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Descent2 - Retro 3D space tunnel exploration game Pick of the Week
Descent2 iconThe macosxhints Rating:
8 of 10
[Score: 8 out of 10]
A little retro flashback this week (late again, sorry; I'll try to get back to Mondays for Picks starting next week!). One of the first "3D" games that I recall playing many many moons ago has now been released as freeware for OS X -- Descent2. Near as I can tell, Descent2 was released for the PC in February of 1996, and I think the Mac version followed sometime soon thereafter. The basic premise is that you're piloting a ship around inside a series of mineshafts, looking for a reactor, which you then have to trigger and get back out of the mine system. What made Descent interesting was the assortment of weapons and enemies. What made it sickening (literally, to some) was the complete freedom of movement -- your ship could be right side up or upside down, and you had to be comfortable flying it in any sort of orientation.

The OS X version owes its existence to the Descent2 project, D2X. From that point, it was ported to OS X by a couple of people. The version that I ran and linked here is from 'mcotis at yahoo dot com,' but I don't know anything more than that.

If you haven't played Descent2, I'm not sure it's worth the trouble to download and play. You'll be greeted with some nicely-updated versions of 1996's best graphics, and you'll be severely disappointed if you've been playing Halo and Unreal Tournament! On the other hand, if you played the original, this is a near-perfect OS X implementation with only a couple minor bugs. Since the program uses the original data files, this isn't an interpretation of Descent2, this is Descent2. You can even listen to iTunes while you play -- just create a playlist called D2X, and Descent2 will choose and play songs at random from that playlist as you search and destroy.

I doubt I'll be playing it all the way through again, but boy, does this bring back some memories of my gaming years past!
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Descent2 - Retro 3D space tunnel exploration game
Authored by: Akira on May 27, '04 06:47:08AM
Other cool ported to OS X games:
Myth II
Quake I & II

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Descent2 - Retro 3D space tunnel exploration game
Authored by: eduo on May 27, '04 08:09:03AM

A game I always wanted to play was Freespace and it was base don Descent 2, IIRC.

Let's hope these guys think of porting that one over. I LOVED that game.

That and Terminal Velocity (I think it was called) which was an old PC game were you ran down some trenches shooting at things (like the scene in Star wars, but with more worlds).

Eduo

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Eduo



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Descent2 - Retro 3D space tunnel exploration game
Authored by: Jay on May 27, '04 10:48:42AM

This was SUCH a great game! There's no other game series like descent. The zero-gravity aspect of the game gave it an added level of fun, because there's no "up." I can't wait to get off work and play this!



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Descent2 - Retro 3D space tunnel exploration game
Authored by: happygouki on May 27, '04 11:13:00AM

this thread brings back some memories!! i loved the variety of weapons - gauss cannon+flash missles+smart mines+afterburner all brilliant stuff! why flash missles? the effects would slow down my friend's comp =)



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Descent2 - Retro 3D space tunnel exploration game
Authored by: sao on May 27, '04 12:19:14PM

.
Rob, thanks for the memories..! ...oh well, I must admit... I'm still playing Marathon (in MacOS X) with the new release build of Aleph One for Mac OS X (Carbon) by Alexander Strange. (yeah...I said it...!)

http://source.bungie.org/



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Descent2 - Retro 3D space tunnel exploration game
Authored by: robarmo on May 27, '04 06:32:35PM

Anyone know what happened to the OS X port of Unreal Tournament?

I know they went on to bring out the graphically superior 2003 (and 04) editions, but I think I'd get more enjoyment playing the old version at full pelt than enjoying a slideshow of the newer one.

I know, get a newer Mac! But thats not on the cards for a while yet.

Rob.



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Descent2 - Retro 3D space tunnel exploration game
Authored by: julzmon on May 27, '04 08:31:41PM

I feel this series is the greatest game ever made! Although I like Descent 3 better i do miss the Earthshaker in this one :) ! Man... Do I miss this game! I feel you had to have somewhat talent to play it. I also feel that people didn't get in to it cause you literally had to learn how to fly. With out being good it was no fun... Ahhh those dark room days.. at midnight playing until three o'clock in the morning.
I have to fire this game up again. I also would need to get a joystick again :)



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Descent2 - Retro 3D space tunnel exploration game
Authored by: nkuvu on Jun 13, '04 02:06:23AM

Need. Joystick.

Ye Dogs I had forgotten how hard it is to play Descent just by keyboard. Especially since it seems that the port doesn't recognize the command key as the alt key. That is, no sliding.

I also didn't see the garbage collector robot -- then again, I only played the first mine. But I thought it was in there somewhere...



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