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That one did seem pretty good. Bummer that its all downhill from here. Is there much left?
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# ? Mar 28, 2021 20:02 |
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# ? Jun 12, 2024 07:23 |
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12-Secret, 13, 14, then 15. Then Mercenary. 13 and 14 are freefall, while 15 is a desperate attempt to not crash.
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# ? Mar 28, 2021 20:10 |
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# ? Apr 4, 2021 13:13 |
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berryjon posted:
Outside of game mechanics, from the perspective of Descent 3 wanting to be a more story focused game than the previous games, it's one of the silliest levels in the game. The PTMC captures you and leaves you in your fully outfitted ship to go through their robot arena that they just kind of have lying around, which has a bunch of levels where you have to defeat the boss to go to the next one. I guess you could say it's supposed to be a robot training/development facility, though the structure is so overtly video game-y while they were trying to put forth a little bit more of a pretense of realistic environments in the other levels. I suspect it's the usual video game deal where they built the level first and then had to figure out the plot justification for it. In Descent 1 or 2 it would have just kind of been there without needing a reason to exist. It's pretty similar to the one level in Descent 1 where the keys were being carried by robots instead of lying around in the level. Story wise the only level sillier than this one is the Zelda dungeon-esque temple of the Martian religion where the GuideBot yells "You are not worthy!" at you for failing their arbitrary trials. Nobody plays Descent for the story but it's worth mentioning since they were trying to put more effort into that department.
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# ? Apr 4, 2021 19:35 |
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It fits slightly better when you consider that Dravus has mutated from a mundanely unethical corporate rear end in a top hat to full on James Bond styled villain and is probably doing some of this stuff to intentionally gently caress with the material defender. The last level has the player bust into Dravus' office which built into the side of a cavernous lava chamber buried within his own fortress and guarded by the final boss robot that he helped design. That's some Austin Powers friggin' shark laser level stuff. However I have no idea what they were thinking with that Martian tribal aerial stunt display sponsored by Red Bull. Obviously they wanted to show off the game engine's abilities but you'd think they could come up with a more story relevant way to do it. But this was also 1999 when well developed narratives in video games were still the exception. Fabulousity fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Apr 4, 2021 |
# ? Apr 4, 2021 21:10 |
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No. I don't like this level. I hate this level. It doesn't work, it's badly designed and yes, I break out the cheat codes to get past it.
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# ? Apr 11, 2021 13:12 |
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I can't blame ya. It would be tolerable if either of the ways to get the guidebot to track down those stormtroopers worked, but the game gives you nothing.
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# ? Apr 12, 2021 11:31 |
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One of the comments on Youtube pointed out that as the enemy isn't as bound by impassable walls leading into space as I am, or in some cases, level geometry, if they wandered out of bounds, I was screwed.
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# ? Apr 12, 2021 14:29 |
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Yeah, that level was awful. A tedious task that doesn't even work, a giant labyrinthine mess of same-looking corridors, weird gimmicks sprinkled throughout, it's just a bad design no matter how you come at it.
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# ? Apr 13, 2021 17:10 |
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Pity, it's a great concept for a Descent level. So much more could have been done with the idea of retaking a capital ship as its robots are taken over.
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# ? Apr 17, 2021 14:09 |
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Loxbourne posted:Pity, it's a great concept for a Descent level. So much more could have been done with the idea of retaking a capital ship as its robots are taken over. Unfortunately the weird aspects of scale in Descent meant that most of this level was spent in the ship's massive basement
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# ? Apr 18, 2021 00:52 |
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This is it. The bottom. From here, it's uphill, but not much.
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# ? Apr 18, 2021 13:20 |
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Almost done. Well, there's Mercenaries. And my hopes are not high for it to be any better.
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# ? Apr 18, 2021 20:22 |
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I think I know what the problem was with the end there. There is a panel between the two purple energy nodes, above the data link and I think THAT is what starts the transfer, not the data link itself. The whole "this link is working properly" message is just letting you know you've already used a bypass on it. I could be wrong, I've never played D3, but just from casual observation that is my theory on why the level wouldn't end.
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# ? Apr 18, 2021 21:21 |
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Yeah, the idea of flying around inside a big space station covered in windows is neat but this level is so, so cramped. The kittens make it (almost) all worthwhile though haveblue fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Apr 19, 2021 |
# ? Apr 19, 2021 15:46 |
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That's it for Descent 3: Retribution! I'm going to take a week or two off at this point and try to crush out more levels of Mercenary before me and my posse of commentators come back for the expansion pack for this game. Thanks for sticking with me through this horrible, horrible game.
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# ? Apr 25, 2021 14:59 |
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I only have one response to the ending movie. There's plenty of more obvious ones, but this is mine to make: KESSLER SYNDROME!!! You fools, you've doomed us all!
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# ? Apr 25, 2021 18:01 |
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The face you make when realize there's more of this poo poo to come.
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# ? Apr 26, 2021 04:57 |
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wingnut noooooooo wingnut yayyyyyyy
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# ? Apr 26, 2021 06:40 |
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I'm still catching up on some of these despite having made it for commentary on the final video and I think Solitair sums it up with the "anything to make the game end faster" comment re viable strats including suicide runs. Savage but honest take there. You know, I was honestly expecting Dravis to have shown up in some way during the final boss fight. Either getting killed by his own robot as it goes berserk before fighting you, watching and taunting you from behind some indestructible forcefield as you fight the boss, or even piloting the boss ship. The flares plinking off the bot at the end just made me think of this, though:
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# ? Apr 26, 2021 12:10 |
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Crazy Achmed posted:You know, I was honestly expecting Dravis to have shown up in some way during the final boss fight. Either getting killed by his own robot as it goes berserk before fighting you, watching and taunting you from behind some indestructible forcefield as you fight the boss, or even piloting the boss ship. They only had David Warner for one day and six lines I guess
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# ? Apr 26, 2021 20:35 |
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I love the heroes story arc, from utterly useless and annoying to important and only somewhat annoying, and finally they save the day by killing the mastermind and even getting to avoid the heroic sacrifice. Guidebot the hero of earth! and his fleshbag chauffer, with the weaponized limo, was there to I guess.
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# ? Apr 27, 2021 08:37 |
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Yeah, guidebot was clearly the real hero here. TBH when the cutscene showed that material defender was dumb enough to get out of his ship and then do the bad-guy-style gloating before (trying to) take care of Dravis, he had it coming to him. Come to think of it, forget what I said in the previous post about Dravis. Having him hanging in a back room probably making a powerpoint or looking at a spreadsheet while we fight a boss robot is much more on-brand rather than him actively getting his hands dirty trying to kill us.
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# ? Apr 27, 2021 12:32 |
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Angry_Ed posted:They only had David Warner for one day and six lines I guess That... can't actually be David Warner, can it? ...Oh holy poo poo, it is.
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# ? Apr 27, 2021 15:42 |
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Hey guys! My usual crop of commentators is on a bit of a burnout at this point, so I'm looking for fresh faces! I've got 8 videos of Mercenary, and then Overload to go, so anyone who wants to co-commentate over much better games needs only click on the finely crafted link below to join the discord. https://discord.gg/3c8sCxet I'm looking to do a recording session tomorrow (Saturady) evening at 8PM Eastern, 6PM Mountain, with more to come. And to show I'm not dead yet, here's the opening cutscene of Mercenary!
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# ? May 22, 2021 03:29 |
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I'm still looking for some co-commentators! Tonight, 6 PM Mountain, 8 PM Eastern. Bring a microphone, your own audio recording software, and a click on the Discord link above.
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# ? May 23, 2021 15:43 |
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As a tentative response, this does seem higher quality. But has no-one learned to not betray the merc they hired?!
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# ? May 23, 2021 17:49 |
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I ended up not commenting because I stopped following the series after Descent 3. I didn't know Mercenaries or Vertigo even existed until this thread started, honestly.
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# ? May 25, 2021 08:29 |
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Oh wow, nuking a colony in mission 1? As far as warcrimes go, this escalated quickly... I'll make it back to commentating when life gets a bit more manageable, it's fun times.
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# ? May 25, 2021 13:50 |
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# ? May 30, 2021 23:56 |
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The security drone in this level reminded me that there were a couple other places in later levels where I wondered if the worker drones that went in and out of inaccessible areas were despawning, or if there were connected paths that they were looping through. Sadly, it doesn't look like there's a noclip cheat to find out. But there is a full map cheat... along with some other odd ones. GameFAQs posted:Put's a baby face on the sun (like Teletubbies) Teletubbies
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# ? May 31, 2021 06:09 |
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Mercenary gives the impression of being a much better game. Even if we're working for Dravis.
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# ? Jun 1, 2021 00:36 |
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idhrendur posted:Mercenary is a much better game. Because we're working for Dravis. Sorry, had to fix that for you. And yes, Mercenary is hella better than D3 itself.
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# ? Jun 1, 2021 00:43 |
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Behold! The largest level in the Descent franchise! With the largest room! And the most illogical secret exit!
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# ? Jun 6, 2021 13:23 |
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And the award for best Jumpscare goes to....
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# ? Jun 14, 2021 00:07 |
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Finally cracked down and finished the last level of Mercenary. That has some serious "A Winner is You!" vibes to it. I'll be seeing if there's anything worth recording in the alternate player-developed levels, then I will start recording Overload. Thanks for sticking with me!
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# ? Jun 15, 2021 02:31 |
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Congratulations! This has been quite a marathon so far, but a whole lot of fun. The space bees level is giving me some armored core vibes. Every game in the series I've played has a mission where you have to fight a hive of some kind of giant space bug things that goes much the same, complete with getting lost and needing to check the map repeatedly. The flak burst on death is such a dick move, though, especially as shield powerups seem to be pretty scarce in this level.
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# ? Jun 15, 2021 11:24 |
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You know, I'm pretty sure this is illegal, but what the heck. We're still getting paid!
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# ? Jun 20, 2021 14:14 |
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Almost there... almost done... Overload is on the horizon!
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# ? Jun 27, 2021 18:35 |
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# ? Jun 12, 2024 07:23 |
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So... is there any indication of the health of those crates? They seem pretty tanky, but there didn't seem to be much indication of how close you were to failure there. No healthbars, and I couldn't see any visible indication of damage on the crates.
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# ? Jun 29, 2021 00:07 |