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Classic Mac FPS Marathon Turns 10
Mjolnir Mark IV writes "Dec. 21 marked the 10th anniversary of the release of Bungie's classic Mac first-person shooter Marathon. Back then, the game was notable for besting its contemporary Doom in the areas of graphics, gameplay and story, all the while giving Mac gamers something to brag about. Today, the game's notable for its connections to the Halo franchise. When Bungie was bought by Microsoft they released the source code, and the game lives on in updated form."
GRaphics...yes...
But gameplay, and story...sorry...were FAR from Doom.
I remember all my friends making fun of the chirpy aliens.
*lol*
The game's WHAT is notable for its connections to the Halo franchise?
Oh, I get it. Spare apostrophe. If only /. had editors.
What's that? Oh. Never mind.
You are not the customer.
you dirty monky spanking fatass amiga freak
but features don't make a game. Doom is remembered by everybody, not just because of the graphics but because it felt right, all the weapons were well bananced, also they were balanced just right next to the enemies also, The level design was good for its day (being slightly non-linear). The whole game felt like something which was playtested to death, not by people who were looking for bugs but by the developers who _really_ cared about the game. A lot of mags said Duke Nukem was better, but it never seemed as polished. Doom 2 did feel like a rush job however tho. The same happened with Quake, the _quality_ was waay better than Unreal, even though Unreal added a pretty good story etc and superb EAX sound.
There's always a tendency to say X game is better than the (at the time) benchmark product because of Y feature. And yes. if Doom had Duke Nukem's funky multi floor workaround it would have been better, but that feature (and others as well) don't make it better.
I don't know abour Marathon, it may be superb. I never played it, but who remembers it now? everybody remembers Doom, and most have cleared it. I even re-bought it on CD a bit ago, and I've just started re-playing it. It's still one of the best.
Back then, the game was notable ...
Funny that today was the first I've heard of it.
Back then, the game was notable for besting its contemporary Doom in the areas of graphics, gameplay and story, all the while giving Mac gamers something to brag about.
Shut up you useless piker. Who died and made you the Ultimate Arbiter of Computer Game facts?
If you're not going to filter out the opinions of people who suggest stories to you, and just leave the facts: i.e. Marathon is now ten, then why even post them?
This site is ass in a hat.
Isn't this the Macs ONLY FPS?
Oh, and if the fucktard who claimed that Doom3 failed because it wasn't put out on the Mac is reading... Dude, get a fucking clue.
Enjoy them all.
Marathon was a good game, but not moreso than many other heavily DOOM-inspired games. The difference is that Marathon was released for the Mac *before* DOOM was ported to the Mac. Lots of other games in the same vein hit the PC around the same time, but they were lost admid all the other similar games. Marathon 2 was a huge flop when released for the PC.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not calling Marathon *awful*, just more derivative than not. (And, yes, I've played both Marathon and DOOM.)
Back when it was called Tribes or something... :)
-dameron
An oxymoron surely? ;)