Descent 1 and 2 was the best game ever.

[dighn]

Yo Descent and Descent 2, I'm real happy for you and imma let you finish but TIE Fighter was one of the best space sims of ALL TIME! ALL TIME!

Descent isn't a space sim series. fail.

oh and Freespace 1 + 2 are the best space sims of ALL TIME

 

[Eckstein]

Descent isn't a space sim series. fail.

oh and Freespace 1 + 2 are the best space sims of ALL TIME

Well Freespace isn't a simulation either!

 

[dighn]

Well Freespace isn't a simulation either!

true, but I doubt either is TIE Fighter! though they are in the same gnere I think.

 

[Dranoche]

I loved the original Descent. One of the first PC games that I played a lot of, and one of the games that got me hooked on PC gaming.

 

[blurredvision]

The Descent series (the original Descent, not the Freespace series) is one of my all-time favorites. Somebody above mentioning Kali brought back a flood of memories, too. I remember playing the Descent 2 demo (from the PC Gamer demo disc I think) over and over and over until I could talk my mom into buying me the full game. I also spent hours upon hours on level design even though I don't think I ever really finished one to completion.

Off to gog.com now, thanks guys.

 

[Elcs]

Freespace is NOT a Descent game. Descent games are defined by their claustrophobic mine exploration layout.

Freespace was good, but does not belong under the Descent name.

ViperGTS and I used to play Descent 2 PVP via 9600baud modem back in the day. Good times.

It is true that Freespace does not belong under the Descent name.

The superior space combat games deserve to be separate.

 

[Nik]

It is true that Freespace does not belong under the Descent name.

The superior space combat games deserve to be separate.

Descent is not a space combat game. I'm not knocking either one.

 

[Ryland]

Descent was awesome. I remember playing it on my friends computer and the woman (who is now my wife) not being able to watch for more than 5 seconds without getting nauseous from it.

 

[Elcs]

Descent is not a space combat game. I'm not knocking either one.

As you well know, I was talking about Freespace.

Descent 3 was pretty good, an enjoyable and rather unique game but I can't say it's in the same league as Freespace personally.

 

[minmaster]

i remember trying one of the descent games long time ago.
i think it's the only game ever that made me feel all woozy.

 

[NAC]

It definitely was a great game, but I couldn't play it - I got sick!

 

[BFG10K]

I still play the Descent games regularly today. There is an fanmade version of Descent 2 called D2X-XL with an updated engine, and people still play Descent 3 online. There is no modern game that is anything like this series.

Yep, unfortunately D2X-XL is a bug-ridden piece of bloat, and the administrator is an arrogant prick. The latest version crashes to the desktop within a minute of me entering the first Descent 2 mine. Also the sound still pops for me.

A much better alternative is Descent Rebirth: http://www.dxx-rebirth.com/

It’s not as pretty as D2X-XL, but it’s rock solid in terms of stability and compatibility, and the sound works perfectly. Plus the administrator is much more approachable.

 

[CP5670]

I can see why people find him irritating at times, but the program itself works great. If you're getting random crashes, try deleting all your pilot and config files (in Windows, not the game) and making new ones from scratch. That has often fixed obscure crashes for me. The popping sounds can be fixed by getting the resampled sound files from the website.

Rebirth is in fact better at simulating the original games as closely as possible (XL has a few differences in AI/weapon behavior), but I generally still prefer XL.

 

[Jessestephens]

I loved Descent 2. We used to play it at the weekly LAN party I went to. There was a good bit of drinking and the piloting got more and more crazy as the night wore on. I completely broke off the Cooley hat on my thrustmaster joystick when we were in the midst of a particularly ferocious "flare war" one night.

I moved on to mouse+keyboard and I don't think I've used a joystick on the pc since then.

Oh I almost forgot about the soundtrack. It still stands up to this day. Some great industrial music in there by Skinny Puppy. I think the title screen music is one of the best songs in a video game. The feature of allowing rebook audio from the cd drive was a feature that was way ahead of it's time.

 

[Martimus]

I had fun with the game, although the complete lack of plot made it really hard to follow. I never did know exactly why I was going down the long tunnels shooting stuff, and what that was supposed to accomplish.

This game was the definition of all shiny graphics, and no substance. Still it was pretty, and had interesting gameplay mechanics.

 

[Martimus]

Oh I almost forgot about the soundtrack. It still stands up to this day. Some great industrial music in there by Skinny Puppy. I think the title screen music is one of the best songs in a video game. The feature of allowing rebook audio from the cd drive was a feature that was way ahead of it's time.

I seem to remember practically all PC CD's in the early 90's having redbook audio. I know I ripped the soundtracks from Quake and Mechwarrior 2, because I loved both soundtracks. I should find my old Descent CD and rip that one too.

 

[Nik]

I used to do my homework with the Quake2 CD in my discman

 

[Edge1]

I have to admit, I loved Descent. I remember playing it on Windows 95, and my new wife (still my wife, LOL) thought I was crazy. She'd walk by the office and my eyes would be glued to the screen and my head was bobbing around like the little spaceship. Didn't even know I was doing it. Hilarious! Great game.

 

[Ryland]

Well it looks like at least one of the original designers is making a Descent like game over at http://www.minerwars.com/Index.aspx

 

[Jessestephens]

I seem to remember practically all PC CD's in the early 90's having redbook audio. I know I ripped the soundtracks from Quake and Mechwarrior 2, because I loved both soundtracks. I should find my old Descent CD and rip that one too.

Yeah. Many had rebook audio. Perhaps I wasn't clear in my meaning. Descent 2 allowed you to play any cd (that had rebook audio) as the music while you were in the game. That was the thing I thought was ahead of its time.

I loaded both CDs from Descent 2 infinite abyss into my iTunes. The music is great.