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	Message: : Or, how I watched meatball flavor direct-to-video schlock so you don’t have : to. : While gathering materials for a recent project, I stumbled across a reminder : of an old and obscure bit of Bungie history. This tale began with a letter : to the Bungie Webmaster, published in 1998: Did you know that right now : there is a movie playing in Sweden called Beck 2. The movie is about : Sweden's best policeman who gets involved with a mysterious murder case. : In that movie they play Marathon 2, but they call it Final Doom and it's : played by psychos in the Stockholm subway. : -Stefan Arnborg : To which the man in the ape suit replied: Stefan- : Well, for what it's worth, there was actually a non-Bungie game called Final : Doom, and it sold principally to psychos who live in the Stockholm : subways, so the game in the movie may not have been Marathon 2. : Nonetheless, I'd love to see the film just to make sure, so if any of you : Swedish film buffs can get me a copy on NTSC video (or tell me where I can : find such a beast), I'll make it worth your while. : No word on whether he ever got that NTSC copy. Eventually clips from the : movie were uploaded online, confirming that the game was indeed Marathon : 2. The story has periodically resurfaced over the years but I don’t recall : anyone documenting it in detail, nor could I find anything substantial in : searches of the Story Page and Story Forum. So I decided to take a shot at : it myself. : First of all, what is this “Beck” thing? : Beck is a Swedish crime drama serial, one of several adaptations of a book : series published in the 1960s and 70s. The first episode debuted in 1997 : and the show remains in production as of 2023, having accumulated nearly : fifty episodes. I don’t know who watches this, but they clearly like it. : Wikipedia has articles for both the series as a whole and the episode of : interest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beck_ (Swedish_TV_series) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beck_%E2%80%93_Sp%C3%A5r_i_m%C3%B6rker : Beck is also available with English subtitles on Amazon Prime Video, where it : is described thus: He's got no style, no flash and he's squarely in : middle age. But Swedish detective Martin Beck is good at catching : criminals so that they can be put away for a long time. His tightly-wound : partner is his opposite: an impulsive man who never met a boundary he : didn't cross. It's good cop/bad cop, and together they bring down : criminals in the seedy Stockholm underworld. : Stefan’s description back in 1998 was more or less correct. Although titled : "Beck 2" when released in theaters, its episodic name is “Spår i : mörker” (“Trails in Darkness”) and it’s the eighth and final episode of : the first series. Amazon gives it the blander title “Night Vision” for : some reason. The main plot is about a gang of aberrant youths who play : violent games and roam the Stockholm subway with machetes and night vision : goggles, cutting throats to get frags and level up in real life. Heavy : undertones of boomer angst about the kids these days with their gangsta : raps and murder simulators. : After watching the episode, I’d say it’s not great but not quite as awful : as I expected going in. It has a lot in common with the British crime : dramas my parents used to watch: much of the runtime is taken up by petty : drama in Beck’s private and professional lives. He’s dating a colleague, : other colleagues don’t like it, he’s upset his vacation got canceled, has : fights with his girlfriend, and so on. I don’t find Beck particularly : likable, nor competent. At separate points both he and his partner nearly : get themselves killed needlessly rushing into the underground without : backup, causing a key witness to die along the way. Anything to keep the : drama flowing, I suppose. : Okay, I hear you ask, but where does Marathon come into it? : Marathon comes into play roughly three quarters through the episode, and : again just before the climax. The game is repeatedly called “Final Doom” : and the subway killers apparently use it to communicate with each other : and like-minded menaces around the world. There are also some clumsy : references to 1337 speak. It’s a bit like the time Law & Order : introduced the concept of incels by having a cop search for “Chad” and : “Stacey” on the dark web. : But I digress. As the Webmaster noted way back when, Final Doom was a real : thing. Specifically, a pair of fan-made Doom II mission packs that id : Software released as a standalone game in June of 1996. A Macintosh port : followed in December. Reviews at the time were mixed: the Doom engine was : showing its age, there was lots of good free content to play, and Quake : was right around the corner. On the bright side, Final Doom contributor : Dario Casali went on to have a long and successful career at Valve : Software. : The game played by Stockholm subway psychos (say that fast) is not id : Software’s Final Doom. Clips of it have been available in the Story Page’s : Blasts from the Past section for a while, though they lack subtitles. And : you’ll need those subtitles to appreciate how silly it all is. There’s a : subtitled copy of the first scene on YouTube: : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2Ruwkh8k84 : In this clip, Beck’s girlfriend/coworker Lena is examining a computer taken : from a suspect’s apartment. It was earlier shown running a DOS or Windows : control program for the Stockholm subway (the psychos hack the subway to : turn off the lights, very Hollywood) and Windows 3.1 software diskettes : were found with it. : As the fake TV forensics love to say, zoom and enhance. : -The splash image doesn’t look anything like the real Final Doom logo, which : doesn’t appear like that in the game to begin with. Each of its two : mission packs are launched separately and have their own splash screens : with their respective titles, Evilution and The Plutonia Experiment. : -The HUD is hidden, but you know what this is the moment the first Pfhor : Fighter appears. I don’t think they hired a pro mapper to make this maze, : it looks boring as hell. : -The fist has been crudely replaced with a machete and the Fighter death : sound with a human scream. : -Lena says some nonsense about a hidden file. Bet she found it on the dark : web. : -A “Quit game?” dialog pops up. Despite the x86 stuff shown before, it’s : clearly running on Mac OS. Lena acts like she got booted out of her : session. Just pretend you didn’t see a cancel button in the dialog box. : -A configuration file is shown, but it’s for a Quake engine game. : -Back in the fake game we have a BOB and a F’lickta, seemingly with no AI : enabled. The BOB sprite has been edited to put a big X-( on his back. The : cops make a big deal about how this is 1337 speak for “dead” and the : psychos paint it at the scenes of their murders. And on a wall outside the : apartment where the computer was found, because Beck would never catch : them otherwise. : -A Marathon terminal in action. The images and content text are custom : additions, but it still has the standard UESCTerm header and footer : strings. : The rest of that YouTube clip is the interrogation of the seized computer’s : Final Doom player, a delinquent named Annika. Not much of interest there : except a name drop for the fake game. : Marathon’s other appearance in the episode, shown in the third clip on the : Story Page, comes when Beck and the Stockholm SWAT raid the psychos’ : hideout only to find them gone. A creepy little kid is playing Final Doom, : with sound effects more fitting in a 1980s arcade game. Annika boots him : off the computer and closes Final Doom, briefly showing the Marathon 2 : main menu. Then she brings up the DOS/Windows subway program and finds the : psychos are all out raiding one particular station. You can read the rest : on Wikipedia if you’re dying to know how it ends. : So why was Marathon 2 impersonating a game that was real, available, and had : a bigger modding community than the substitute? Final Doom was probably : chosen as the psychos’ game of choice during the writing phase. Doom was : after all a famous and controversial franchise, figuring prominently in : moral panics related to gaming. But I doubt the showrunners actually : played it, otherwise we wouldn’t have the absurdity that resulted. : Maybe they got into the production phase and discovered the real Final Doom : couldn’t do whatever the writer had put in the screenplay. Or they : had/found someone who already knew how to mod Marathon and took the easy : route. I don’t think id Software sent a cease and desist, since the : showrunners kept the name and tried to make it look like a PC game. : Perhaps somebody out there knows of a salacious tell-all. : If you want to watch Beck for yourself, the price on Amazon is currently : $3.99 for the episode or $25.99 for the whole first series. If you want to : own the genuine Final Doom, it’s bundled with Doom II and the Master : Levels for $4.99 on Steam and GOG. If you want an unmolested copy of : Marathon 2... Well, you know where it is and what it costs. : Final rating: lol/10 for the fake game, meh/10 for everything else. I award : Martin Beck no Blåhaj, and may the chef have mercy upon his soul.
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