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Descent series

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Descent series

Unread postby icycalm » 20 Nov 2014 18:25

http://www.learntocounter.com/forums/in ... pic=7678.0

icycalm's ape wrote:Now that I've gone back and given this game some more of my time and attention, I feel pretty confident and comfortable that by the point I'm done playing every single game that I want to play, that I will be calling Descent II the best game of the 20th century. Yes. It is that fucking good.


3/5. At best. Probably 2/5.

I mean seriously:

ec9kpAN.jpg
ec9kpAN.jpg (184.87 KiB) Viewed 15285 times


AI HAV A BRILANT AIDEA! LETS PUT A SPASHEIP INSIDE A DUNGEON! NO NO NO WERE NOT AUTISTIC NOT AT AL!

Game of the century lol. I heard he works at Walmart, which immediately conjures images of Rain Man for me for some reason. Someone needs to start making motivational posters with Michael J. Lowell quotes. He can try getting them sold at Walmart. I am sure he'll make more that way than from his book.
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Unread postby icycalm » 20 Nov 2014 19:24

icycalm's ape wrote:The levels were too big and confusing? Let's give the player an optional Guidebot and make the levels even more complex, culminating in secret levels which border on experimental design.


The levels border ON EXPERIEMNTAL DESIGN!

icycalm's ape wrote:Oh, and let's add shootable switches so that we can turn levels into elaborate puzzles, just to muck things up even more when you blow a reactor and have to find your way out.


THE SPACISHP INSIDE DUNGEON TURNS INTO SHOOTABLE PUZLLE SWITHCS! BEST GEAM OF THE MILENIUM FALCON!

icycalm's ape wrote:I have been playing this game on-and-off for the better part of twenty years, and not only am I still finding new secrets, but every time I take a break, the game feels like a new experience because the layouts are so elaborate and complex that I can't possibly remember every single thing there is to remember.


FOR TEWLVETY YEARS I TRY TO REMEMBER EVERYTHING THAT IS TO REMMEBER! I WIL KEEP TRY FOR EVER!

icycalm's ape wrote:But most crucially, the conservative, reluctant playstyle ultimately encouraged by the singleplayer mode in the first game is replaced with a surgical strike simulator that can crush any situation that can be thrown at the player.


I am sorry I can't take it anymore.
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Unread postby icycalm » 20 Nov 2014 19:29

The "surgical strike simulator" can "crush any situation that can be thrown at the player". So the game plays itself then?
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Unread postby icycalm » 20 Nov 2014 19:40

I guess he means that the playstyle encouraged by the game can "crush any situation that can be thrown at the player". It's just terrible, terrible phrasing, and horrible choice of words, especially the adjectives.

I get depressed just looking at a screenshot from this series. I think I tried the original game for about 10 minutes on release. There's no point in discussing "mechanics", "level design", "difficulty curve" or whatever if I CAN'T BRING MYSELF TO FIRE UP THE GAME AT ALL.

What a vast, cosmic distance separates my tastes from those of the autists. No wonder they can't relate to a single word I am saying. That poor little dude does his best to relate (check out how the review is littered with stuff pulled out of my essays: complexity, STGs, speculative combination of genres -- done stupidly, of course -- and so on), but no matter how hard he tries, every single GENUINE judgement he makes is the exact opposite to what I enjoy and believe in.
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Unread postby icycalm » 20 Nov 2014 19:52

To understand how retarded the series is, consider that even the devs themselves finally realized it and released "Descent: FreeSpace" aka DESCENT: NO DESCENT, aka A NORMAL SPACE SIM LIKE ALL THE NORMAL COMPANIES ARE MAKING AND ALL THE NORMAL PEOPLE ARE PLAYING.

And I bet that was mediocre at best too. Because space sims without elaborate space opera plots and FMV cutscenes are boring and suck. Not kidding at all -- you read it here first.
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Unread postby icycalm » 20 Nov 2014 20:40

Wanna know which game did the full freedom of movement FPS thing properly, Mikey? I'll tell you because you are too stupid to figure it out, and too casual to even know it: this game:

http://culture.vg/reviews/in-depth/shat ... n-2009-pc/

Fantastic looking game, to such an extent that it makes you want to play it even if you don't like the genre, amazing setting that justifies perfectly the mechanics with no autism like Descent, great moves/weapons/controls/etc., going by the reviewer, except...

It is a versus multiplayer game, i.e. a genre that's worse than JRPGs.

But I still plan to give it a go at some point, if only to feel what it's like to move around and fight in its environments, and revel in the glory of its setting. I would easily give the game a 4/5 for that, even if I only end up playing it for an evening.
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Unread postby icycalm » 21 Nov 2014 00:11

Surth's doing a million times better than that retard Mikey, but still too casual for my tastes:

http://www.learntocounter.com/forums/in ... 5#msg78515

Surth wrote:Q-veta and are chatting about this right now, and I think we are pretty much in agreement with icycalm (he made a thread on it an hour ago or so, in case you don't check his website) on this one, lol.

The thing about space is that it is fucking vast, which makes it so aesthetically great. The setting gives you the chance to show something like a US Navy Aircraft carrier group, except in fifty times as large. If you don't believe me just wait until Q-veta makes the Homeworld thread, I'm sure he has made a few pictures of his giant fleet. So the fact that Descent is set in a bunch of mining corridors... Why? Why would you do that?

Of course, I do know the reason why it is set in corridors — empty space doesn't leave much of a job to the level designers. And with essentially empty levels without any kind of obstacles, of course the complexity would go down a notch. But maybe that just means you shouldn't produce a first-person shooter about dog fights in space in the first place. Maybe you should just produce... Homeworld. Because as soon as we're talking about capital ships, super capital ships, frigates and fighters engaging one another, all the complexity will be back too - because what we have now is ships of various sizes with various levels of mobility, meaning that positioning all of this stuff becomes hugely important, no matter what the "level" looks like. Plus, you know, it makes for an more epic story than "clear those mining corridors." I mean that is literally what the plot of Descent II is, right?

Just look at this video by comparison:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-yu5QiZjBQ

I can't find a great video of the series because everyone uploading videos on youtube is apparently trying to replace the original soundtrack with something retarded, but this should make the point well enough (the soundtrack is from the series, though not from this scene). The point is how much fucking chaos there ought to be in a space battle. A battle in space ought to be gigantic in proportions. Of course in that kind of scenario a dog fight simulator might not make all that much sense - but the conclusion to draw from this is not to throw your hands up in the air and just make a corridor shooter set inside in space mines but rather to make a large-scale strategy game like Homeworld. Just thinking about a missile destroyer launching its entire arsenal into a squadron of interceptors makes me smile right now. Goddamn lets hope the HD remake will be successful.

Anyway, you might answer that I'm just talking about aesthetics here, but, well, if you're gonna declare Descent II the game of the century, then aesthetics can't just be ignored.


It's like, these kids got into games last month and came across a blog post about the Homeworld remakes, and that's why this is the only space-themed game they've ever heard of. I mean seriously? We are talking DOGFIGHTS IN SPACE, and THE ONLY THING YOU CAN BRING UP IS FUCKING HOMEWORLD?

What about FUCKING WING COMMANDER YOU FUCKING GOOGLING RETARDS?

"BUT OH NOES DOGFIGHTS IN SPACE WITH TWO SHIPS WON'T WORK!!!!"

Bullshit manufactured reason that he made up because he hasn't heard of another space-themed game besides Homeworld, A FUCKING REAL-TIME TACTICS GAME.

At least Surth is not as retarded as Mikey and will understand what I am saying here. But you can see how absurd it is for a kid who's only played 5 games in his life to try theorizing. YOU DON'T HAVE THE DATA -- HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU COME UP WITH ANY THEORY THAT WON'T BE IMMEDIATELY LAUGHABLE TO SOMEONE WHO DOES HAVE IT? This entire paragraph is bullshit he had to make up because the only space-themed game he has heard of is Homeworld:

Surth wrote:Of course, I do know the reason why it is set in corridors — empty space doesn't leave much of a job to the level designers. And with essentially empty levels without any kind of obstacles, of course the complexity would go down a notch. But maybe that just means you shouldn't produce a first-person shooter about dog fights in space in the first place. Maybe you should just produce... Homeworld.


There is literally no other way anyone could up with such bullshit otherwise.

THE REASON THE GAME IS SET IN CORRIDORS IS BECAUSE THE DEVELOPERS WERE ASPIES WITH THE AESTHETIC SENSE OF A FLEA.

killer_8 wrote:never heard of this one, guess I'll have to try it out sometime. game of the century eh? so what's the game of this century?


Plagiarize Icycalm: The Gamening

Runner up: Bullshit Theorize: The Googeling
Last edited by icycalm on 21 Nov 2014 00:33, edited 1 time in total.
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Unread postby icycalm » 21 Nov 2014 00:26

It just blows my mind how videogame-illiterate everyone on that site is. You say "SPACE-BASED SHOOTER" and the first things that come to their minds are Descent and fucking Homeworld.

No Wing Commander or X-Wing or Privateer or Freelancer. None of those crappy PlayStation games from Psygnosis, or even the wireframe Star Wars shooters from the '80s. Even Squeenix published a space sim on the 360 at some point if I am not mistaken. Not to mention a hugely popular MMO and nearly half a dozen high profile Kickstarters on the genre, one of which netted 50 million dollars for fuck's sake.

It just blows my mind.

And the problem is not that they know nothing. The problem is that they want to scribble gigantic posts to appear authoritative to other casuals who know nothing -- and to me, of course. Because I am the only proper gamer who reads that site, after all. And the only reason I do so is because the admin one day up and decided to start plagiarizing me.
Last edited by icycalm on 21 Nov 2014 00:39, edited 1 time in total.
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Unread postby icycalm » 21 Nov 2014 00:37

Now that I think of it, they probably heard of Homeworld from the Ancient Space review on the frontpage right now which meantions it about 100 times. It's like they have the memory and attention span of ants, and everything they post has been formed exclusively by what they heard the past 5 minutes.

SHUT DOWN YOUR COMPUTERS. EVERYONE ON THAT SHITTY SITE.

GO OUT AND ENJOY LIFE, AND ONLY TURN ON YOUR COMPUTERS AGAIN TO PLAY AND ENJOY A PROPER GAME FROM TIME TO TIME (anything that's on the Steam top seller charts will do -- it will still be a million times better than what's suggested by your current manufactured hipster tastes).

STOP WEB-BROWSING AND GOOGLING, AND KEEP DOING THIS FOR AT LEAST 5 OR 10 YEARS.

AND ONLY THEN YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO COME BACK ONE DAY AND SAY SOMETHING ABOUT GAMES THAT'S NOT STUPID.
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Unread postby brfranco » 24 Nov 2014 23:52

I'm very fond of the FreeSpace series. One of my favorite games. The game went open source, so the fan community made plenty of graphical improvements and brought the game to today's standards in terms of graphics, effects, sounds, etc.

Trailer for 2014 release: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDU8KW0SxK8

There should be a hassle-free torrent out there with plenty of fan-made campaigns, including a Wing Commander remake and Blue Planet unofficial sequel for FreeSpace 2, my favorite.
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