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 | Re: The First Marathon Is The Best | |
| Posted By: Steve Levinson | Date: 11/6/03 6:07 a.m. |
| In Response To: The First Marathon Is The Best (Neoptolemus) : I can't believe how bungie screwed the new Marathon games up. If you wanted to start a flame war, I can think of few better ways to start. My friends here on the story forum have been very polite and while I respect your opinion, I think that you have missed the entire point of the story forum. First of all, let's get things straight here. There have been no new Bungie Marathon games for some five years now. There are no new Bungie Marathon games. Your reference to Rubicon is irrelevant, as Bungie did not make Rubicon - it was an independent 3rd party product that was the brainchild of Chris Lund and Scott Brown - and it is a particularly amazing accomplishment in that they did it entirely on a voluntary basis, sinking the equivalent of tens of thousands of U.S. dollars into the project without any expectation of ever getting paid for their efforts. They have no formal affiliation with Bungie whatsoever except for their love of the Marathon series. That aside, let's talk about the actual games. Bungie produced exactly 3 Marathon games - M1, M2 and Infinity. M1 was really amazing at the time as it matched or beat the best of the best of the FPS games at the time, setting a new standard (or perhaps setting a standard in the first place) for games on the Mac. The reason that M1 in many ways beat everything else in the PC world is that it tightly wove together an intricate science fiction story with action-packed gameplay. The attention to detail is what sets the Marathon series apart from other games - the evolution and development of story and backstory goes far beyond what is needed to play the game, and it is what makes it still enjoyable to play M1 even after all of these years. The story is also what keeps the story forum alive. M2 is arguably the best of the series in many respects. It rates as the favorite Marathon scenario for most people who took the time to respond to Battle Cat's survey. A number of people have argued that M2 lost the fear factor that was inherent in M1. I can't argue with that - crawling around a dark, malfunctioning huge space ship filled with hostile aliens around every bend is bound to get your adrenaline pumping. The first time I played it, there were a number of times I screamed when an alien seemed to come out of nowhere. M2 lost that, but excelled in other areas. M2 had a much more open, real feel to it. It seemed much less contrived and the eye candy was exceptional. More importantly, it continued the Marathon story, building logically upon it and giving the player an extremely satisfying experience. I still find myself occasionally playing M2 again, just for its shear enjoyment. Infinity has been criticized a lot. It also built upon the story, but it took it in a not entirely satisfying direction. Further, it was so confusing that I believe most players their first time through had absolutely no idea what was really going on - that the player was hopping among timelines and literally repeating history in a different way each time. From a sci-fi standpoint, Infinity was brilliant and its plot has been the subject of much debate on the Story Forum. It did not add a lot of new gameplay features to M2, but rather refined the game engine. The greatest gift of Infinity, as already mentioned, was the inclusion of game editing software, making it possible for the masses to create their own Marathon scenarios. Although there were some 3rd party editors already out there, Forge and Anvil made it possible to create true Bungie-like scenarios for the Marathon engine, and people are even now still creating new scenarios even though the rest of the world has gone on to more advanced game engines. The tools released with Infinity gave us the wonderful experiences of M Evil, Tempus Irae, M Red, The Black Series, Pfh'Jeuer, M Fell, M Vengeance, M Discent etc. and, of course, M Rubicon. People are still writing new scenarios because of the Marathon mistique - because of the wonderful Marathon Universe that Bungie created - a sci-fi universe without parallel in the game world. You can argue all you want which of the three Marathon games was the best one, but that is not the point. The games have synergy - they have given us something greater than the sum of their individual experiences. Bungie's greatest gift to us is not the individual games, but the story that transcends mere gameplay. And that is what this forum is all about. | |
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