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Friday Flashback: Descent

Quake might be considered the most important game in introducing true 3D graphics to PC gaming, but it's not the first to do it. A year before, Interplay introduced a title that not only used 3D, polygonal graphics, but introduced full 3D movement into the gameplay. While Descent isn't as memorable as Quake in the history of PC gaming, it's arguably a more impressive game.

Descent is a unique cross between an FPS and a space sim. Instead of moving around floors, bound by gravity, you fly a heavily armed exploratory craft over all three spacial axes. You can fly back, forward, left and right, plus up and down, literally giving the genre a new dimension of action and exploration. Of course, this did give rise to some issues with motion sickness. Over a decade before Mirror's Edge came out, Descent had weak-stomached gamers tossing their lunches in scores.

Like Quake would do the year after Descent's release, Descent renders both levels and enemies in full 3D, using polygons instead of sprites. Items are still sprite-based, but virtually everything else is modeled in 3D. While Quake might have a more advanced engine and a higher polygon count, Descent looks a bit more colorful and bright, with some more varied textures than Quake's brown palette.

For weapons, there are several types of weapons, including 4 levels of laser, a vulcan cannon, and a handful of missiles and cluster bombs. Most of the enemies you fight look like rejects from Tempest. They're supposedly different types of robot drones, but they all have strange, angular designs that look much more like old-school arcade enemies than any recognizable object.

Descent spawned two sequels and a sort-of spinoff series, Freespace. Descent: Freespace was connected to Descent in name only, though; it was a much more conventional space sim that Interplay branded with the Descent name only for legal reasons.

You can pick up Descent and Descent 2 for just $6 from GOG.com. It might be a very old game, but if you find yourself going back to Quake and Doom for a nostalgic ride through old-school PC gaming, it's a great deal. Nintendo is also planning to release a version of Descent onto the Wii through WiiWare this fall. That should be interesting.