yoshimitsu]

I played Into Cerberon so much when they were working on it (the companion Doom 3 mod to my other favorite game series). I think I still have it installed as a matter of fact and now I want to go fire it up. Sure it changed or eliminated some of Descent's basic mechanics but it was hugely fun and so nice to look at... *sigh*

 

SolC started out much like Into Cerberon, as a modern recreation of Descent but when Interplay hit them with a cease and desist, they reworked it and turned it into a new IP so that they could continue. It's really encouraging to see it hitting release after all the drama.

[Sotha]

I sometimes still play the original.

 

http://www.dxx-rebirth.com/

[yoshimitsu]

Me too Sotha. I've been using the graphically enhanced port, D2X-XL, for years to play the various singleplayer campaigns and I recently started using DXX-Rebirth to play online with others. I figured that with SolC on the horizon, I'd better get in some multiplayer practice.

[esme]

I used to play Descent at work during the lunch hour, we'd organise a deathmatch, networks are fun

[Bienie]

I actually never tried playing Descent in multiplayer, but I beat the single player campaign of both games multiple times. It was one of those pioneer games that made your jaw drop back in the day, and it was one of my first games as well. There was later a "spiritual successor" game on N64 called Forsaken with which I had a ton of fun with my buddies, but it wasn't quite the same magic still.

[Tels]

In case you don't own the originals, GoG is your friend: https://www.gog.com/game/descent_1_descent_2

[Paralytik]

I remember playing this at some friend's house. I found it very confusing and disorienting and I think it gave me motion sickness. Very cool design though.