So I finally finished the whole trilogy, and after playing through them all, Descent is by far and away the best of the three games. While the first one was slow, but interesting with a bland boss fight to top it all off, and the second one was a major waste of time with boring written all over it, the third is anything but. Yes, the game still suffers from the same problems that it's predecessors had, but it is so much better in so many regards.

Let's start with what was already good from the previous two titles: the graphics. And boy are they in full swing on this title. The game looks truly incredible for this game's budget and development level. The aliens and environments are slicker than ever with almost no framerate issues throughout the entire game. The environment, while still not as varied as the original game, still feels alive and vivid as you wander through the dark corridors of this forgotten ghost ship that is tearing through a planet's atmoshpere. This awesome graphics level also applies to the game's weapons, which is by far the best weapon pool from the three games.

Speaking of the weapons, they finally nailed it with these. The player still starts with the quintessential assault rifle and pistol (useless), and will still obtain the shotgun and flamethrower (still my favorite). However, the developers threw out the worthless rocket launcher from the last title and left out (sadly) the hyper blaster as well. Of course, the last one can be understood as it was pretty much a glorified assault rifle. In the place of those two weapons you are given the Electro Link Gun (inaccurate but very, very powerful), and the almighty Project X, which functions like the rocket launcher without the incredibly annoying insta-gib if you're standing too close to it when it goes off.

As for plot development, there is quite a bit in this game. It was great to finally see some character development in any form, which was completely absent in the last two titles. A death near the beginning was touching, but very tragic. And even later on, if you keep your eyes open, you'll run across two more deaths of people you once knew. However, the shining star of this game is obviously Klein, the mad scientist behind all of this nightmare. Klein's voice can be heard throughout almost the entire game as it taunts you consistently with your ineptitude, as well as trying to make you give up on your task of destroying him by tempting you with thoughts and opportunities of immortality. Conrad, being the almost silent protagonist, quietly declines.

Moving on to the enemies of the game, a few old problems start to rear their ugly heads. Yes, there are quite a varied list of enemies to vanquish in this title, but not enough variety to sustain another 5 hour trek. Especially if you played the last two games as well. There is one new type of enemy in this game though but it shows up rarely, and it's ripped apart just as easily from bullets that you're unlikely to realize it's even there in most fights (save it's shiny blue skin). The boss fights, however are finally, FINALLY interesting in some degree. Good lord does this franchise have some crappy boss encounters, but it looks like Team 17 saved all of the half decent ones for the finale. Although to me, the final boss encounter was not nearly as satisfying as it should have been after trekking through all three games, and it wasn't even the best boss fight of the game.

And lastly, a new problem arose a couple times throughout my playthrough. Glitches. There were a few areas where Conrad would seemingly get stuck for an unspecified amount of time, only to be knocked out of it randomly by an enemy. Along with that, I even suffered a few game crashes while reading some of the logs in the game, which of course prompted me to stop reading any logs at all. Even with these glitches though, this was still the best title in the trilogy by far. If I have to take a few problems along the way to get the game to be this good, I'll take it.

Overall Score: 7/10

[h1]For more reviews and gameplay videos by Morgoth, check out the profile or the Twitch channel at twitch.tv/morgoth0221[/h1] So I finally finished the whole trilogy, and after playing through them all, Descent is by far and away the best of the three games. While the first one was slow, but interesting with a bland boss fight to top it all off, and the second one was a major waste of time with boring written all over it, the third is anything but. Yes, the game still suffers from the same problems that it's predecessors had, but it is so much better in so many regards. Let's start with what was already good from the previous two titles: the graphics. And boy are they in full swing on this title. The game looks truly incredible for this game's budget and development level. The aliens and environments are slicker than ever with almost no framerate issues throughout the entire game. The environment, while still not as varied as the original game, still feels alive and vivid as you wander through the dark corridors of this forgotten ghost ship that is tearing through a planet's atmoshpere. This awesome graphics level also applies to the game's weapons, which is by far the best weapon pool from the three games. Speaking of the weapons, they finally nailed it with these. The player still starts with the quintessential assault rifle and pistol (useless), and will still obtain the shotgun and flamethrower (still my favorite). However, the developers threw out the worthless rocket launcher from the last title and left out (sadly) the hyper blaster as well. Of course, the last one can be understood as it was pretty much a glorified assault rifle. In the place of those two weapons you are given the Electro Link Gun (inaccurate but very, very powerful), and the almighty Project X, which functions like the rocket launcher without the incredibly annoying insta-gib if you're standing too close to it when it goes off. As for plot development, there is quite a bit in this game. It was great to finally see some character development in any form, which was completely absent in the last two titles. A death near the beginning was touching, but very tragic. And even later on, if you keep your eyes open, you'll run across two more deaths of people you once knew. However, the shining star of this game is obviously Klein, the mad scientist behind all of this nightmare. Klein's voice can be heard throughout almost the entire game as it taunts you consistently with your ineptitude, as well as trying to make you give up on your task of destroying him by tempting you with thoughts and opportunities of immortality. Conrad, being the almost silent protagonist, quietly declines. Moving on to the enemies of the game, a few old problems start to rear their ugly heads. Yes, there are quite a varied list of enemies to vanquish in this title, but not enough variety to sustain another 5 hour trek. Especially if you played the last two games as well. There is one new type of enemy in this game though but it shows up rarely, and it's ripped apart just as easily from bullets that you're unlikely to realize it's even there in most fights (save it's shiny blue skin). The boss fights, however are finally, FINALLY interesting in some degree. Good lord does this franchise have some crappy boss encounters, but it looks like Team 17 saved all of the half decent ones for the finale. Although to me, the final boss encounter was not nearly as satisfying as it should have been after trekking through all three games, and it wasn't even the best boss fight of the game. And lastly, a new problem arose a couple times throughout my playthrough. Glitches. There were a few areas where Conrad would seemingly get stuck for an unspecified amount of time, only to be knocked out of it randomly by an enemy. Along with that, I even suffered a few game crashes while reading some of the logs in the game, which of course prompted me to stop reading any logs at all. Even with these glitches though, this was still the best title in the trilogy by far. If I have to take a few problems along the way to get the game to be this good, I'll take it. Overall Score: 7/10