Descent II (PC)

Descent II
Developer: Parallax Software Publishers: Interplay (DOS), MacPlay (Mac OS Classic) Platforms: DOS, Mac OS Classic Released in US: March 13, 1996 (DOS), 1996 (Mac OS Classic) Released in EU: 1996 This game has unused enemies. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused sounds. This game has a prototype article

Descent II is the sequel to Descent, improving on the original with more weapons, themed levels, and super fast thief robots.

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Prototype Info

Unused Graphics

To do: Find unused level textures, like with Descent. The code needed to find unused textures is present in D2X-Rebirth, but doesn't count properly and crashes on use.

The unused blue blob from Descent returns, now also defined as the Gauss projectile's sprite. As with the Vulcan projectile, it isn't rendered in-game.

As does the blue energy ball.

The slime is present, too, suffering heavily from the change in palettes.

And the landing pad.

Unused Robots

All robots from the original Descent remain, but most are not used in the Descent II levels. The Supervisor appears a few times in the Quartzon levels, with some upgraded behavior. Level 16 has a number of materialization centers that create the original cloaked lifter robot, but the rest go unused.

Included in the new robots for Descent II is a clone of the original Descent level 7 boss, with some slight stat differences. Its boss-like properties are removed, so it can't teleport and won't cause the countdown on death, it has 5000 HP instead of 4000, and causes a small amount of splash damage on death.

An unused robot with a green version of the original Descent's Heavy Driller model. It fires multiple homing missiles as its attack, like the Lou Guard enemy.

A green-colored Guidebot. Unlike the normal Guidebot, this robot is hostile and attempts to make suicide explosion attacks like the Omega Defense Spawn enemy.

Duplicates

The data for the Omega Defense Spawn, Smelter, BPER, Spider, and Spawn enemies is duplicated in the data files.

The Smelter duplicate gives 600 points of score vs. the normal's 500 points and can turn slightly faster, making a 360 degree turn in 6/10ths of a second compared to the normal's one second on the easiest difficulty, up to 1/5th of a second compared to the normal's 7/10th of a second on the hardest difficulty.

The Omega Defense Spawn duplicate gives 500 points vs. the normal's 400, has 70 health instead of the normal's 90, and plays the sounds of the Sidearm Modula enemy.

The BPER duplicate gives 800 points vs the normal's 700, has 85 health instead of the normal's 75, and makes the sound of the original Descent's Defense Prototype.

The Spider duplicate gives 700 points vs. the normal's 600, and has 110 health instead of the normal's 100.

The Spawn duplicate gives 300 points vs. the normal's 200, attacks more frequently, and makes the sound of the original Descent's baby spider.

Unused Weapons

All of the weapons from the original Descent remain. The blue energy ball remains unused, as does the silent Spreadfire blob, and weapon #8 remains uninitialized. None of the new Descent 2 robots use the Class 1 Drone and Spider Processor's energy balls, so those are effectively unused.

A duplicate of the robot version of the smart mine sub-projectile is included, traveling faster and doing more damage than the used one. The fast one travels at 40 units/second and does 15 damage on the easiest difficulty, compared to the used one's 35 units/second and 10 damage, up to 90 units/second and 35 damage on the hardest difficulty, compared to the used one's 80 units/second and 16 damage.

Super Laser

In Descent 2, to fit the new weapons, all of the weapon keys were changed to alternate between selecting two weapons, excepting the Laser Cannon, where the new weapon simply upgrades your normal laser to level 5 and beyond. However, a secondary weapon is still defined for the laser slot, also identified as the "Super Laser". It is hardcoded to only fire Laser level 4 projectiles regardless of your current laser level, and the name shows up overlapping the level in the UI. In the full-screen HUD, it doesn't show its name at all.

Unused Sounds

An unused earthshaker missile explosion, with the final game using the mega missile explosion sound for earthshaker explosions.

The sound played when an illusionary wall is set to fade out. In the release levels, only solid walls or forcefields are set to fade out, so this goes unused.

In addition, a large number of the robot sounds from the original Descent remain, but are unused in any of the release levels. Supervisors make a return in a few levels, and the original Descent cloaked lifter is created by materialization centers in the Limefrost Spiral boss level, and their sounds are also used by the Sidearm and their smaller Modula. Some of these sounds may have been used for early versions of the Descent 2 robots, given the use in the duplicate robots listed above.