Descent II

Like its predecessor, Descent I, Descent II is a six-degrees-of-freedom shoot 'em up game in which the player pilots a fighter spaceship from a first-person perspective in zero gravity. It differs from standard first-person shooters in that it allows the player to move freely across three-dimensional planes and rotate on three axes, often termed pitch, yaw, and roll. Besides the keyboard, Descent II features a wide range of supported hardware configurations with which to play it, including the Gravis Gamepad and certain brands of joysticks, some of which support force feedback—making it one of the earliest PC games to support force feedback. Virtual reality and stereoscopic graphics are also officially supported.

In the game's single-player mode, the player must complete four levels in each of six differently themed star systems where different types of robots attempt to hinder the player's progress. In each level, the player must find and blow up the mine's reactor and then escape the mine through an exit door before the mine self-destructs. The exit door is always open after the blowing up of the reactor and upon the mine meltdown countdown. Every fourth level has a boss robot that replaces the reactor.

The plot is linear and is mostly provided for the introductory and concluding full-motion video cutscenes. After the "Material Defender" (voiced by George DelHoyo) has destroyed all of the Solar System's mines in the original game, he stops in the asteroid belt to dock. He is then contacted by Post-Terran Mining Corporation executive Dravis, who exploits a loophole in a contract to coerce him to accept a new mission or forfeit his reward and face legal action. The Material Defender consents, and as Dravis tries to convince him that he is merely embarking on a reconnaissance mission, his ship is fitted with a prototype warp core. He is then sent to clear out PTMC's deep space mines beyond the Solar System.

The Material Defender teleports to Zeta Aquilae and five other, fictional star systems and destroys their mines. In the sixth system, the last mine seems to run all through a planetoid, which is revealed in the final cutscene to be a large spaceship. After the spaceship breaks apart, the Material Defender alerts Dravis to his return home, but his warp drive malfunctions and he teleports to an unknown location. The camera then fades to that location and the ship appears, heavily damaged and crackling with excess radiation drifting towards the camera, ending with the words "to be continued..." being displayed.

Parallax Software began Descent II's development as an expansion pack for the original Descent game using a CD's storage, but it later evolved into a separate project lasting about one year. Descent II's graphics were upgraded to operate at Super VGA standards, and can also take advantage of 3D acceleration graphics cards. The MIDI soundtrack was composed by Dan Wentz, whereas the included redbook features industrial metal contributed by notable musicians such as Type O Negative and Ogre of Skinny Puppy. It cost $500,000 to produce the game.

Descent II's portal engine remained fundamentally unchanged; it operates on the premise of adjacent cubes or polyhedra whose sides connecting them form portals. The scenes that are drawn are the cube the player ship is in and the areas of other cubes the camera can see through their portals, and the process is repeated as the player enters a different polyhedron. Cubes can be deformed so long as they remain convex. Respectively, these prevent overdraw and accelerate portal rendering, making the engine practical to run on even inexpensive personal computers of that time. The preceding Descent introduced a dynamic light-sourcing scheme by which the environment could be lit with flares, while newly added in Descent II is the ability to shoot out sources of light which will darken rooms as well as a headlight powerup which can continuously illuminate the space in front of the player.

Upon release, Descent II received very positive reviews from video game critics. Citing its replay value, GameSpot commented: "If you don't like Descent at least a little bit, make no mistake, there is something wrong with you." Next Generation opined that a few sequels "can boast the improvements like those made on Descent II", citing the SVGA graphics, the story sequences in full motion video, and the new items. It forgave the same simple mission formula because of the improvements. Computer Gaming World compared the gameplay and enhancements of the sequel to those of Doom II, but complained about the graininess of the textures, and the two magazines warned that players who did not care for the original might not care for the sequel either.

The addition of the Guide-Bot was well received. In a very positive review, PC Magazine considered it to be a valuable addition to the game "because the automap is just as confusing as it was in the original game". Conversely, PC Review felt the Guide-Bot ran contrary to the disorienting character of the series and that the Guide-Bot diminished the need to use strategy, but did write that using the robot was optional. Computer Game Review liked the AI of the new cast of robots in general and other measures taken to prevent getting lost, such as plotting map positions with markers.