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D2X-XL – an OpenGL modification of the classic video game Descent 2
- willis936 5y agoThat update history on the right is interesting. Also if you like 3D shooters but haven't heard of any recently: give Overload a look.
- donut2d 5y agohttps://playoverload.com https://playoverload.com It's basically Descent. It's created by some of the original Descent devs.
- dtx1 5y agoSome Gameplay footage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpLyV9_zgmM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpLyV9_zgmM
- vmception 5y agothat looks a lot more fun and straight forward than games today hm a lot of times with nostalgia gaming, one quickly notices how broken and inaccessible the controls are and how much more imagination it requires to be an escape but this one just looks straight forward and fun
- dtx1 5y agoI wouldn't call descents controls straightforward regardless of what mod/engine you use. 6 AOF Games are hard to play and descent is quite a hard game even in easier difficulties. That being said, it's a lot of fun for sure.
- toast0 5y ago6DOF is hard to control for sure. A joystick with twist assigned to roll works well for heading, but I've never figured out how to best manage translation. Descent has some limits on how fast you can adjust pitch which can be odd for new players (some of the ports can turn those off, but purists may object)
- epalm 5y agoThe MS Sidewinder 3D Pro had twist to roll, throttle control for forward/backward, and a 4-way hat switch for translation (aka ‘strafing’, if we’re both taking about the same thing here). It was perfect for Descent. Edit: and Freespace!
- toast0 5y agoHmm... I need to try harder with hats, I've never felt great about using them.
- binarycrusader 5y agoDon’t forget the Gravis Phoenix which was truly a high end joystick at that time and perfect for Descent.
- dominicjj 5y agoThe Space Orb was the most effective way to play D2 once you got used to it.
- willis936 5y agoI played freespace long after its hayday. The mod loader was lovely and the mod community was still quite active. The most expansive overhaul mod had only one server that had many players. It was a full-on RP server. It wasn't for me, but it was fascinating nonetheless.
- _Microft 5y agoThere is another active project, DXX-Rebirth, that tries to recreate the original experience of Descent and Descent II as close as possible (i.e. it does not really mod the games). http://dxx-rebirth.com/ http://dxx-rebirth.com/
- sp332 5y agoThere's also Overload, which has some of the Descent devs on the team and got some hardcore fans to extract data on original bullet movement speeds and other details. https://playoverload.com/ https://playoverload.com/
- Lapsa 5y agoSublevel Zero Redux is also worth mentioning. Although nothing compares to Descent1.
- TheCycoONE 5y agoIn the past there was significant animosity between this project and rebirth (which they referred to as stillbirth.) I haven't been part of that scene in years so I don't know if it continues.
- dleslie 5y agoWow, that's... Using a pejorative that relates to what is often an incredibly painful experience for expectant mothers to describe the efforts of a group of volunteers working on an open source passion project. Or, simply, toxic.
- _Microft 5y agoI know nothing about that. I just liked DXX-Rebirth more because it preserved the „dull no-BS industrial look“ of Descent better. I also wasn’t a big fan of some other, similar games (looking at you D3, Forsaken)) which looked more like the lovechild of a lightshow and an architecture competition in comparison.
- 5y ago
- holoduke 5y agoThis game was truly one of the first real 3d mouse controlled indoor flying shooter game. Even today you won't find many in this genre. Games like Darker and Terminal velocity were a bit similar and cool as well.
- coldacid 5y agoMouse, hah. When I first played Descent, I had only a keyboard!
- russh 5y agoSame here, but the last time I played Descent it was with a full Thrustmaster setup including throttle, pedals and CrystalEyes 3D shutter glasses on a 19" monitor... Good times... lots of headaches.. but good times.
- wingmanjd 5y agoI still play Descent and variants with a keyboard. I also change my fps keybindings in other games to match closely to the aqze vs. the typical default wasd layouts
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y agoHrm. Memories. One of the few games I played. And the only one where I almost always won when we did it over LAN! edit: For comparison, in C&C, about the same epoch in the first variants I always lost, because I mistook it for SimCity, building defences, infra, etc. And then the masses of enemies came. Boohoohooo! But Descent was my thing, easily.
- ericbarrett 5y agoAlso had LAN parties playing Descent 1/2! At the time, Duke Nukem 3D and Doom 2 were contemporary games. But (as far as I remember) Descent was the only game that supported both Mac and PC clients, and let them play together on LAN. Edit: Does anybody know of an earlier graphical game that had mixed-client LAN support? (~1996-97)
- wsc981 5y ago> Does anybody know of an earlier graphical game that had mixed-client LAN support? (~1996-97) Maybe Warcraft 2.
- ericbarrett 5y agoI thought so but I looked it up—the MacOS client for WarCraft 2 wasn't released until 1996; Descent came out in 1995 (Mac port in December). There was no "LAN patch" so it must have shipped with the support. I think it might have been the first.
- klyrs 5y ago> And the only one where I almost always won when we did it over LAN! Me too! I'd say we should fight, but that game is to blame for my tendonitis and last time I played, I couldn't type for several days. My superpower was that I played without autoleveling and didn't get disoriented. Can't pull wacky 0g maneuvers if you've got artificial gravity weighing you down...
- mey 5y ago
- kitsunesoba 5y agoThe Mac version of Descent, which came with a shiny new Redbook audio CD soundtrack and enhanced 640x480 graphics, came bundled with my family's Performa tower. It was probably my first encounter with a proper video game. I never got to play it with a joystick (apparently the quintessential way of playing) but I got decent with the keyboard controls. It's pretty fun, and holds up even today despite the now-dated graphics. It never got quite the level of recognition that Doom, Quake, etc got but in my mind it's just as much of a landmark in gaming.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ur-whale 5y agoOn Linux, don't bother trying to compile it yourself (tons of compilation errors) [EDIT]: and wine won't run the windoze version either. ugh.
- arbruijn 5y agoI have a version with working linux compilation and some other fixes here: https://github.com/arbruijn/d2x-xl/ https://github.com/arbruijn/d2x-xl/
- dTal 5y agoThank you. What is the intended build system? I see you've added empty NEWS etc files, but the configure script is still broken for me (config.log shows SDL test program fails with: gcc: fatal error: cannot read spec file 'libgomp.spec': No such file or directory I get further with cmake (which is not mentioned at all in the INSTALL file) but compilation still fails with: /home/dtal/d2x-xl/audio/songs.cpp:48:29: error: narrowing conversion of '3759186702' from 'unsigned int' to 'int' [-Wnarrowing] This a warning, not an error, so I assume the working system calls GCC with the correct flags. It would be great if you could update the documentation with working instructions.
- arbruijn 5y agoI've fixed the narrow conversion error with newer compilers and added build instructions to the README. Not sure what's up with libgomp.spec, it should be part of the gcc base package, at least on debian/ubuntu.
- dTal 5y agoYou've been downvoted, but I do wonder what process leads to someone building an archive that flatly does not work. When not even the mandatory files have been created to make autogen.sh happy, you have to wonder if anyone has even actually tried to build it.
- tonetheman 5y agoI also remember in that game discovering chording. Where you could hold down 3 or more keys to mess with the physics engine. You would end up going slightly faster that way. Similar to bunny hopping in quake.
- sjackso 5y agoDouble and triple chording is part of what makes the Descent-series games (as well as Overload) so interesting. Your ship moves freely in all directions, and your speed is proportional to the square root of the number of independent directions you're moving in. Fly forward, speed is one unit; fly forward + sideways, speed is 1.41 units; fly forward + sideways + vertically, speed is 1.73 units. There's a long, challenging learning curve to making best use of this mechanic.
- binarycrusader 5y agoIt’s a shell of its former self but if you like Descent there’s a few links to other community sites here: http://warpcore.org http://warpcore.org
- dustymcp 5y agoi spent an entire summer on descent 2 :))