Descent 3

by Interplay

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00000K2YD
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: July 1, 1999
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #22,672 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com

Descent 3 is not your ordinary first-person shooter--and it never was. Instead of binding a player to the body of a military grunt or brawny mercenary, the Descent line puts the player in the cockpit of an agile and heavily equipped space ship. Spiraling around the bowels of catacombs and pulling zero Gs while decimating the enemy has been this series' hallmark. With version 3, the game gets bigger.

The sky's the limit (almost, since there's a moratorium on altitude), and the players can now skim over enigmatic alien ruins and the bombed-out hulks of recent industry. Enemies are just as hard or harder to fight in open terrain, and some truly gifted behemoths will make players scurry for the familiar safety of the underground warren.

But the most challenging aspect of this milieu is its vigorous use of all three dimensions. If players are too regimented in forward, back, and sideways moves, some nasty 3-D accelerated surprises await them. Of course, there's standard play for the lone wolf, but for those who like to fly in packs, there's the Internet module, which enables players to congregate and interact. Descent 3 is the ultraworthy heir to a gaming dynasty, so put your tray table in its upright position and adjust your attitude. --Tamara Hladik

Product Description

Merciless weapons. Fusion Engine - "Allows the action race on at full speed, w/no interruptions, indoors and out. Polygon Accurate Collision Detection - "All objects have mass, velocity, moments of inertia and other real-world properties. True Radiosity and Specular Lighting. Devilous Agile Robots - "Robots attack and defend in teams, summon backup help, retreat and hide.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Descent 3, December 6, 1999

By 

Deinabo D. George "DDG" (Bronx, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Descent 3 (CD-ROM)

Descent 3 is Interplay's follow-up to the highly acclaimed Descent franchise. You are once again cast in the role of the Material Defender. This time, however, your mission is one of retribution as you battle virally-infected robots across 17 levels (15 normal plus 2 secret). You must prove that the head of the PTMC intentionally contaminated the company's robots with an alien virus. After your rescue in the stunning opening cutscene you learn that the PTMC went so far to modify the virus as well.

You will fly a total of three ships in this sequel, including the old PyroGL. Weapons run the gamut from the standard concussion missile to the all-powerful Black Shark. New energy weapons such as the Microwave Cannon add a new twist to decimating enemies and standbys such as the Fusion Cannon and Plasma Cannon make a return. The graphics are breath-taking and the sound is nothing short of immersive.

Descent 3 requires a 200MHz Pentium processor with a 4MB 3D accelerator card that supports Direct3D, Glide, or OpenGL. I recommend a Pentium II or III class machine to get the most enjoyment out the game. Certain details can be turned off to get an acceptible framerate on lower-end machines but it detracts from the overall experience.

If you're a Descent fan or a newbie Descent 3 is a nice to get acquainted with the wonderful world of PC gaming.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Game Ever, November 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Descent 3 (CD-ROM)

I have played descent 1 and 2, unreal, unreal tournament, quake2, quake3a. this one blows them all away. First off, the descent series offers full 3d movement, allowing complex movement and intense dogfighting like situations. Secondly, the descent series has always had the best netcode, so multiplayer support is very solid and easy to use. if you like multiplayer action, you will love this game! it has many different types of multiplayer games, from a soccer type game(called monsterball), to a highly strategic game(called entropy). The graphics are incredible, the single player is very involving. the only draw back is the type of machine you need to use. I would suggest at least a 400mgz machine with eigher a voodoo3 or a tnt2 card, oh and a high quality joystick with an eight way hat switch.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb PC Game, January 6, 2003

By 

Kyouryuu (Portland, Oregon United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Descent 3 (CD-ROM)

Back in 1999, the third and most likely final chapter of the Descent series released. It was praised and lauded by game reviewers and magazines worldwide. However, due to Interplay's bungled marketing, the game never got the player recognition it deserved. Tragically, it meant the end for the series.

I think it speaks volumes about a game when I can look at it now, three years later, and see what I see. People are still building new levels for it, multiplayer is still fairly popular, and the community is still strong. The DescentBB and Planet Descent are great places to start, so look them up when you get the chance.

Anyhow, regarding the game itself. The hallmark of the Descent series is its gameplay that concerns all three axes of movement, unlike other FPS games like Quake or Unreal that largely limit your movement to the ground. In Descent, you can fly wherever you want to, stop and turn on a dime, and move freely. Descent 3 continues this with its new game engine, which actually consists of two engines - one for rendering indoor areas and the other for rendering outdoor areas with terrain.

Continuing where Descent 2 left off, the game reprises your role as the Material Defender, a mercenary hired by the Post-Terran Minerals Corporation sent to rid their intergalactic mining installations of worker robots gone amuck. As fate would have it, rather than pay you for your efforts, your boss at the PTMC named Dravis decided to sabotage your ship instead. Fortunately, before reaching certain doom by hurtling towards the sun, you are rescued by a team of researchers calling themselves Red Acropolis. It seems they know about Dravis' sabotage and that he was ultimately behind the rogue robot activity in the first place. As the only pilot with enough guts to tackle the situation, it is your duty to gather the evidence to incriminate Dravis.

Of course, this is just the intro movie. The rest of the single-player campaign features 15 gigantic levels. And I do emphasize gigantic - these behemoths are many times the size of the old Descent levels and yet still only load once at the beginning. Inhabiting them, naturally, are a varied assortment of robots arranged in various classes - security drones, miners, and even robots that sweep the floor. These are your obstacles on the way to completing your mission objectives. Unlike the first two games, which were built around gathering keys, destroying a Reactor, then escaping the mine, Descent 3 has objectives for each level that must be accomplished. These include escorting important ships, going on recon missions, and in an ironic nod to the old games, defending the Reactors from destruction.

To carry these out, you find all sorts of neat weapons. There are ten different primary weapons and ten secondary weapons. Primaries include your basic Laser Cannon, chaingun-like Vauss Cannon, railgun-like Mass Driver, searing Napalm Cannon, and shield sucking Omega Cannon. The secondaries are equally diverse and include such hits as the Napalm Missile that bursts into flame, the Frag Missile that bursts into a thousand shards, and the awesome gravity-altering Black Shark Missile that sucks your enemies into a black hole.

Multiplayer is fantastic. New multiplayer levels are always coming out and the action never grows old. Descent 3 comes with many gameplay modes for multiplayer. Anarchy is your traditional deathmatch, and as you might expect Team Anarchy is also present. Capture the Flag is also represented, and built more like other games in this regard as opposed to the bizarre interpretation of it in Descent 2. One of the more intriguing modes is Entropy, a team game where you must collect viruses and infect the bases of the opposing team.

Being that this game will be four years old this year, it is becoming very hard to find it. But, should you come across it, I would strongly recommend a purchase. This is one of the finest PC games ever designed. Just because players didn't acknowledge it back in 1999 doesn't mean you have to. A fantastic game, a fantastic community, and years of playability. Who could ask for anything more?