Remembering Descent, the once-popular, fully 3D 6DOF shooter

Summary

So, let's pour one out for Parallax->Volition and take a flight through the memory of Descent's evil-robot-infested mines. Single player I played Descent when I was a teenager. Obviously, some of you were older, playing it in college or well into adulthood. Others reading this probably weren't even born when it came out. But for me, this was a defining game of my teenage years, alongside Mechwarrior 2, Command & Conquer, Meridian 59, Civilization II, and The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall. I remember my friend giving me the shareware demo, telling me that it was the most technically impressive and visceral thing he'd ever played. I installed it and launched it, and the whole vibe immediately resonated with me: It was just the kind of gritty, corpo-sci-fi I loved then and still do today. It took some getting used to, though. The default keyboard controls were not great, and it was a lot to learn trying to operate in so many axes of movement and rotation. I'll admit I had trouble making it stick at first. That changed a few months later; the same friend who was obsessed with Descent often played the tabletop game BattleTech with his brother and me, and so we were all eyeing Mechwarrior 2—which launched not long after Descent—with great interest. I had never purchased a flight stick before, but that seemed important for Mechwarrior 2, so I did, and that was the secret to unlocking Descent's charms for me. (Of course, the GOG version of Descent and various community patches offer mouse support, so it's far easier to get into without extra hardware now than it was back then.) Once my flying went from chaos to control, I became completely hooked. I beat the game more than a dozen times, though I'll admit in the later playthroughs I made liberal use of cheats (gabbagabbahey!). I loved the loop of destroying the reactor then escaping through the labyrinthine tunnels—something I don't think many other games have truly copied since then. I loved the music (though Descent 2's as...