Marathon Appreciation Thread

Any and all fans of the Marathon trilogy, come here to gush about this underrated classic.

I personally love the games for their intricate storyline with interesting themes, the methodical method of combat, and the complex non-euclidean level layouts with a focus on exploration.

Is there any Android port for Marathon? I played Marathon 2 on iOS, but the controls were really hard to adjust to, thus I kept dying on level 2.

I played and liked the first Marathon. I was put down by the savegame points systems which I hated because thanks to Doom I was used to save whenever I wanted.

Thinking about it, I never finished it because of that level where you had only one savegame point at the beginning. Or maybe it was the all-outdoor one with few oxygen stations?

I was never so much interested in Marathon story... and this is strange because I really get involved in stories. I still fantasize on Doom one, for example.

I liked the settings and gameplay. I think level design was not as good as Doom one but levels geometry was confusing in a good way.

I will have to play the sequels. Are they better than the first one?

I fucking love Marathon.

Ever since I came across an article in some long forgotten magazine back in 07-08 i've fallen in love with the series. So much that I got ahold of a old g3 powerbook not only just to run the original marathon in its native environment but to play some of the lesser known TC's and Scenarios.

Its just a shame that community has declined in the past few years, not too much custom content is showing up these days.

I've heard people hate on the source port of it, but I'm a bit fuzzy on the "why". I'm curious about the series, but not curious enough to get hold of an old Mac just for that, but I also wouldn't want to play with a butchered representation of what the game was actually like.

So what (if there is indeed something) is wrong with the Aleph One port?

Angry Saint said:

I will have to play the sequels. Are they better than the first one?

Absolutely better. Infinity is only for experienced players, I suggest starting off with Marathon 2 after playing Marathon 1.

ETTiNGRiNDER said:

So what (if there is indeed something) is wrong with the Aleph One port?

There's not really anything "wrong" with the port, it's actually very good. It's just that the mouse controls aren't really as modernized as they should be, needing some good config tweaks to get it feeling mostly okay.

Find your preferences file and use these lines:

sens_horizontal="21845"
sens_vertical="65535"
mouse_acceleration="false"

Angry Saint said:

I think level design was not as good as Doom

I don't know why people say this, I think the level design surpasses Doom's, even if the maps aren't as pretty looking.

I gave this game a fair shot years ago but I just never dug the art style.

CARRiON said:

I gave this game a fair shot years ago but I just never dug the art style.

Yeah, the art isn't too polished in all honesty. Have you tried the XBLA version HD texture pack? It comes built-in with the Aleph One distribution of Marathon 2.

ETTiNGRiNDER said:

So what (if there is indeed something) is wrong with the Aleph One port?

As Soda mentioned the whole mouse controls being pretty wonky seemed to be one of the biggest issues. Another possible issue I could think of, though not sure if this was ever a big deal or not, was that you could not play marathon 1 as originally intended for the longest time in Aleph One. It could not read the original data files. The alternative was to use M1A1, a total coversion by Raul Bonilla, using Marathon 2 as a base in an attempt to emulate the original Marathon. It did a pretty good job of being the original marathon, but there was a few things here and there that couldn't be replicated.

Sodaholic said:

I don't know why people say this, I think the level design surpasses Doom's, even if the maps aren't as pretty looking.

Well, I can kinda understand if your looking at Marathon 1. Some of that architecture was a little weird for a colony ship, but there was some pretty neat designs in Durandal and Infinity. Maybe the alien-ness of the pfhor and spht textures where off putting to some? Personally that's why i loved it. Familiar enough that you could tell that certain things where "techy" but at the same time alien enough to be "yep, certain that no human built that".

Nordevai said:

Well, I can kinda understand if your looking at Marathon 1. Some of that architecture was a little weird for a colony ship, but there was some pretty neat designs in Durandal and Infinity. Maybe the alien-ness of the pfhor and spht textures where off putting to some? Personally that's why i loved it. Familiar enough that you could tell that certain things where "techy" but at the same time alien enough to be "yep, certain that no human built that".

This, plus what CARRiON said about the art style, which I found nothing special.

But now I'm really curious to try out Durandal because it seems to be very nice.

Even though I think even Marathon 2's visuals are a bit unpolished, they are much more polished than 1's. Infinity's textures are lovely, however.

I strongly encourage anyone who hasn't to at least try Marathon 2 (with the mouse settings I shared). Use the HD pack if you find the original visuals off-putting, it's turned on by default.

It certainly takes a while to get used to how the game feels, but once you learn the player movement and monster behavior, it's a very rewarding experience IMO.

I appreciate Marathon.

Never heard of it.

Why play Marathon? Doom is better.

MusicallyInspired said:

Never heard of it.

Then try it. :)

ChekaAgent said:

Why play Marathon? Doom is better.

Oh, I don't know, because it offers a unique experience with a great story that rewards exploration? It just has different design goals, not worse.

Loved the series until I played Infinty, like holy fuck shit could you not be confusing as fuck?

I personally would actually really love the Pfhor ship maps from 1 if I didn't have to gaze at every single wall just to end them, I also really like the music from the first game and do not like that the later games removed it for the sake of ambient noise (I swear to god I hear that generic repeated animal noise 1 more time I'll kill a man).

But you know, small problems.

I also really like the survival mode the XBLA port had, it is pretty good (never did kill a juggernaut though, it just took way too much to bring one down and the Pfhor with the fire rifes always destroyed me).

Eh, tried it. Got bored. Looked ugly, and was clunky to play. I appreciated the effort put into the story and background, though it was a ton of reading.

I only played a few levels of Marathon:Durandal before getting stuck/impatient and quitting, but I spoiled myself on the terminals of all three games and the writing is lovely. Anything involving Durandal in particular, as well as the awesome ending to Infinity.

It's good to hear I'm not alone in liking Marathon unironically.

The funny thing about it is that I realize my opinion is basically wrong from a purely objective standpoint. It had so much going for it in the areas of story, art and atmosphere, but incompetent level design, ugly texturing and clunky controls unfortunately fucked over what could have been a great game. My love for it comes from imagining what could've been instead of what actually was.

Marathon only had a few bad levels across the whole trilogy. Most of them are in Infinity.

Love me some Marathon. Makes me wish that Bungie continued on with the series.

I'll say this, it's better then Halo.

I wouldn't say that. I'd say that the original Halo trilogy is just as good, just in a different way.

And in a lot of ways Halo 1 is basically Marathon 4; it isn't until H2 that it really comes into its own.

Good point, I just didn't dig that the area was so big in the second level of Halo 1 and I kinda just quitted there. Especially if you're THAT slow in Halo.

They're everywhere!

is there a easy way to play any of the Marathon games for those who don't own a Mac? they seem like interesting games to play, but i wouldn't know how to play them on my system.

@Viscra Maelstrom
https://alephone.lhowon.org/ -- you might want to check this out

Never got around to this, didn't grow up with a Mac so no surprise, but I've known about the Aleph One source port for a couple years.

Speaking of whom I read this earlier today: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/08/11/marathon-infinity-retrospective/

It sounds like a very atmospheric series, slower than Doom but with a more fleshed out sci-fi universe. Might be my cup of tea?

It might.

What sucked me in is the story and the atmosphere. Even though I had played M1 and M2 at a friend's house back when they were new, it took a while to get used to the limited (but effective) aesthetics and the "floating" movement, when I got around to playing them again.

Because of the story, I strongly recommend you to play the games in order.
Oh, and try out Blastfrog's mouse settings (thanks again, Blastfrog). I think they work better than the standard ones:


sens_horizontal="21845"
sens_vertical="65535"
mouse_acceleration="false"

Next time I play through the trilogy (which will probably be sooner than I think -- I kind of fixate on the series often) I'll try that.