A decent Descent clone.

Try saying that one three times quickly.

I've still got the original on disc, and by 1998 standards it's still a looker. Very clean, smooth visuals and beautiful lighting effects. Even the PSX version held up well by comparison.

What I really want to know, is whether this remake still includes the demo/benchmark mode. One of the most well known of its era.

And it was pretty lightweight too, even a weak card like the 6326 could turn out decent framerates... on 320x240.

THIS GAME!

I hate it! I've complained about Forsaken in this forum before, as I tried to play the original PC version like a year ago. The difficulty level was just insane, and they managed to include gameplay features that to me are very anti-fun:

- Each level has a timer, ie. you have to clear the level within a certain time limit, or lose _all_ your remaining lives (ie. instant game over if the timer runs out). So, no time to search the tunnels and try to advance cautiously, just rush rush rush hoping to make it to the end alive.

- What makes the timer even worse is that the game is blocking you from rushing through the level. The level is divided into "rooms", and normally in each room your way out to the next room is blocked, until you destroy all the enemies in that room. So forget about trying to speed past the enemies to the finish, it is a question of trying to kill ALL enemies as fast as you can.

- At least in the higher difficulty levels, you are constantly running out of ammo, even if you try to conserve ammo and make every shot count, which in itself is quite hard as you are in a hurry, remember? So the game wants you to be very fast and very precise at the same time.

So, I stopped playing this game in disgust already in the first level, and never looked back. I wanted to like it as it looked like a nice Descent clone.

I wonder if this remake has the difficulty level somehow altered or "fixed"? (Yes yes, the original game has several different difficulty levels too...)

I have no nostalgia for this game, but I do remember my highschool friends talk about it, and how they were buying new graphics cards so they could play it. At the time, I didn't have a computer anywhere powerful enough to play it, but I was also heavily into Heroes of Might and Magic 2... or was it 3?

I'll have to try it out, eventually, to see what all the fuss was about, but by looking at the screenshots, my impression is that this is on of those "look at those graphics" type games. Just an excuse to push the graphical fidelity of the times to the maximum, only to look mediocre 1-2 years later. It will be an interesting experiment, to see how I feel about it, when/if I'll get to try it out.

Thank you for the old release, Nightdive and GOG!

It's a dream for a Descent fan like me to finally see Forsaken on GOG. Thank you GOG and Nightdive!

Yeah, I never liked the campaign myself either. That said, it did have some decent multiplayer. And of course it looked good for its time.

Speaking of Descent clones, I'd be more interested in Terracide...

Played it once back then. Wasn't impressed.

Edit:
btw:
This promo art is better...
:p

Edit2:
And why is the extra calender of the original not part of goodies?

I played it on my N64 back then. I was impressed.

this is one of those games that i'd see the box on the store shelf and think "hmmm interesting" then id look at the back of the box and go "meh."

that said, i do enjoy the occasional hour or two of descent.

Never heard of it, but if it's as good as Descent (or close to) I'll certainly buy.

Nice!

I hope ND is able to port Turok 3 and perhaps Rage Wars despite them only having been on N64.

I'm disappointed by the trailer. Not nearly enough "The Future is Forsaken." Just one text card; not a single voice recording.

Someone's done a comparison on YouTube, and it seems like if you have the original on disc (and don't much care for online multiplayer), you can stick with the original. The graphical differences are minimal.

where are the posters with the naked lady?