Hey guys its me ert3 back from the grave to start up a new segment I call Retro Player.

I will take the best elements from games of yester-year that are lost upon the modern game world. For my first shining example of aged gold I chose my personal favorite. Descent 2 (because I never played the original).

In this segment I am going to talk about one of Descent’s neat graphic tricks: THE ABILITY TO SHOOT OUT LIGHTS!

Sorry the technical term escapes me but if you play Rainbow Six, Killzone, or UT3 you have probably noticed the lack of the ability to just shoot out a light in order to make a room dark.

Sure Some Games like SOCOM US Navy Seals and Splinter cell have it, but it’s actually rather rare these days. What’s more is that its in both the single player and the online multiplayer not just one or the other like COD4.

I know that most games work around the need for this by having persistent outside environments or using “bullet proof” objects as a source of light.

Grand Theft Auto contains a half attempt at making things right by having the cars preform this trick but all the buildings have conveniently un-shootable lights.

I’m not going to brag skills I don’t have but if we figured this out in 96 it should be standard by this day and age.

Anyway I hear some N64 games calling me for a talk about using the proper amount of buttons on a controller so see you guys soon.