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 | Re: When did you first play a Marathon game? | |
| Posted By: Torley Wong | Date: 9/8/04 6:32 p.m. |
| In Response To: When did you first play a Marathon game? (Krazy) It's kind of hard to believe at times that it's a decade old, but indeed 10 years have come and gone... wowzers. I remember Marathon. Haven't set sight on it in ages but the memories still linger... and what an elegant, well-designed game it and its sequels are -- standing the test of time with superior gameplay to this day. I had an Apple Mac Quadra 660AV (now defunct) and if I could find it, I still have the manual around here somewhere for the game. I think. Ahhh it was so long ago... Back then, I didn't understand the significance of the computer terminals and all the longwinded text -- I was primarily visual and guided myself from map to map. I didn't like some of the puzzles, I found they got in the way of my adventures. But in hindsight, I realize how crafty they were and how much foresight Bungie had in designing a game like this. Of course, EVERYONE today knows Halo, and everyone who knows that game should be aware of the rich computer gaming history that came first. (Absolutely amazing that there is so much spool of storyline that continues to be unwinded here, to this day.) I had problems spelling names like Pfhor and saw a great many puns in the level names. I eventually got around to skipping levels non-linearly and seeing what sort of adventures could be had by jumping back and forth. To this day, the plot is still a big conundrum to me despite this site and the Wiki summary, but ah, it was a head well-scratched, a head well-scratched! I remember getting out the physics editor and other joyous little tools I downloaded from the Mac HyperArchive of software... these were non-official ones before Bungie unleashed Anvil and Forge... and I had a lot of fun making the enemy aliens REALLY tall and REALLY skinny. Also messing around with the weapons, and oh, of course, the physics models. I will now share one of my favorite memories of the game, and how it seemed so alive and real to me (I kind of don't want to ever look at a screenshot again because of fears it will shatter that nostalgic, "timeless" illusion): what happened was on a certain level, one of the first -- or THE first -- level you meet the Hulks, there are Bobs loose. Brother Zephos and I tried to race around and save the Hulks in this gladiator-like arena from being mauled down, and we saw a Bob racing towards us, green in his boldness. I thought he was going to engage us in some sort of conversation and then get the heck out of there. But oh, hell no!! As soon as he bumped into the player character, the Bob's face enlarging so that the bitmapped jaggies were as clear as day, he immediately ran right back in the other direction... right... into... the swatting claws of a very ANGRY Hulk. Needless to say, Sir Bob did not survive his gallant encounter with the Hulk that day. His gutty entrails, like some sort of gory hieroglyph, marked where he lain slain and the Hulk approached. Producing an appropriate emotional reaction, Brother Zephos and I shrieked like Shrieky from the Care Bears show and that was that -- too much excitement for one day! This was an age laden with adventures, with desktop customizing utilities like the miraculous ClickChange and even Doom coming to Mac (although I found it to be ugly and clunky compared to the lithe, erudite Marathon). SimCity 2000 was also a favorite, and the Mac OS hadn't even reached ver. 8 yet. And oh, the joys of the sequel, Marathon 2, with its amazing ambience -- the rustic wailing of wind on alien planets, the ominous loom of a Juggernaut around the next corner -- and water effects. Splish! Splash! That's what I remember most. It was fun while it lasted. But there's new fun to be had. Some part of me, distant but familiar, hopes for a new Marathon game in the series with tenuous or perhaps more direct, but oblique, ties to the Halo series. I'd like to see my cyborg spacesoldier again with his (its?) mad skillz, chatting with the now-familiar rampant AIs and embarking on a new journey to save the solar system or whatever universal unit is deemed epicishly fit. And these are my memories. | |
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