System: Valve Index, HTC Vive & Oculus Rift
Price at Time Of Review: £22.99
Comfort Rating: Red (Extreme Movement)
Genre: Space Shooter
Input: Gamepad
Best Playing Position: Sitting
Multi-Player: Yes
Age Rating: PG
Description: A true first person shooter deserves all six degrees of freedom. Fight through twisting tunnels & vast caverns where the concepts of up and down mean nothing and danger lurks around every corner. This is Descent: Underground! We’re blasting the full-freedom shooter Descent into the 21st Century with next-generation gaming technology built on Unreal Engine 4! Descent: Underground is a both a prequel to the Descent series and a modernization of the original gameplay. We’re staying true to the original flight mechanics, arcade style combat, and tightly twisting map design while taking it to the next level!
Review: Before I even start telling you what I thought of this game I have to confess that I have always been a fan of the Descent series since it was one of the very first games I played when I got my IBM PC. heck, I was even sad enough to play the Undermountain RPG one! OK, so fandom out of the way we are now in 2016 and virtual reality is slowly becoming mainstream and that means we are no longer stuck with the 2D screen as with all the other series, this one puts you literally in the seat of the spacecraft.
Played with a 1st person shot em’ up style the controls are pretty basic and traditional. While you do have the full six degrees of freedom they don’t take long to get used to. Then you get to choose from the multiplayer online action, free flight or VS bots battle. Once you have chosen which play mode to do, choose your craft from a good range of them, then you are flung into the battlefield.
This is not your average slow-paced VR game, this game goes full speed ahead and doesn’t care if you suffer from VR sickness. While tough to play it isn’t unbearable and if you stick with it you’ll soon get used to it (although your stomach will still flip whenever you drop down a tunnel quickly either on the chase or being pursued.) With large, great looking levels and all of them the perfect playground for a shoot-em-up, you will be looking all over the place, trying to keep a lookout for enemies. Peeking around corners, racing full speed down (and up) tunnels to get away and pursue and flinging your ship around some crazy manoeuvres just to get the kill is all part of the game.
If ever there was a game that was going to work in VR it is Descent. Being able to look around the corners and all around the ship as the enemy’s Wizz past is a fantastic experience. It looks amazing, sounds great and the range of ships, weapons and environments are growing all the time (after all, this is just an early access game). OK, so it’s not perfect and does have some issued with the HUD, menu system and anyone who suffers VR sickness. Get used to those little niggles and you will find one amazing game. Anyone who has ever enjoyed the many variations (and clones) of Descent will think this is the best thing ever and that is exactly how I felt. It’s fun, fast, furious and I loved it.
