Bungie's Marathon (& mods)

Oh, yes.

I f-finally fought through "You think you're big time? You're gonna DIE big time!" or however it's capitalized and now I'm on the Yrro ship because why. Oh no oh no. I am afraid. Very very afraid.

...what

Time to read through marathon.bungie.org, I think...

Marathon was created by Durandal.

"Aye Mak Secur" is one of my favorite game levels ever.

I mean, it's a pretty big station, and it all connects together! Beautiful...

It was pretty, but I was distracted by the fuckton of Hunters.

"Hats off to 819" makes me sad.

*reading through story* What, they don't know what "pragma" means? Sillies.

Reading the manuals now. Older manuals are far more interesting than modern ones.

It actually mentions that the T0ZT is an Aerosol Flamethrower. Weird.

EDIT because why did I doublepost? Found a useful information post. You know what it mentions? THE TARGETING RETICULE THAT I DIDN'T KNOW EXISTED.

edited 28th Mar '10 6:56:50 PM by Tzetze

This is Marathon, from back in the days of REAL shooters, back when you could tell the sissies by the glue from a sticker in the center of their monitor. The original games had no targeting reticle, it was merely an option added to the modern remake by puny baby girly men, and no self-respecting Vidmaster would deign to play with one.

Well, I didn't. So there.

PLAY RED PLAY RED PLAY RED PLAY REEEEEEDDDDDD!!!!111one

RED

RED

RED

RED

RED

Dude, it's AP week! I'm not doing well in class! I have Stuff!

Oh.

Uuuuh well you do that until you've done it.

The eldritch horrors from beyond aren't in any rush. They have all eternity to make you their bitch, after all.

edited 6th May '10 9:33:45 PM by Charlatan

I'm a longtime Marathon fan that just started playing again, courtesy of Aleph One. Good to see there's still interest.

And yes, RED is brutal.

Downloaded 1, 2, and Infinity. Even 1 kicked my ass, and in the earliest levels at that! I think Time Crisis has spoiled me—I keep wishing there were chest-high walls to duck behind.

BTW, is there any way of healing in this game? Or if you get shot, are you just expected to spend the rest of the game slightly closer to death?

Look around for a shield recharger. Use the action key next to it and it will glow red, yellow, or violet (depending on the level of shield). Fill it up to the top, and best of all, they're unlimited use.

Saving works the same way. There's also canisters, though that's mostly in the later games.

What's the best way to play Marathon via the keyboard/mouse? I found traditional FPS aiming wouldn't work very well because after moving with the mouse and idling for a while your aiming recenters...

Yay Marathon! I never was really into FP Ses, but I loved playing Marathon on my old (now departed) Mac Performa 636. Found Infinity too hard, and could never quite finish the final level of M2 (damn juggernauts). But I can't believe that no one's mentioned those goddamn platforms on "Colony Ship for Sale" (somwhere around level 14) on Marathon 1. That takes bloody forever.

And as hard as G4 Sunbathing (the vacuum level) was, I wish there was another vacuum level in the game.

It did seem kind of weird to only have the oxygen mechanism used in one level.

I never found the auto-recentering in Marathon unpleasantly aggressive as in many other games, but you can turn it off in Aleph One if you dislike it. Also, horrifying confession: I was a keyboard-only FPS player up until partway through _Marathon 2_, I Got Better.

Keyboard-only doesn't seem that bad. I might have tried it, except that my netbook won't accept more than three key inputs simultaneously.

Most keyboards count modifier keys (shift, option, control…) separately from normal keys, so assigning some commands to them is necessary in some games, especially shared-keyboard multiplayer.

All this talk about Marathon inspired me to write a short fanfic, written from the pfhor perspective.

Now I just need a place to post it...

Writer's Block?