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	Message: : TOUR OF DUTY: : Last time on Tour of Duty, we doubled our health, grabbed the Fusion : Pistol, conquered the Pit, passed the Wave, and escaped the Experimental : Vacuum Chamber (though strangely I never mentioned it by that name, which : means I really need to do better with this series). : We start in a small room with a Pattern Buffer and a Terminal, sort of like : in Never Burn Money . What could the Terminal say, I wonder? : I just finished a cursory examination of the Marathon's radar, : infrared and visual light sensor logs. I've determined that : the Alien ship must have a faster-than-light drive because I : have found no record of a ship entering the Tau Ceti System. : Considering how extensive the Marathon's sensors are, it would : be almost impossible to conceal a ship as big as the Pfhor's, : which is nearly two kilometers long. : With this knowledge, sending a light-speed transmission to Sol : may be futile, but it is the only possible way to warn Earth : of a hostile alien race. We must try. : When the Aliens initially attacked, the entire G-4 Sunbathing : Loading Station suffered explosive decompression, leaving the : entire station in vacuum. : Since the area is in vacuum, you will need to replenish your : oxygen supply. There is an oxygen supply outlet in the center : of the Station. : Strangely, at this point I notice what looks like an error on the Marathon : Story page's part: The secondary relay needs to : be manually reset. The dish : array is in the upper left : corner (of the map) of the : G4-Sunbathing Landing Station. : I can't be positive, but I don't think the ' (of the map) ' part should be : there. Unless of course the weirdness stems from a strange mistake way : back in 1994. : Anyhow, this is the only level in the entirety of M1 - indeed, in the whole : of the first two Marathon games - that is a vacuum level. Nevertheless, if : you've played the Infinity vacuum levels, this is a cakewalk in : comparison. While the masses of S'pht are a nuisance and a few spots of : combat can prove to be a bit much for us, this level isn't even the tip of : the iceberg for later levels. : After a short while we will meet the infamous Hunter . These guys are not : really that much of a problem on this level, but just you wait - two : levels from now you will decide that every single Hunter you meet is a : serious threat to your health and your collection of ammo. On this level, : it is advisable to use the Fusion Pistol to deal with just about : everything you meet, unless you've gotten good at using dual-wielded : Pistols (remember we did get a second Pistol on The Rose ), in which : case you can use those to deal with Troopers, as it's a bit faster firing : and you don't really need massive firepower anyways; it's the S'pht and : Hunters that require heavier ordnance. : Our first priority (notice that I talk about priorities here rather than : saying 'we now come to'; this level is more non-linear than the rest we've : seen so far) is to get to the center. If you find a place to drop down : into, don't. Save that for if you fall into the large open areas with the : Hunters and S'pht in them. Instead, wait until you find a door leading to : a room with a Pattern Buffer and... another Fusion Pistol? How strange. : In the room next to it is an Oxygen Recharger as well as a 2x Health : Charger (thank you, goddess of video game benefits). : The rest of this level operates in a clockwise fashion, pretty much. Look at : the map: : The top right corner contains the first switch we need to press. Once we do : that, a door will open up, allowing us to access the second switch. This : sort of repeats three times; a switch in the corner opens access to a : switch in the middle, allowing us to progress to the next corner of the : map. : All along the way, the Compies (S'pht) on the map will turn up at our heels, : begging for our destruction. However, their lack of a high firing speed on : anything less than Total Carnage means that we can take on three or four : of them at once with a Fusion Pistol and come out un-tarnished. On Total : Carnage, however, I would assume the masses of Compies would be : nigh-overwhelming. Furthermore, there is a spot where I think three Purple : Troopers come after us; this spot, while not incredibly deadly, is : problematic at best, and will probably force you to return to the middle : to recharge. : At the very end, we jump across a small chasm to reach the Relay Station, and : are greeted by a Major Hunter. These green fellows are to be feared in a : way their brown brethren cannot compare; they can withstand more than : pretty much all of the enemies we meet except for Hulks and Juggs. : Luckily, there's only one at the moment. Wait until you get to Neither : High Nor Low , and all the Hunters we meet will show their true ferocity. : In the current version of M1A1, I believe we have to hit all of the : switches, but in the original Marathon, we only had to hit the : northern-most switch and Leela would allow us off, sort of like on Defend : THIS! and Couch Fishing (interestingly, all three were created by : different people: Alex Seropian made Defend THIS! , Jason Jones made : Couch Fishing , and Greg Kirkpatrick created G4 Sunbathing ). : Finally we return to the middle, recharge, and read this terminal: You have : done well. I have sent a message to Earth. I sent : all of the information I have on the Pfhor: their behavior; : their technology. The message will arrive in ninety-two : years. : There has been a swift attack on the Engineering Section. The : Pfhor have brought in heavier troops, and the security details : in that section of the ship are being overrun. : The recent lull in the battle must have been an effort at : reorganization. We must defeat the Pfhor by subterfuge of : some sort, as I am afraid we are doomed if we continue to meet : them in battle. Their resources appear limitless, and I have : reason to believe there may be other Pfhor ships in nearby systems. : I am sending you to the Engineering Section to rescue the : security detachment. You will have to clear the area of : Aliens. : Teleport when ready. : This actually sets the stage for Bob-B-Q , which is in fact two levels away. : The next level, Blaspheme Quarantine , is actually more of a tangent from : where we should be. : This level was actually fun to play on. The vacuum element isn't really that : much of a problem, and if I worked at it, I could probably get through the : whole level without recharging my oxygen. The best element I think is the : aesthetics. While I don't think it quite compares to a level like Bob-B-Q : or Couch Fishing for aesthetical talent (I know I said I hated Couch : Fishing , but that doesn't mean they didn't create a convincing aesthetic; : in fact that's partly why I hated it - they made it so convincingly : depressed), it is convincing enough to warrant a high place. The level is : decidedly down-tempo, what with all the darkness and the use of Landing : as the music. : If I were to turn an M1 map into a Marathon Infinity map, I would definitely : pick this one. With the help of ambient sounds and the awesome Jjaro : texture set, this level could be amazing. I can already hear the sound of : creaking ships... : This map, unlike most, has a fair number of Annotations. In the rooms near : the middle of the map with the switches in them, you'll find the : following: M.C. Control (northeast) : D.S. Control (southeast) : D.V. Control (southwest) : What these could mean, it is hard to say. Somehow, they remind me of this : picture of the HUD from the Marathon beta: : Not sure why. Notice that it says 'Zeus Class. Plasma Gun '. Evidently the : concept of the Fusion Pistol wasn't quite complete until later. More : intriguingly, Anvil and Forge both refer to it as the 'Plasma Pistol'. : It's not Plasma, it's lightish red -- er, um, Fusion. Yeah, that was it, : Fusion. : Speaking of which, now that we get to try Fusion on Hunters, we realize that : unlike in M2 and Infinity, the Fusion Pistol doesn't do any extra damage, : proven by the fact that the Hunters don't explode when we Fuse them to : death (enemies with a weakness will play their hard death sequence when : killed with whatever it is their weak to; in the case of Hunters, they : would explode, but of course, they don't, proving that they are not weak : to Fusion). Indeed, the only enemy in the game that is weak to Fusion are : the Wasps (which makes sense to me, given just how effective the Fusion : Pistol proved to be against them during my Normal playthrough). : Anyways, back to the topic of Map Annotations, the level also contains three : other Annotations besides the ones I mentioned earlier (you know, before : my stream of consciousness went on a total tangent). The 'Satellite Relay' : one (I'm sure you can guess where that is) is obvious, but in the two : southern pits, you'll find the east one contains the Annotation 'Dead : Sea', while the west one contains the Annotation 'Death Valley'. : Intriguingly enough, these are both actual places in real life. The Dead : Sea is a salt lake near Israel and Jordan, and Death Valley is a canyon : in California that contains the lowest point in America (known as Badwater : Basin). : The level also contains the map text 'YOU MUST LOVE M-THON IT KICKS'. What : it kicks I have no idea, but I do love Marathon ever so much, making this : text truthful. Indeed, anyone who learns about that text must really like : Marathon, otherwise they wouldn't be looking around hard enough to find : it. : And on that note of self-confirmed map writing, we end this edition of Tour : of Duty. What will happen next time, you ask? Here's a hint: You : shouldn't ask yourself such worthless questions. ;) : Vale, : Perseus
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