Review — Descenders
Many of today’s racing games are heavily focused around hardcore racing with other players or computer players through large and intricate tracks. This has obviously worked well, as series like Forza Horizon and Forza Motorsport have thrived off the idea of racing on various race tracks and vast countrysides. I even found enjoyment playing Forza Horizon back during my Xbox days.
One such game that changes this formula up is a little known game by developer RageSquid named Descenders. It’s an extreme downhill mountain biking game that has a large focus on the word extreme rather than the racing aspect of most racing games. This helps to make it stand out from most of the crowd and create its own image.
If there’s one thing I’d have to give high levels of praise to this game for, it’s the environments they’ve created. The game currently features eight different environments you can explore and each of them look absolutely stunning. There’s a lot of detail put into them down to even the single blades of grass on maps like Highlands and Forest. Even the trees have very detailed bark that looks beautiful while riding past. A lot of the environments also feel very varied and unique as you have everything from the snow-covered mountains of Peaks to the dry sand dunes of Desert. Each place felt like its own world to explore and travel through. I did have a few issues with the scenery at long distances being at a really low resolution. It never really distracted from the main game though.
One big issue I had with the worlds was the difficulty ramp throughout at least the first four worlds. I found the Highlands to be incredibly easy, which for the start of the game I definitely would say is a good thing. The second area, Forest, was a bit of a different story. I found that section the hardest of the first four to even make it to the finish line on a lot of the routes. I feel that this was due to the number of objects blocking your way outside of the track (it is a forest after all) and with very windy and fast-paced paths specifically a feature of Forest, I found a lot of my failed attempts were due to this location. The third location, Canyon, really felt like it was meant to be the second location but was switched for reasons I don’t quite understand. The Peaks though ended up fitting its position as the finale of the main map group. If they switched it up to have Forest and Canyon switched, I feel as though it would’ve been much more fitting.
Sound design is another place I felt the game excelled heavily in. The main soundtrack of the game is a host of music from the drum and bass genre. With that being one of my favorite genres, I felt overjoyed to hear it played through this game. The songs they chose are very good for speeding down hills which makes up the majority of the gameplay, and even the sounds you hear when hitting different stunts or reaching high speeds is quite satisfying to hear.
Unfortunately, I found that a lot of the soundtrack tends to get a little repetitive after the first bunch of attempts on a certain area. The developers appear to have made an attempt to mitigate this issue through giving each area its own unique set of songs, but it at least feels like there are only five or six songs in a single area. A few more songs in each area I feel would’ve given it more variety and helped with the replay value.
The customization for your character in Descenders does feel like it has some level of variety. At the end of each of your runs, you’re generally given a random item if you haven’t already gotten the items for that area or accomplishment. You can also unlock cosmetics through one of the game’s three factions. These rewards feel varied with rewards ranging from a new pair of goggles to some new pants, or even a chicken head of all things. While these cosmetics felt varied, it was quite a shame to see there were not more options for earning new items. Having those new avenues of earning new gear would really help to give the game that extra bit of progression for players.
Lastly, I feel as though I should touch on the recently added multiplayer component of Descenders. There’s a mode in the game that allows you to start up a casual match with you and up to seven other players. In this lobby, you can select to do either a full run of the initial four maps, a full run of the last four maps, a single environment, or a custom seed to generate a new world. These options are good already, but I think it could definitely be expanded upon in the future. There could be a regular racing mode, a mode that includes lives featured in the main game, a competition to see who can do more stunt points (better known as Rep), and much more. I would love to see the team expand upon this in some way.
Overall, I feel Descenders is a very good addition to the racing game market. It offers fast-paced mountain biking with extreme stunts and awesome music that compliment it quite nicely. It does have its issues in the way of multiplayer lacking features and difficulties being unbalanced, but it’s still a fun and worthwhile experience.
Score: 7/10
Pros
-Beautiful environments
-Satisfying gameplay
-Appealing sound design
-Aesthetically pleasing (and humorous) customization
Cons
-Difficulty ramp up
-Low amount of tracks
-Incomplete multiplayer
