Graphics
Judging by the demo's graphics Descent 3's graphics are nothing short of Kick Ass. Descent 3 requires a 3D accelerator that supports Direct 3D (the game will also likely support Glide) which means the graphics will be guaranteed to be good on any system with a decent 3D accelerator. It looks like the Voodoo2 and the Riva TNT will be the best choice for this game. Voodoo2 for its amazing Glide support, and Riva TNT for it's stunning Direct3D performance. The minimum requirement is a 4MB 3D card, so I would think a 4MB Voodoo1 would be the bare minimum here. Descent 3 takes advantage of pretty much all of modern 3D card features. Well, I'll shut up and let some more screenshots do the talking:

Sound
D3's sound is going to be a sure hit as it supports both DirectSound 3D and Aureal's A3D sound technologies. Anyone with a decent PCI soundcard is going to really enjoy the audio aspect of this game. No word if it will support A3D 2.0, just looks like A3D 1.0. There's a good chance it will support A3D 2.0 if it's being released in February/March because by then A3D 2.0 will be standard and all hard core gamers are going to have an awesome soundcard like the Monster Sound MX300 probably. Currently I don't have a 3D sound card (sigh) but the sounds in the D3 demo were still great, and sounded good both on the head phones and the speakers.

D3's music will be Digital Streaming Audio, like Descent: Freespace (which a lot of people assumed to be D3 - you were wrong). With this a song can evolve throughout the level, and the music will never "end" before you do. Certain events will trigger different volumes or events in the music which should enhance the suspense level of this game. Let's just hope that they don't screw up like in some areas of Unreal where the battle music would come on when you fought an enemy and then stay on 3 minutes after the bastard was dead on the floor. Quite simply, A3D support guarantee's awesome sound, and sound quality buffs will like this game.

Conclusion
After Christmas this winter when D3 hits the shelves I think a lot of long lost Descent fans will wake up and smell the lasers once again as this game makes it's way onto computer monitor's all over the net. Bottom Line: If you liked Descent of Descent 2 in any way at all, you will love Descent 3.

Preview by Adam "kami" Koebel
Date: November 30, 1998