Descent II

Descent II is a first person shooter published in 1996. It's the sequel to Decent. The game was published by Interplay Productions and developed by Parallax Software. Originally intended as an expansion pack for Decent, it grew into its own game. Initially published for DOS, it has since been ported to Windows, Mac OS and Playstation.

As in its predecessor Descent, players inhabit the character of the “Master Defender” a mercenary tasked with destroying mines for the Post-Terran Minerals Corporation. The game gives you 720 degrees of movement. It also puts you in control of the “Pyro-GX” Spaceship. Your main goal is to locate and destroy each mine's reactor. There's a guide bot that helps to guide you to the reactor. You destroy it with an array of weapons like the Plasma Cannon, the Fusion Cannon, the Spreadfire Cannon, the Vulcan Cannon and more. The soundtrack employs industrial metal music from artists like Type O Negative and Brian Luzietti.

Descent II is truly an improvement on the original. The addition of the guide-bot helps make the difficulty more manageable. The graphics are fantastic, and the industrial music soundtrack really adds to the experience. Not much of the gameplay is different from the original, but it's been fine tuned to make for a really excellent game.