My Top 4 “Holy S#!7” Moments in PC Gaming
Written by: Adam "ManKorn" Korenman, CC2K Video Games Editor
2) Descent Freespace (or my action movie sequence)
If there is one genre of gaming I missed the most, it is the space shooter. No, I’m not talking about the space marine shooter, because that has been done to death.
We get it, you two don’t get along
What I mean is the pilot’s-view, action-packed space sims where you take on thousands of the galaxies best fighters out in the inky black. Games like Star Wars: X-Wing and Tie-Fighter. Hell, who owned an N64 and didn’t have a copy of Rogue Squadron? No one, that’s who.
Maybe this kid
I’m sure there are a few of you out there who remember Descent: Freespace, a hotly anticipated sequel in the incredibly successful Descent series. By getting the gamer out of the mines and into the Black, the developers through the series on its ear. And then made sweet love to that ear, with awesomeness.
My Action Movie Sequence
At about the middle of the game, the enemy aliens unleash their most powerful warship, the Lucifer. Armed with an unknown weapon, it straight up burns a planet to a crisp, wastes every ship around it, and escapes unscathed. Yeah, the name is a little lame, but this ship is no joke. One thing that Freespace excelled with was scale. Your tiny fighter paled in comparison to the monolithic cruisers and carriers of the Shivan race. And you took these suckers on every mission!
My favorite mission is one involving subterfuge. Up until now, I have gone into battle with one goal in mind: destroy every motherfucker in the galaxy. But after disabling an enemy fighter, I now have the opportunity to play spy and bring back crucial information to the warfront.
This was a solo mission, flown in a stolen alien craft (like Independence Day, foo!). After scanning several trade vessels, my commanders tasked me with approaching a powerful cruiser. As I finished your work, I noticed a sudden flux in the warp gate nearby. Something was approaching, and it had to be huge.
If you’re a gambling man, I bet you know where I’m going with this. Holy crap, yes, you guessed it, it’s the freaking Lucifer.
Up until that moment, I have never seen this ship in gameplay, and the scale was incredible. It swallowed my entire screen and stretched back for days. This wasn’t just an end boss, this was the ship all end bosses called home. And it was staring me down.
Seconds later, all hell broke loose. My cover was blown, and it was time to get the hell out of Dodge. Unfortunately, my stolen ship chose that moment to lose warp capability.
Now I was trapped in the system, flying circles around the Lucifer to avoid the incoming security patrol. I wove in and out of hangar bays, ducked under massive gun port and kicked in by afterburner until the ship nearly tore apart. As the enemy closed in and loosed a veritable shower of missiles, my drive came online and I managed to escape, out of breath but alive.
Why don’t they make games like that anymore?
Though I guess you can get similar thrills in my new book, When the Stars Fade. But I digress.