Bungie's Marathon (& mods)

...Madness?

THIS.

IS!

LH'OWON!

/me kicks English Ivy into a polygonal well full of very flat water

And, at the beginning of the next level, there's two tanks for you to fight. You're low on health and have no weapons.

Screw Marathon Infinity. RED's up next.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

You're gonna play RED to get away from Infinity?

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

OH MAN YOU'RE GONNA GET RAPED SO HARD.

You shouldn't have any problem with RED! It's way easier than Infinity!

edited 3rd Sep '09 6:02:52 PM by Charlatan

Ok, fine. Point me in the direction of a savegame editor so I can restore my oxygen level.

(I'm stuck on level 10, where there are no oxygen panels and no air canisters, apparently.)

v Level 10.

edited 3rd Sep '09 6:05:46 PM by English Ivy

Go to the preferences menu > environments > cheats.mml or whatever that script is as your selected script file. Then you can type in 'otwo' and replenish your oxygen anytime.

(What's level 10 again? That Pfhor hangar?)

(Oh, okay. Yeah, that level's tough nuggets.)

edited 3rd Sep '09 6:07:57 PM by Charlatan

I loaded the cheats script, but typing otwo does nothing. Also, RED should've been called I Wanna Be The BOB.

My Let's Play will be fun, then... :/

Okay, difficulty analysis. How hard is it compared to Half-Life 2 on Hard? (assuming you've played HL2).

edited 3rd Sep '09 7:02:47 PM by Tzetze

I haven't played Half-Life 2 on Hard. RED on hardest difficulty is Nintendo Hard in an FPS.

As for the cheats, I just remembered you need to hold the control key while entering the cheats. D: I'm an idiot.

Well shucks, I went and deleted everything last night. Maybe I'll go get Infinity again, sometime in the future.

I love that you guys are playing Marathon. I loved this game back in the day and used to play it on total carnage difficulty, trying to keep the Vidmaster oath:

"I pledge to punch all switches, to never shoot where I could use grenades, to admit the existence of no level except total carnage, to never use Caps Lock as my 'Run' key, and to never, ever, leave a single Bob alive. To do these things is to invite maximum peril and requires one to play the game as hard and unrelentingly as possible, at the highest level of skill: to play as a Vidmaster.'

Basically, Marathon, M2 and M Infinity on normal mode are not that difficult by old school gaming standards, but they are more difficult than modern games. Put the Marathon games on their hardest difficulty and they're pretty much harder than anything you've ever played before. I've beaten Halo and Halo 2 on legendary and that was easy compared to Marathon 2 on total carnage.

They key to these games is movement and not trying to kill every enemy. Often it's better to not even bother picking up weapons or ammo and just run through the level using only fists. In fact, fists are pretty much the best weapon for total carnage difficulty, as long you realize that they do much more damage if you run into an enemy and punch at the right moment. It's possible to combine running and strafing with the first to take on whole armies of mooks without being hit once.

Nah, the true key to high-difficulty Marathon is to avoid using even the fists most of the time. Since you're way faster than most enemies, you can circle around through groups of them a few times while drawing fire (the fact that most projectile attacks in Marathon travel slowly helps here) and get them fighting each other. Once you've gotten the party started, lead the rest near the existing knot of fracas and they'll usually get angered by stray blows too. Then just hang back, watch the fun, and mop up the survivors with a few right hooks (oh, and weaken those stupid exploding cyborgs, GAH!).

Of course, this strategy is not recommended on vacuum/swimming levels where all your oxygen is teleported in bottles, which Infinity seems to absolutely love.

They key to these games is movement and not trying to kill every enemy.

I'll have to test this out should I get Infinity again.

I love the Marathon series, and used to play it all the time back in the day. I even had the Trilogy pack, which included Pathways into Darkness (which sometimes much harder than Marathon, but for different reasons). Marathon 2 has to be my favorite, especially If I had a Rocket Launcher, I'd Make Somebody Pay. Non-stop, old-school FPS action. Also fun is Infinity's Vidmaster arena. On Total Carnage. Only beat it once, and never with just fists.

And yeah, the key at high difficulty levels is A. always run (Caps Lock is your friend here), and B. circle-strafe. Nearly all enemy projectiles travel in a straight line, and they fire at where you are, not where you're going, so if you keep moving, you can clear a whole room of Troopers, grunts, or Hunters without much damage. I've beaten Marathon 2 on Total Carnage, but it's not easy.

edited 11th Sep '09 7:14:27 PM by EricDerKonig

Ah, Marathon. Good times, good times.

On Infinity, I admit to a little subterfuge. I kindergartened through Acme station after beating it on the level to ensure enough oxygen. Rationing health too tightly, I can live with. Too little air, and I do things I consider unethical.

And the person telling you not to kill everything is only partly right. You don't need to kill everything. Just make sure everything is dead.

edited 23rd Sep '09 9:28:56 PM by fakename

how did I put that in the wrong thread wut

edited 23rd Sep '09 9:30:20 PM by Zudak

You don't need to kill everything. Just make sure everything is dead.

I admire your way with words, fakename.

Ditto, that quote is Made Of Win, fakename.

Thanks.

On a different Marathon related note altogether:

Is it just me, or would James Callis's voice work fairly well for Durandal?

I don't know. Now that I think of it, perhaps a snarling Matt Frewer would come closest to how I imagined him.

Tycho and Leela though…

Hm.

Snarling and Durandal don't go together for me. He just knows he's better than you, humanity, the S'pht, Tycho, etc. and he finds it funny. At least by the second game

Mind you, I only meant James Callis for the voice. Physically, he's a bad fit.

edited 29th Sep '09 9:07:28 PM by fakename

Well, been hesitating on linking it, as I was unsure if anyone here would like it, but...

A Marathon Let's Play at the Giant in the Playground forums. 1st game completed, it's mostly through with the second one.

Dear Aleph One development team:

Stop replacing one bug with another each version.

I tried playing A1 on my dad's Vista, found out nothing worked, figured it'd work better on my XP, and wind up having even daffier problems.

Seriously.

~Charles

So these robots that don't kill me (which rather spooked me), are they the BOBs I have heard so much about?

(is proceeding through the original, slowly)

The Rose

The Rose The Rose The Rose The Rose The Rose

...

This just became a very good game.

I haven't seen this much... massacre... since Mondo Agency...

;_;