Descent 2

Descent 1&2 are a couple of games that I've never played before until now, and boy, am I glad I did. With these two games I experienced harrowing action, tense moments and extreme gratification within 60 immersive environments. And if that isn't enough for you there are a plethora of multiplayer modes for your enjoyment. The 360 degrees of movement really helped me enter these worlds of danger. The gameplay mixes FPS and space combat extremely well. Making the action as hectic as wanted or slow enough to develop a plan before plunging into the next cavernous area. The games have multiple levels of difficulty so players of all skill levels will be as challenged as needed. The number of weapons available add a beautiful amount of variance that definately distinguishes one weapon over another. The graphics are a bit dated in the first game and noticably improved in the second. That said, I did not find the experience lacking at all due to the graphics. In fact I completely forgot about them once I was playing for a short time. However, if you are one of those types of players that don't like the older style there are a couple of outstanding mods available to help modernize the looks. The only 2 real issues I found was in D2, where on occasion the framerate would slow temporarily or the screen color would alter after picking up a weapon or being hit by something. Thankfully, both issues would not occur at the same time and not often at all. I also found that to fix either issue without waiting for the game to sort itself out would be to call up the map of the mine. By the time I went back to the game all issues were resolved. This GOG package provided me with hours of entertainment and for the price I would definately recommend this package to anyone who likes either the FPS or space combat genres. There is tremendous value to be had here. However, if you choose to accept these missions remember in the cold, lonely blackness of space NO ONE can hear you scream.

Descent II is a true testament to the remarkable talent of the developers at Parallax Software. The game is simply incredible, and remains my all-time favorite MS-DOS game. Descent and Descent 2 had, at the time, the best dynamic lighting/shading ever seen at a time when "programmable shaders" were entirely done in software. Parallax fundamentally understood lighting concepts well before the rest of the gaming industry did. Until Quake, the Descent series remained the only series to have true 3D environments (with correct perspective projection so that the scene does not 'stretch' when camera looks up/down) and 3D-rendered enemies. This was something that, in the mid-1990s, we were not used to as gamers, and it absolutely blew us away. Doom, Doom 2 and Duke Nukem 3D were awesome, but they all used animated sprites for enemies and objects. - Controls are entirely customizable (I use the well-known WASD combination for sliding and circling, then R, F, Q, and E for vertical and rolling movements,) - A mouse works well, but you may need to pick up your mouse often -- for this reason, a joystick works best (although it comes at the expense of aiming precision) - If you have never played before, start in "trainee" or "rookie" skill. - Best of all, since Parallax Software released the game's source code, both games (Descent and Descent 2) have an enormous fan community. Take a look at the D2X-XL project. Suggestion for GOG: If you can, try to obtain the necessary rights in order to include the Descent 2: Vertigo Series expansion (came as a separate CD-ROM with "Descent 2: The Infinite Abyss") with the game, or as a separate add-on we can buy. As of now, I still have to install that from my original Vertigo CD-ROM separately via DOSBox. I can confirm that the Vertigo add-on installs correctly and works great with the GOG version of D2. This adds 23 new missions, several multiplayer maps, and several new robots and bosses.

This package represents a quantum leap for the gaming industry. While most were content with the quasi-3D antics of Doom, this amazing experience redefined what we thought of as immersion. I can still remember the first time I watched someone else play descent; I had never seen someone physically move their head side-to-side, up-and-down with every flick of the mouse. The ability of a x486 machine to literally grab a human's attention with such strength is something that heretofore had never been possible. After this, the bar had forever been raised. Any gamer should own this solely on principal alone, but it's fun as hell to boot.

I think this is one of the best unplayed games from the PC. While we were all excited with Doom, and Heretic. It came Descent, which make the 3D experience fantastic. Challenging, action packed and great graphics and effects for that year make it truly unique. If you still havent place oh... you really are missing a great game of the gaming industry 5/5

I used to play this in the 90s, when I was 17 or so. Couldn't figure how many nights spent on the endless 3d mazes, tunnels and labs of Descent. sometimes it was hard to tell what was the upside. First 3d simulation I ever tried and possibly one of the best