What is Descent?

PREPARE FOR DESCENT!

Dive down through 30 stages of twists, turns, 6 degrees of freedom, and tons of vicious robots! Blow the reactors of each mine and be sure to get out before they destroy everything!

The Mac version of Descent includes new high resolution artwork and a new CD Audio soundtrack.

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Does a shoot-'em-up adventure have to include lots of blood and mayhem to be fun? Looking at the current crop of games, you might think so. Luckily for the squeamish, Descent changes all that. There’s no carnage in this game; your opponents are asteroid-based mining drones. Your mission is to rescue hostages, destroy a power reactor, and get out of the mine before it explodes.

Descent’s most stunning innovation is its 360-degree, 3-D maneuverability. Mine shafts head off in all directions, and you quickly lose the concept of “up.” You hurtle through shafts, shoot robot drones, and replenish your supplies.

As you maneuver your fighter craft through the mine, it bobs slightly as if on a cushion of air. You actually feel as if you are floating gravity-free. Sounds come from all directions, making for a realistic experience. As your skills improve, the mining robots learn to outwit you, adjusting strategies based on your movements.

In addition to single-player options, Descent offers an anarchy mode in which every person fends for him- or herself, or a collaborative mode in which players team up against the robots. To test Descent’s multiplayer features, I enlisted volunteers to play a network game on four Power Macs connected over Ethernet. The test players included expert gainers as well as novices who had never touched a joystick.

Each player remarked on how unaware they were of their physical surroundings while playing. We all agreed that Descent sets a new standard for player immersion.

If you work in a cross-platform environment, you’ll be able to collaborate with up to eight of your coworkers, regardless of their platform preference; Mac and PC versions of Descent can participate in the same network game. And, unlike competing games, Descent lets single players leave or enter at any time — if one person gets called away to a meeting, you don’t all have to quit playing.

Despite its innovations, Descent has its share of minor drawbacks. Although the game installs on your hard disk for optimum play, you’re required to leave the CD-ROM in the drive to hear sounds while playing. To provide the fastest action, Descent operates exclusively on Power Macs, leaving 680X0 machines behind. And although the PC version includes 120 additional customer-designed levels, the Mac version ships with just 30 predefined levels.

The Last Word Descent already offers true innovation in the crowded field of adventure games, and its graphics will impress hard-core gamers. When version 1.1 ships in a few months, its support for QuickDraw 3D will make its realistic environment even more impressive. I can hardly wait.

DeLisio, Fred. (April 1996). Descent 1.0. Macworld. (pg. 72).

Download Descent for Mac

Architecture

IBM PowerPC

System Requirements

From Mac OS 7.1 up to Mac OS 9.2

Compatibility notes

Mac System Requirements:

• PowerPC 601 processor
• 8 MB of free RAM (3 MB can be virtual memory)
• 18 MB of free hard drive space
• 640x480 display with 256 colors
• System 7.1.2

Emulating this? It could probably run under: SheepShaver