 | Re: When did you first play a Marathon game? |
| Posted By: avarame | Date: 9/1/04 11:18 a.m. |
| In Response To: When did you first play a Marathon game? (Krazy)
: Well how about you?
Gee, it must have been first grade. Louise Van Meter Elementary School, Los Gatos California. I've always been a daydreamer computer freak, and so naturally I hung out in the computer lab often, playing games on the Apple ][s and nondescript Performas. Games like Tink Tonk in the Land of the Buddy-Bots. Then, one day, I go in there after school on a Friday. There are about ten guys and a couple of girls playing Marathon Infinity (and some other games) networked -- one of them is the computer lab teacher's son, which explains the access to the lab. I've never played an FPS before, and I'm captivated by it. I'm forced to be Day-Glo Orange, so I'm easy prey in dark levels; I get the ol' unplug-your-Ethernet-cable-before-the-game-starts-now-you-have-to-reboot trick a few times; I generally get beat on. But I keep going back, and back. Eventually I get to a decent level of skill. Before I knew what 'duality' meant, I 0wned on Duality. I learn tricks of the trade, like how WarCraft II wants its CD mounted, and a disc in the drive... but it doesn't actually check that the WarCraft disc is the one in the drive, so you can spoof it with a a disk image and any random CD. I played Descent, Avara, Escape Velocity, WarCraft, Marathon Infinity, those kings among games. And, of course, the greatest of them all, the Barney Carnage mod for some version of Marathon. George gave me a copy of M1 -- in a segmented StuffIt archive split across six disks. There went a month of my life. I finally deleted the damn thing after Colony Ship For Sale. (These M1A1 kids today have it soooo easy...) Soon, all too soon, but inevitably, everyone else went off to high school where they have bigger and better labs to play Marathon on. Other games took my interest: EV and EVO, Avara, F/A-18 Hornet, the list goes on. Oh, and school. Now I've come full circle -- I beat M2 a week ago (courtesy of Aleph One), I'm starting in on M1A1 hopefully to get through Neither High Nor Low this time, and Infinity is waiting in the wings. I missed the Golden Age of Marathon entirely, and I will never be a Vidmaster, but I know this game will never die. herein ends my unsolicted contribution to this thread. replies to avarame at M L one dot net, especially if you were there at Van Meter, I doubt I'll check back on this thread.
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