Descent II is a 1996 first-person shooter game developed by Parallax Software and first published for MS-DOS by Interplay Productions. A version for the PlayStation was released under the title Descent Maximum. It is the second installment in the Descent video game series and the sequel to Descent. Like its predecessor, the player controls a spaceship from the pilot's perspective and must navigate extrasolar underground mines to locate and destroy their reactors and escape being caught in their self-destructions, while engaging and surviving infected robots, which will attempt to destroy the ship. Unlike other first-person shooters, its six-degrees-of-freedom scheme allows the player to move and rotate in any three-dimensional space and direction.

Descent II started as a project intended to expand the original using a compact disc's storage, and later became a standalone product, using an upgraded version of its predecessor's graphics engine. The game received very positive reviews from video game critics, who widely lauded the multiplayer mode and the inclusion of the Guide-Bot, a scouting robot that guides the player to their objectives. The PlayStation version's reception was rather mixed, with critics often disagreeing in their evaluations of its frame rate. A sequel, Descent 3, was released in 1999.

Gameplay

250px|thumb|left|After finding and freeing it, the Guide-Bot can then be used to locate and lead the player to many points of the level. In this case, it is directing the player to the blue key, the player's current objective. From top-left counterclockwise, the [[Heads-up display (video games)|HUD comprises the extra life counter, a missile lock alarm, an afterburner energy gauge, an energy bar, the primary weapons window, a status indicator of the player ship's shields, the secondary weapons window, a bomb counter, and the current score.]]

Like its predecessor, Descent I, Descent II is a six-degrees-of-freedom shoot 'em up The player can also collect equipment items which grant special capabilities. For example, a converter exists for converting the energy in the excess of 100 units into the shield, whereas the afterburner allows the player to temporarily fly forward twice as fast.

The player's ship is protected by a shield which decreases when incurring damage from attacks and collisions with force fields, is replenished by picking up shield power-ups, and like energy is limited by a capacity of 200 units. If the shield is fully depleted and the ship takes any additional damage, the ship will explode, costing the player one life and killing any hostages on board, leaving most of its weapons where it was destroyed. A respawning player has to start at the level entrance with a ship having only minimum armaments, so it is often challenging to retrieve their previous ship's weapons. New to Descent II is the ability to drop weapons, so a player can stockpile surplus weaponry in safe locations in the event of a respawn. Being too late to escape the mine during the self-destruct sequence will also cost the player a life, as well as their power-ups and any hostages embarked, and will also give the player no bonus scores, although having destroyed the reactor or boss robot the player will still advance to the next level. has destroyed all of the Solar System's mines in the original game, he stops in the asteroid belt to dock. He is then contacted by Post-Terran Mining Corporation executive Dravis, who exploits a loophole in a contract to coerce him to accept a new mission or forfeit his reward and face legal action. The Material Defender consents, and as Dravis tries to convince him that he is merely embarking on a reconnaissance mission, his ship is fitted with a prototype warp core. He is then sent to clear out PTMC's deep space mines beyond the Solar System.

Descent IIs portal engine remained fundamentally unchanged; it operates on the premise of adjacent cubes or polyhedra whose sides connecting them form portals. The scenes that are drawn are the cube the player ship is in and the areas of other cubes the camera can see through their portals, and the process is repeated as the player enters a different polyhedron. Cubes can be deformed so long as they remain convex. Respectively, these prevent overdraw and accelerate portal rendering, making the engine practical to run on even inexpensive personal computers of that time. The demo features eight of ten weapons from the first Descent and six of ten weapons from the full Descent II. The Descent II demo featured the first three regular levels of the game (the teleporter to the secret level was disabled), after completing the third level the player moves from Zeta Aquilae to a new star system with the story to be continued. The full release (see below) adds a fourth regular level (with a boss in lieu of the reactor) as well as the secret level to the Zeta Aquilae system, making it in line with the next five star systems (each has four regular levels plus a secret level), for a total of 30 levels.

The full base Descent II game was published for DOS by Interplay in the United States on March 13, 1996, It was co-distributed by LaserSoft Imaging, whom Interplay gave the rights as part of a settlement after the former lost a court battle regarding its product add-on for the first Descent game, which Interplay alleged infringed its trademark—setting a precedent for how companies can sell add-ons for protected games.

In November 1996 came Descent II: The Infinite Abyss, a Windows 95 upgrade that supports 3D accelerated graphics, contains The Vertigo Series add-on, and the original DOS game patched to support accelerated graphics. The Vertigo Series, which could be purchased separately, contains 22 new levels (to be played sequentially), a new multiplayer game mode, new music and enemies. The add-on is also bundled with the Mission Builder, a level and robot editor that can also convert the original Descents levels for this game.

The PlayStation version of Descent II, known as Descent Maximum, was launched on May 15, 1997, in North America and in mid-1997 in Europe. Instead of a straight port, it had 36 new levels, textures and full-motion video over the PC version of Descent II.

In 1998, the Descent II source code, like that of Descent before it, was released to the general public under a copyrighted proprietary license, leading to community source ports. It was later ported to RISC OS by R-Comp Interactive, and the port debuted at the annual Wakefield Acorn RISC OS Show on May 19, 2001.

Descent II entered digital distribution when it appeared on GameTap on September 7, 2006. It subsequently became one of the launch titles of the Good Old Games beta on September 8, 2008, and on February 19, 2014, it was re-released on Valve's Steam digital distribution service. In 1996, Computer Gaming World declared Descent II the 123rd-best computer game ever released. It was also ranked  46 on PC PowerPlays list of the 50 games of the century, due to the game's "schizophrenically devised" maps, robots' artificial intelligence, and atmosphere whose intensity the magazine considered to be previously unparalleled. Later in 2000, the same magazine ranked it No. 90 on their list of the top 100 games of all time, calling it the best of the Descent series.

Notes

References

Works cited

  • Descent II on Steam
  • Descent II on GOG.com