Descent 2

It's rare nowadays that a sequel is on par with its predecessor. I see other reviews that are overwhelmingly positive. Yet somehow Descent 2 doesn't work for me. No, I don't have any technical issues. The concept is the same as in original Descent and Descent 3. Clear out the dungeons, kill bosses/reactors and run like hell. You have more arms than in Descent, the guidebot and other improvements. Technically Descent 2 is miles better than Descent. Yet Descent 2 still doesn't feel right for me. Descent and Descent 3 are fantastic - i absolutely love both games. My reception of Descent 2 is lukewarm at best. Maybe its grandiloquent but I believe Descent 2 is missing its soul. The music is dull compared to D1's or D3's scores. Level design in D2 doesn't 'feel right'. Gameplay feels alien. The game is not as engaging as the other two, in my opinion. I would wrong Descent 2 if i said the game is terrible - it is not. But I just don't enjoy it. I know this is a very different review than my usual routine. Normally I justify my reason when I criticize a game. But in this case there's noghting tangible to point out. This is a case that despite everything being in its place the game is missing that special something, its soul.

First off, the main engine and source of this game is opensource and there is a better solution out there already called the descent rebirth project (google it), gog didn't bother including it in this package. Second, it runs under windows vista as a dosbox application, why bother? the rebirth engine runs as a windows app out of the gate. Third, stability. the dosbox equivalent of this game crashes on me repeatedly in the first D2 level. Which is the reason I went searching for the rebirth patch / fix in the first place. Fourth, to get the rebirth patch working with the right music for the game you have to disect the gog file to make it work. Sure this complaint shouldn't really be a complaint seeming obviously it was gog.coms intention to make you play the old, non-improved, cheap dosbox edition. In short, Descent and Descent 2 are great games, but gog.com really doesn't deliver anything but the descent.gog files for you to make your own solution out of them. Are all gog.com's games this slapped together?

I have windows 10 and the game uses dos. Crashes game every time. I would like to run it but can't continue the crashes

After finishing Descent 1 I wanted to continue the experience with its successor, Descent 2, and what I got: new, completely boring and unfair enemy variety, extremely unfair enemy placement and, worst of all, the ship is even more uncontrollable than the previous game. The A.I. got reworked but since your control of the ship is actually worse ( like, how bad can you mess up that after the first one) than before and your weapon upgrades are not that much, there isn't any challenge involved, it's just repetition of a section until you get lucky and pass. I 'm extremely disappointed by this since the game actually has improved in its graphics and some new soundtrack but it got completely annihilated by its controls. Still, unless you are a fan, I really don't think this game can be really enjoyed today, even by retrò gamers that want to relive the glory of gaming.

I'm sorry to have to leave a review like this for this game. The ship you fly in keeps bouncing up and down at a very severe rate which very disorienting and literally makes me sick to my stomach. I'm sorry that I spent money on buying this if this problem can not be fixed.