Descent œ39.99 - Interplay (HD only)
 (First person shoot 'em up on PC, on SynTax disks 818a/b)

             Reviewed on a 486sx by James Judge

Okay, before I embark on the review, let's get the technical
specifications out of the way. To run this game you will need a
minimum system of a 4meg, VGA 386DX machine. Hay - that's fine,
but only if you want to play without any texture mapping, no
debris and minimal sound - in other words fly through a world of
simplistic polygons shooting at and being shot by simplistic
polygons in a jerky manner. To have a serious game you'll need at
least a 486DX, but I am just about managing in medium detail
(polygons are only noticeable at a distance and it is slightly
jerky). Of course, if you want to go for the dream looks, buy
yourself a Pentium, or better still, buy me one!

Anyway, to the game.

Doomsters unite! If you have played any of the profusion of the
first person shoot-em-ups on the PC (Doom 1&2, Wolfenstein, Blake
Stone, Dark Forces, Heretic, Quarantine... to name but a few) you
will know the basic concept of this game.

You play the part of a mercenary - one who has no regrets in
shooting innocents for a couple of extra bucks. Your 'talents'
have been called upon to assist a large corporation in a mission.
Their problem is that they own loads of mines, but something has
infested all of them and they have not been able to contact the
people who were running them. What they do know, though, is that
the invader has given the mine a mind of its own, so that it can
utilise its current robots and machinery to defend it.

Also the mine has taken all human occupants hostage and has them
holed away somewhere in the complex.

Your mission is to take an illegally altered ship into these
mines, rescue the hostages, remove any signs of the invaders (ie
the mine machinery) and to blow up the mine. Your first priority
is blowing the mine, then staying alive, then killing enemies and
THEN getting the hostages - shows you what kind of company you are
now working for...

This all sounds well and good, but what is the game proper like?

Well, those of you who have played Doom can skip the next
paragraph but make sure you read the subsequent one, as there is
some important additions that you may just be interested in...

The game is played from a 1st person perspective - that is you are
looking through the eyes of the character you are playing. You can
move around the complex in a 3D manner (ie you don't 'step' left,
you can smoothly slide left) and, so, see the whole world from
many different angles and the enemy from different angles too. You
are given a few weapons which you can keep stocked up with ammo
and maybe, just maybe, add to during the game. There will be
plenty of monsters scattered around for you to shoot at (and be
shot by) and that's basically it - you must get to the end of the
level without dying but having shot as many things as possible.

Now, this game is different from all other games of this style in
one major way. When you were playing Doom all you could do was to
move along two different planes - either forwards and backwards or
from side to side. True, you could rotate and see the scenery from
this ground position at any angle.  Also you may have been able to
go up inclines and steps, but you were still kept on the ground.

Descent now frees you from moving along two planes - it allows you
to go wherever you want, whenever you want, however you want. If
you are in a tunnel you can move from side to side, to the front
and back as well as from the roof to the ground. Really, it is
giving you the freedom of a flight simulator but with a simple
shoot-'em-up interface.

This may not sound particularly wonderful on paper, but just
imagine progressing down a tunnel low on ammo and nearly dead. You
then hear an enemy up ahead, but where ahead? Will he be in the
tunnel, or maybe he will be in a small cubby hole to the left or
right. Maybe, though, he is above you, awaiting your death in an
as yet undiscovered pathway. Not knowing where your enemy is, but
knowing that he could come at you from ANY DIRECTION adds to the
old Doom tension ten-fold.

Of course, being able to move anywhere can pose a bit of a control
problem.  Luckily Interplay has used its common sense and has
developed a very good interface. You can use the joystick, mouse
or keyboard (as well as specialist controllers such as the
Cyberman) to control your ship. Well, nearly. With the joystick
and mouse you can only rotate your ship and fire your primary
weapon. You have to use the keyboard to move forwards or
backwards, to slide left or right, to spiral your ship or fire
your secondary weapon (or select other weapons in your arsenal)
and you can use the keyboard in the place of the joystick/mouse
and this is preferable if you can master it because of the
increased precision.

Now we have a new dimension to explore the old 1st person 3D
shoot-'em-up becomes more enjoyable, frantic and harder over
night.

Most of the people who play RPGs or Doom-like games will have a
pretty good spatial awareness - they probably won't get lost after
a quick run through a 2D dungeon. But, give them a flight sim and
they will continuously lose sight of their enemy as they have an
extra dimension to worry about. Then again, give a flight-simmer a
3D game and they will get lost, as with flight-sims you don't need
that good a memory for where the last left turn took you but you
do for 3D games where there are walls.

Descent poses an interesting conundrum. It combines a 3D game with
a flight sim and expects the player to be able to have both the
flight-sim and 3D game abilities down to a tee. As you are flying
around in the levels of Descent you may (and do) get easily
flipped over and seemingly progress down new tunnels.  One minute
you are heading down a tunnel that takes a left turn and has
lights on the 'ceiling'. A minute later you are progressing down a
tunnel that has a right turn and lights on the 'floor'. In reality
you have gone down the same tunnel twice, but upside down the
second time.

I have what I would call an exceptional spatial awareness - I have
very rarely gotten lost in RPGs or 3D games and often can
memorise the whole dungeon, coming back to it months later,
knowing where I should be heading with the minimum of fuss.
Playing Descent had me completely confused, though. I continually
had to refer to the automap and still I was unsure as to where I
was going, where I was facing and whether I was on the 'floor' or
'ceiling'.

Have no fear, though, as with a couple of hours flight-time under
your belt you will be able to fly through the levels with barely
any problems and you may be able to visualise parts of the level
in your mind, no matter which side up you are.

This all sounds, great, but as any Doomster will tell you to make
a good game you must have (1) great graphics, (2) good sound, (3)
unnoticeable control system, (4) lots of interesting, innovative
and intelligent monsters and (5) loads and loads of weapons with
which to create HAVOC!!!! Well, here goes...

(1) Descent has brilliant graphics - atmospheric and crisp. Light
is used VERY well and so is the actual colour of monsters and
background - camouflage is prevalent in this game.

(2) The sound is great. Meaty explosions rock your ear-drums as
the top-class sound-tracks caress them. Each monster has its own
particular sound repertoire, so even if you can't see them you
know what they are just from the sounds.

(3) The control system does pose a few problems to start with, but
after a couple of games you should have no problems at all.

(4) The monsters are very interesting. All of them are in the form
of spaceships (no mutant bio-aliens here) but are animated well
and look very sexy (especially the green Grippers, that have HUGE
claws spattered with blood). They are varied and plentiful. Also
they are clever - if you shoot at them they will dodge. If you are
killing them they will run away. Very ingenious...

(5) Weapons galore - from little lasers to great green, four ways
laser.  Chain guns, spread guns, concussion missiles, homing
missiles and proximity bombs (ie missiles) as well as four other
weapons that I haven't seen (probably because they are only
available in the commercial version - I'm playing the PD one).
Enough to keep even the most psyched up psycho happy.

Descent has got it all. Beforehand I would crave Doom after a
hard day to let my anger out. Now I crave Descent. Forget Doom
(well, push it to one side, at least), Descent has shown the way
forward in 3D games and one which spawns a lot of copy-cats that
are better (how they will be better is beyond me...).

And, to top it all, Descent has incorporated the winning Doom
feature of having team and deathmatch play between up to 8
players. Heaven is a place that has a network of 8 Pentiums with
Descent loaded and seven eager players awaiting me to join 'em.

Also it will keep even the best Doom lord going for ages. I've
played it for about 12 hours now, and are still getting killed and
facing problems on the medium difficulty level - it'll be a while
until I can even hope to get onto Insane ...

Oh yes, Interplay has cottoned onto the Doom shareware success.
They have released a full 7 levels (there are 30 in all) into the
public domain free of charge and those brilliant 7 levels are
available from your amiable SynTax shareware library now. Buy it
and see just what a great game this is!

@~The shareware version is, indeed, in the library on disks
@~818a/b.








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