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   This week, the penultimate level of Descent 2! Then next week, Vertigo begins!
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May 25, 2020 02:38
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| # ? Jun 2, 2024 19:57 |
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berryjon posted:
That level was brighter than I remember, I was thinking proto-Doom 3. Of course foreknowledge and modern day graphic cards makes a big difference! No Thief Bot there either. Was 21 the last one with a Thief Bot?? How odd.
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May 25, 2020 05:16
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I remember the secret to this level was expending Smart Missiles like they were water. Which is better than most of the time, since Smarts tend to be a very situational missile that you end up hoarding a lot.
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May 25, 2020 09:15
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Bellmaker posted:No Thief Bot there either. Was 21 the last one with a Thief Bot?? How odd. Actually I don't know whether they come back in Vertigo.
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May 25, 2020 10:12
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anilEhilated posted:Actually I don't know whether they come back in Vertigo. They do. Also, this just seems to be my time for technical issues. Not only has my joystick gone to putter, so is my headset.
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May 25, 2020 14:42
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Oh, lame. Are the kb+m controls any good for this, or is that too inauthentic? I remember trying to play this and being absolutely terrible because I was like 9 years old and the other other spaceship game I'd played was xwing/TIE fighter, so naturally in my head you used the throttle and joystick to control this game and was so confused about why I was constantly bumping into poo poo and never got past like level 2.
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May 26, 2020 10:40
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Crazy Achmed posted:Oh, lame. Are the kb+m controls any good for this, or is that too inauthentic? A more modern KB/M setup works just fine for Overload so it shouldn't be that different with regards to navigating fully 3D levels. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 13:05 on May 26, 2020 |
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May 26, 2020 13:02
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Descent was one of the few games that got full use of my parents' crazy Madkats Panther XL (a strange hybrid thing with a joystick, throttle, and giant trackball). Amazingly a handful of games supported it, with the joystick for camera-independent movement and the trackball for attitude control. It was okay in multiplayer but did allow a few amazing drive-by moments. Every so often I have an attack of nostalgia for that crazy joystick. When it worked it was...glorious isn't the right word. Perhaps "hilarious".
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May 26, 2020 15:30
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 That's it for Descent 2! Next time, VERTIGO!
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Jun 1, 2020 06:41
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I find it kind of weird how after a whole game of made-up punny names we end up on a world that could have been reasonably named that way (guy's already got a crater on the Moon named for him, a planetoid object isn't that much of a stretch). (e: Actually, it makes perfect sense in retrospect, I never realized the planetoid was artificial). As for the boss itself, once you figure out its gimmick it's kind of underwhelming. Bland design, too; Descent 1's bosses were a lot scarier-looking. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 11:31 on Jun 1, 2020 |
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Jun 1, 2020 11:22
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Yeah, aside from the new guns and fairer homing/vulcan enemies, I feel like the biggest strength of D2 was the level design - opening up the rooms giving you space to manoeuvre, dodge and generally have a blast dogfighting and taking advantage of the full 6DOF that the game has to offer. I wonder whether they could have ditched the traditional "big enemy with overpowered guns and a pile of HP" boss paradigm (done to death in the previous game) for something a little different. Maybe a massive structure where you have to fight like 4 reactors at once? Having to dodge heaps of slow-moving enemy shots while cutting down weak spots one at a time could be fun. Or a deathmatch-like situation where you go up against a smaller, heavily armed enemy tuned to fight like a human player. Still, overall it improves over D1 in every way I can think of, and the soundtrack is rockin'.
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Jun 1, 2020 12:12
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An AI capable of fighting evenly with a human player was probably a bit much back then.
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Jun 1, 2020 15:37
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*thinks about a certain boss fight from D3* Yeah, the AI can be good, but human-good would have been too much for most people.
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Jun 1, 2020 15:47
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Now that I think about it, isn't there a button that lets you drop your selected weapon? You might have been able to use that to preserve your Earthshakers and not worry about dying.
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Jun 1, 2020 18:01
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Montegoraon posted:Now that I think about it, isn't there a button that lets you drop your selected weapon? You might have been able to use that to preserve your Earthshakers and not worry about dying. In the vanilla game Shift+F5 and Shift+F6 will drop the currently select primary and secondary weapons respectively. Once items are ejected I think they're subject to despawning after x amount of time so plan ahead when setting up a stash. Congrats on finishing Descent 2! Here's hoping we get to see the thief bot eat an earthshaker at some point during the Vertigo run.
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Jun 1, 2020 18:49
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I update the Descent 1 links in the OP from the fugly version previous to this:                                I will work on D2 next, and have all the groundwork ready for Vertigo. Though, speaking of, which colour do you guys think I should use for the Vertigo? D1 was red, D2 was blue. Purple maybe? Green?
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Jun 1, 2020 20:49
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Green seems a rather vertiginous color.
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Jun 1, 2020 22:55
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Purple in honor of the fusion cannon which we probably aren't going to see again until you get to Descent 3. That poor forgotten misunderstood fuchsia beast 
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Jun 2, 2020 01:01
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PSA: Overload, essentially the modern Descent 4, is on this month's Humble Okay, so it's actually probably the biggest reason to get that bundle, but there's some value to be had if you've got a Descent itch.
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Jun 5, 2020 19:07
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A Change in Perspective; Descent 2 - Vertigo  
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Jun 8, 2020 00:49
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berryjon posted:A Change in Perspective; Descent 2 - Vertigo Oh yeah I think that was me? Forgot about that  I remember basically nothing about Vertigo so this will be fun. All I know is there are three secret levels but I have no clue where they are so good luck with that!
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Jun 8, 2020 04:09
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anilEhilated posted:PSA: Overload, essentially the modern Descent 4, is on this month's Humble I bought Overload because of this thread, and am 4 missions in. It's great. I cannot believe that the original Parallax folks got together to ship Descent 4, but it's really making me happy.
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Jun 8, 2020 07:11
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Vertigo was where I bowed out of the series. It's just too hard. I don't know if the AI was upgraded but I found I couldn't hit anything, all the robots trivially dodged my missiles, and every battle became a gruelling drawn-out multi-room mess.
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Jun 8, 2020 09:56
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It's interesting to see Vertigo; never played that one. The difficulty seems to be quite a jump, though.
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Jun 8, 2020 10:25
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Vertigo looks incredibly difficult, I really think that "Rookie" was the way that mere mortals were supposed to play this. I never beat a single one of these games as a kid because of how punishingly hard they are.
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Jun 11, 2020 05:59
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So... The recording for Level 3 gave out on the end-run to the exit. Don't know how, don't know why. I'm tempted to let it stand as I was literally about 10 seconds from the exit so it's not like you're missing much. It's just annoying. Also, my Joystick problems are temporarily solved as I found a gamepad in storage that I'm messing around with, trying to find a good control scheme that works.
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Jun 12, 2020 15:31
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Jun 15, 2020 02:53
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I'm curious, what sort of gamepad and what control scheme have you gone with?
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Jun 15, 2020 14:05
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Crazy Achmed posted:I'm curious, what sort of gamepad and what control scheme have you gone with? the Gamepd was a Logitech "totally not a PlayStation" controller, but that just wasn't working as I couldn't get it to be comfortable. Practice runs on Trainee were.... awkward to say the least. So I bit the bullet and went back to my original playthrough of the nineties and, well, my keyboard has an integrated number pad, so until I can get a joystick (which won't be until July at this point, if I'm lucky), it'll be pure keyboard. a five minute practice run with that was a lot smoother than trying with a gamepad.
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Jun 15, 2020 14:46
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Pure keyboard? That seems pretty brutal, but I guess with enough practise it's kinda like a gamepad. Do you think a standard FPS mouse/KB setup would work if you turned the sensitivity way up so you weren't constantly swiping the mouse around? I managed to get something similar going to nostalgia-trip on TIE fighter a while back, and it was surprisingly playable.
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Jun 17, 2020 14:16
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berryjon posted:a five minute practice run with that was a lot smoother than trying with a gamepad.
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Jun 17, 2020 14:31
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How? I'm imagining something like WASD to move, numpad arrows to rotate, left thumb & pinky to slide up and down, and right thumb/pinky for guns and missiles?
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Jun 18, 2020 11:04
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WASDQE or WAXDQE for moving, 846279 for turning. Everything else can go on the thumbs & pinkies. You should be able to do any manoeuvre with three fingers per hand, four if you're sloppy or doing a complex sequence. You may need to be a pianist or have child-like fingers and hours of free time to master it. 90s Cringe Rock fucked around with this message at 12:29 on Jun 18, 2020 |
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Jun 18, 2020 12:26
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Crazy Achmed posted:How? I'm imagining something like WASD to move, numpad arrows to rotate, left thumb & pinky to slide up and down, and right thumb/pinky for guns and missiles? ...How the hell do I still remember that. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 13:14 on Jun 18, 2020 |
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Jun 18, 2020 13:09
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The default control scheme for pure keyboard: With the number row being assigned and unchanging to the weapons. 1 for (Super)Laser, 2 for Guass and some other weapon that sucks, 3 for Spreadshot and Helix, 4 for Plasma and Phoenix, 5 for Fusion and Omega, 6 for Concussion/Flare, 7 for Homing/Guided, 8 for Mine and Smart Mine, 9 for Smart Missile and Mercury, 0 for Mega and Earthshakers.
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Jun 18, 2020 13:32
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I have a new joystick! And it works! I can begin recording again with my best setup! Woo!
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Jun 20, 2020 02:22
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Yay!
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Jun 20, 2020 22:31
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I'm looking forward to seeing you show off the rest of Vertigo, because I've never seen any of it before this. I just finished Overload, it really is a great Descent 4. The last couple levels and ending were great, very satisfying.
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Jun 21, 2020 06:47
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 For whatever reason, my recording of level 03 got corrupted. This resulted in the video cutting out about 25 seconds early during the commentary pass, but now when I try to load the video for editing and uploading, it no longer works. I apologize, but I'm going to have to pass this week while I rerecord the level. I apologize for the inconvenience. 
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Jun 22, 2020 00:39
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| # ? Jun 2, 2024 19:57 |
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Look on the bright side: you'll get to play it all again with your shiny new joystick!
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Jun 22, 2020 08:36
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