Actually I was just playing Shattered Horizons yesterday for the first time since its a feebe weekend on steam. For anyone that doesn't know its a 6dof FPS shooter using neutonian physics, where you are an astronaut with a couple guns.
Having to handle 6dof with a keyboard and a mouse is a big adjustment for me since I was a joystick user in Descent...However it was largely irrelevant since aside from hiding behind a rock or a wall for cover, movement is largely pointless in the game.
The primary skill you will require to play the game is point and click. Your player even with the lightest weapons accelerates about as quickly as a brick on a level surface. Combined with the presence of mouselook style turning any attempt at dodging is pointless beyond all imagination. Moving barely even holds an advantage over parking on a rock and emptying your clip in someones direction. The person with the better mouse, better aim and better latency will almost always come out on top. The only movement you have to worry about is finding the right place to camp so the enemy is forced to play whack-a-mole giving you a chance to reload.
Descent on the other hand is enormously about movement, close up or at a distance it is more then possible to twitch your ship to throw off the aim of even instant hit weapons like the MD and the Vauss which are also more difficult to handle because of the way ships physics work.
I pretty much dived into Shattered Horizons having not read the manual, not even looked at the controls, or even understood the bulk of what the interface was telling me and I was still able to handle it within seconds. I also got several rank promotions within the first few minutes of playing, which felt more like an artificial reward than anything. Yes it is very accessible to new players, but that is all it is. For people looking for a challenging and ultimately rewarding replacement to Descent, this is not it by a long shot.
Compared to modern games, Descent is incredibly HARD.
Now lets see if the forum software takes this post. And I'd better hope I don't have to edit it.
![Razz :P](./images/smilies/icon_razz.gif)