Result : 6 - Just too dated.
 | Graphics: 5 - Dated 3D, disorientating. |
| FMV : 5 - Good intro, but forced plot. |
| Sound : 6 - Quality effort. |
| Music : 5 - Forgettable. |
| A.I. : 7 - More moves and thoughts than most. |
| Lifespan : 7 - Good if you can hack it. |
| Gameplay : 7 - Somewhat repetitive. |
| Adrenaline : 6 - Quick-draw and firefight action. |
Take one veteran pilot, add spaceship and bad guy robots, mix in some dark twisting tunnels and you get Descent 2. The plot has some crap about doing "one last mission", and has you clearing out asteroids full of old mining robots, gun-emplacements, and security devices. The actuality is a shooter that had the novel feature of a full 360 degree of movement (those tunnels sure go everywhere). Innovative once, now the likes of Quake 3 show what frantic 1st person action should be like.
The graphics look old, while the textures are reasonable, the spaceships, robots, etc are not well defined, and wouldn't look out of place on a C64. Sound is better, but then it always ages more gracefully, and the gameplay while quite good also loses some lustre due to the aforementioned.
I am sure that Descent 2 was once top of the line, unfortunately it hasn't aged all that well. Probably because 1st person shooters have had massive updates recently; probably the growth genre of current gaming. It still plays very well, but so many other games have surpassed the graphically and experiential marks, that the gameplay just starts to bore a little. Added to this the disorientating ship movement meant that it's one of the few games I haven't completed. Considering I got this for £3 balances this, but it still irks me, and I might have another crack one day...
