Descent, ported to the web(mrdoob.github.io) |
Descent, ported to the web(mrdoob.github.io) |
And I believe made by some of the people that formerly worked on Descent.
I liked this teaser trailer of Remnant Protocol, it seems exciting and perhaps a spiritual successor to Descent and Terminal Velocity games: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vemaUWPs6Zo
No Man's Sky was interesting, but its combat is meh, and it is a sandbox with procedurally generated planets made of limited types of biomes. It's inventory management is very clunky, so I finally gave up on it.
I tried Everspace, it is good, but it is more of a roguelite comprising only of dogfights in space. Haven't tried Everspace 2 yet, which I believe has campaign mode and is a better space sim.
I steered clear of Starfield, since Bethesda is infamous for launching buggy games. I will try it after a few years, once the modding community has overhauled it nicely.
It also really helps immerse you in the “there’s no up/down” feeling.
Sure, you start feeling sick after a few minutes, but it’s such a fun few minutes that you can’t wait to do it again.
Will have to have a play of this web version and try out Overload, thanks.
I think the Revival studio didn't quite work out, I'm hoping the team is working on something else, they sure do know how to make good games.
The gameplay in that YouTube video is very similar to "TV", so it probably is a rebrand.
I will have to check out Overload.
For example, you approach a "T" junction, and depending on your pitch angle, the branches may be up/down or left/right. But since there's no natural ground or sky, you can either maintain an orientation memory (I usually did automatically), or you can just let all that go and travel with no sense of true orientation.
Occasionally you reach an area with some signs or printed panels, and then you realize what the regional up/down orientation was; but it didn't matter in zero gravity.
It always took a while each session to get to that point, but once you were there it all just starting flowed so damn well, and manoeuvring the tunnels became so much faster/easier.
And Quake for web by the same author: https://mrdoob.github.io/three-quake/
He's the creator of three.js, and it looks like this uses that for rendering instead of being a straight port.
(It's also his homepage now, but I included the full link for posterity.)
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Edit: How do you actually play? I keep getting trapped in the Shareware Dimension!
WebGL1 WASM version based on https://github.com/dxx-rebirth/dxx-rebirth -> https://midzer.de/wasm/descent1/
However this version uses mouse up/down to do up/down, and that seems so wrong. Can't play it :(
Descent is good, but I do think the series peaked with Descent II, if for no other reason than the rocking soundtrack. Very awesome, cool, industrial rock; I used to put the game CD in my car to listen to it since it was Red Book audio.
Also, the series was followed by Descent Freespace I/II, leaving a significant impact on the genre of space shooters. Though there are completely different games that have nothing to do with the original series.
The VGA era was something special.
Sorry to be the one to ruin your concept of time.
Was this necessary?
I don't think it's that video games have gotten worse (though perhaps they have). I think it's more that it's impossible to recreate the way they impacted us back then. It wasn't just about the games, but also about the times. DOOM today is a fine game and even a classic, but back then it was the first time anyone had ever seen anything like it and we were inventing online play and fps tactics and amateur map design in real time. Descent had that same blockbuster feel, but that for me that feeling faded from new releases over the next few years. (Though I won't deny Minecraft caught something of that old bombshell energy.)
I suspect the way I feel about the video games I grew up with is a feeling my kids will never exactly have. Sure, they love their games, but the 90s were an incredible time for the art form. By analogy, I love the music I grew up with, but I don't feel about it the way my parents feel about the music from the 60's. Music is always special, but that was a particularly special time for music and if you weren't there, you weren't there. In time the absolute electricity of the British Invasion became "So what kind of music do you listen to?" So I think it will go with games.
Keeping the cockpit on screen may also help provide a frame of reference.
I found that helped me enjoy the game more now that I'm older and less tolerant of 6DOF movement.
Also the audio is clicking hard, had to mute it.
Logitech Wingman Extreme Digital: https://ebay.us/m/Hxi8Wh
From my old reddit post about it, "The Spaceball Avenger is a gaming peripheral. It has the usual buttons, but the big ball is used for six degrees of freedom movement. With pressure sensors the ball is pushed up/down, left/right, and in/out for X, Y and Z axes. The ball can also be rotated for pitch, yaw and roll.
Plugged into the computer's serial port it came with drivers for games such as Doom, for which it was a good controller, but the Spaceball really shined for the Descent family of games. Descent is a FPS with no gravity, where your ship moves in ALL directions, and controlling with with the Spaceball feels like you're holding the spaceship in your hand and you're just moving it to where you want it to go."
You can see it here https://www.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestations/comments/gmusxs...
I love the idea of VR but my brain / balance system most certainly does not!