Overload

In 1995, Interplay Productions put out Parallax Software's Descent, the Guinness World Record holder for the first truly 3D first-person shooter that plunged players into caverns, providing them with a 3D environment and disorientingly chaotic atmosphere like no other. Then, in 1996, Descent II grew larger and meaner, but also introduced a Guide-Bot that assisted those navigating the mines. Finally, in 1999, the ambitious Descent 3 vastly reworked graphics and moved its focus to storytelling and objectives-based gameplay with outdoor environments to explore. Now, after almost 19 years of silence, the same developers behind the Descent trilogy have released Overload as the series' spiritual successor. Essentially, up for testing is a 23-year-old concept brought to computers in 2018, so are there marvels awaiting us in Overload that sparked the magic of its distant relatives then, or does it fall short of anything more than nostalgia relief?

In Overload, set 100 years after the game's release, a corporation that mines minerals on the moons of Saturn is led by an overly keen and ambitious CEO. It suffers a catastrophic event as its mining robots, called automatic operators or auto-ops, suddenly attack personnel in savage ways, and a single pilot of military background is tasked with flying down the mines to cripple their reactor cores and escape in the style of Return of the Jedi. In case anyone has not spotted it, it has the same premise as Descent. In fact, everything about this game is highly reminiscent of the first two Descent games. Weapons, power-ups, robot mannerisms, electronic music, even fancy features like VR support. The rules, mechanics, and combat are equally familiar. Concerning nomenclature, PTMC is now Cronus Frontier, the Pyro-GX now a Kodachi gunship, CEO Samuel Dravis now Gabriel Kantor, etc. One might as well say that the fittingly titled Revival Productions ported Descent to 2018. In this game, the player pilot wakes from cryostasis on board a ship called the Iberia with temporary cryo-induced amnesia, blocking memory of his identity. The Iberia is controlled by an AI program called Mara, who briefs the player ahead of missions, helping the player and gathering new information along the way. Usually, Mara instructs the player to "overload" the reactor of the mine they are first teleported to before escaping, in a reversion from Descent 3's emphasis on story and flying outdoors. The next screen for viewing weapons and robots also echoes the first two games, as is the screen after that for the mine to be entered.

As a tradition of playing space games, I started with a joystick, but the rotations seemed to lag behind my Logitech Extreme 3D Pro's movements. While my joystick might perform rustily, I thought I would fare much better anyway with a peripheral that I never found myself being adjusted to when playing games of its kind: my mouse. To my gratification, this game handles it quite well, where it feels as if I am pointing my ship where I slide my mouse. Just be sure to map banking buttons. One of the first things one will notice about Overload is the graphics, which are quite impressive from an independent studio. However, they are about as good as any game from a prestigious publisher. For those not in the know, Descent's signature strength in its heydays was perhaps stretching the technology curve. Such did the old games that they were notorious for high system requirements, whereas this game will handle an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti fairly well on max settings, and to see it lose its characteristic technical foresight is disappointing. The second thing one will notice is that the game's story is stronger, though still not its focal point, establishing the villain's motives better than the trilogy combined. Mara collects recordings of relations between the CEO and the facilities, and logs of employees, their teams' activities, and finally the auto-op attack are scattered throughout the mines for the player to pick up. If losing boarded hostages one rescues to ship explosion sucked the joy out of the old experience, now one must simply touch cryotubes for the Iberia to teleport them to safety. By the way, there are no lives this time, so if one fails, the level must be restarted or a save reloaded.

I prefer to review games and spare excess comparisons with others, but Overload makes that challenging, to say the least. It really is a port of Descent for 2018. To its credit, it does use tropes employed by newer games, however oft used and hackneyed they have become. The first is upgrade points, which must be found in order to upgrade on the Iberia at the end of a mission practically anything from the guns and missiles to the ship. A lot of the points are in secret areas, adding another incentive to find a secret area. The second trope is a new arsenal of weapons, both familiar with different names and new. While not quite as large as Descent 3's, some worthwhile additions include the Crusher and the Lancer, two guns that are ammo- and power-hungry, but will obliterate what stands in their way. Another is the Time Bomb secondary weapon, which slows down time to the player's advantage. I find the player will use all the game's weapons more or less equally while factoring in their strengths and weaknesses. In challenge mode, the third trope, the player battles pouring-in auto-ops in five minutes or until their death, depending on the end setting. Though familiar, the mode works well here since no other six-degrees-of-freedom can provide such a chaotic experience. For this mode, experience points gained from destroying auto-ops throughout the pilot's lifetime unlock more favorable starting conditions for the player and make them better equipped to cause more carnage. The last addition is less a trope and rather original, giving the Kodachi gunship what the Pyro-GX couldn't: a smash attack. In this attack, the ship rapidly thrusts a slight distance toward an opponent, dealing rather impressive damage like a bull goring a beast. Granted, it is not most prudent against certain auto-ops without a power-up like invulnerability, and, admittedly, it is easy to forget about the attack when they have other weapons, but it is bullishly satisfying and always free and available. Lastly, completing Cronus Mission unlocks a related mode called Cronus Mission+, with more auto-ops and where one can spend the upgrade points they collected in their best-performing game in regular mode. There is a little twist to be had there, but replaying the story and catching what I missed is enough for me.

And after that, there is nothing new left to discuss. Really, it is not hyperbole to suggest that Descent was ported to 2018 with blatantly similar gameplay and a story barely more solid than that of Wolfenstein 3D. It so oddly hearkens to the 1990s subgenre of shooters that turned dormant not long after, yet reminding us that it is a new game - the same one that evokes memories of the past that led to Overload. All right, I suppose I owe readers who need a reminder of the Descent experience as I compare. In Overload, there are five difficulty levels affecting power-ups utility and robot strength, combat, and responsiveness, just like the original, although the difficulty curve seems more balanced. Fire on the enemy while dodging in swirls, just like the original. The Hologuide that is normally available to the Kodachi ship can lead the player to objectives as well as shields, ammunition, and power-ups, just like the Guide-Bot, although it now drains the ship's energy but at least no longer flies in front of one's view and gets in their ship's way of fire. The dreaded robot generators (now called fabricators) return, but can now be destroyed when unshielded. The built-in automap returns, and one marker at a time can now be placed anywhere on the map to better locate and reach a destination. Surely, there is VR support as pointed out earlier, but that was in the original, too. Same with a level editor. All these nuances, all these peculiarities one can safely expect to return in Overload. The multiplayer returns, but here is where the only regression lies. When Descent first hit the stores, the mode was divided into simple "Anarchy" deathmatch and cooperative modes, with Anarchy allowing for teams and hostile robots and cooperative involving multiple pilots loading a single-player mission file. By Descent 3, its player capacity would be doubled to 16 and one Anarchy and four non-Anarchy modes added. Overload trims the multiplayer back down to eight players and Anarchy modes, even doing away with cooperation. With limited options, this will be unforgivably disappointing to anyone looking forward to playing the game with friends.

VERDICT: Some old games are worth reviving, and some old games are better left not having a Revival Productions doing that. Overload occupies the fine middle of the road. To be sure, it will please Descent fans who wanted the decaying shooter genre to return with no obvious signs of hoariness. On the other hand, it breaks from the classic's tradition of taking risks and pushing technology, and plays it too safely. Worse, it fails to advance the subgenre and offers nothing to expand its audience, providing little more than nostalgia relief as its biggest strength, and actually trims down multiplayer. Surely, one can name me a joyous experience, as well as having to contend with motion sickness (though luckily I have never undergone that in the hundreds of hours I have put into the games), but my answer to each is that I have seen it or at least am familiar with the experience. Still, the mouse control will appeal to gamers who have abandoned the joystick, which could have been touted in its marketing. Overall, it is an average good game. At least it got released, unlike that Descent reboot, though it looks as if it will come out. We should meet it with both hope and skepticism.