Is Marathon Trilogy worth playing today?

[ReaperAA]

Marathon Trilogy is an old video game series developed in mid 90's by Bungie. These are basically doom clones but I have heard many positive things about them. I never played them but I just recently realized that they are completely free to play and there also exists atleast one source port (Aleph One) to play them. From what I gathered, the gameplay is not as solid as doom with more clunkier controls and no weapon number buttons. But I also heard that they have much better plot/lore and have more overall features than doom.

 

So is it worth playing them?

[Teivman]

Yes, the Marathon games are definitely worth playing in this day & age. Be it the story, gameplay or all around visual aesthetic. 

[kaleb.]

i tried playing them, but man the super low FOV and the really bad mouse lag that the Aleph One source port has just makes it unplayable for me :\

[Nevander]

6 hours ago, kaleb. said:

i tried playing them, but man the super low FOV and the really bad mouse lag that the Aleph One source port has just makes it unplayable for me :\

Yep. Came here to say exactly this. There is a way to increase the FOV but it doesn't stick.

 

I wonder how difficult it would be to do a total conversion of Marathon games to GZDoom.

[BoJustBo]

Tried a bit of the first one because I saw this thread and I have to agree about that tiny FOV. And while I don't know if it's mouse lag like Kaleb said, there is definitely something weird going on with the mouse movement, you have the option of having mouse acceleration which I turned off, but it kinda feels like it's there anyways.

The level design is quite cramped at least in levels 1 and 2. The enemies are a bit cartoony but both them and the textures are quite high-res. If someone fixed the mouse and FOV problems I'm sure it would be a pretty fun game.

[ReaperAA]

Ok so I gave it a shot using Aleph One port. After some searching, I found a fix for the FOV issue and it does stick.

 

However, I couldn't find a fix for the bad mouse issue and the 30 fps cap.

[Clonehunter]

I never liked them, but they're important to the history of the genre, so give 'em a go. 

[Nevander]

2 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

After some searching, I found a fix for the FOV issue and it does stick.

That's the fix I tried and for some reason it doesn't stay that way from what I remember. Then again, I only messed with this for all of an hour before giving up and not touching it for over a year. The FPS is really weird and the mouse control is just crap.

[YukiHerz]

You can forget about having a nice experience with Aleph One, the marathon community is extremely against changing anything beyond having the game run on modern systems.

[Coopersville]

Negative. 

[Nevander]

24 minutes ago, YukiHerz said:

You can forget about having a nice experience with Aleph One, the marathon community is extremely against changing anything beyond having the game run on modern systems.

If that's the case, sounds like we need some bright and talented people to fork it, if allowed.

[Jello]

No. Wasn't worth playing when it came out either.

[ReaperAA]

7 hours ago, YukiHerz said:

You can forget about having a nice experience with Aleph One, the marathon community is extremely against changing anything beyond having the game run on modern systems.

 

Truly a shame if that's the case. The port could really benefit from better mouse support and uncapped framerate (by implementing some sort of interpolation like doom ports do).

 

And now whats the reason behind having to quit game progress in order to access menu/change settings?

[YukiHerz]

Because that's how the original game worked and changing it would be a "sin".

[ketmar]

absolutely worth it. you will prolly have to spend some time to get used to the game, though, because aleph devs seems to value "original feel" more than some quality-of-life improvements. but then you'll find quite interesting game inside, with its own feel/mood/atmosphere. just don't expect it to be doom, because it isn't (obviously ;-).

[Quiver]

On 11/18/2019 at 11:07 PM, YukiHerz said:

Because that's how the original game worked and changing it would be a "sin".

yep sure, changing god awful in setting up network play and outdated mouse input method to something that doesnt require you to fuck arround with something you usually shouldnt be interacting at all is definitely a sin

[Tetzlaff]

There is also a Marathon gameplay mod for Zdoom: https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=27563

 

I like the creative alien enemies, but the weapons suck compared to Doom.

[Agentbromsnor]

I bought Marathon for XBox Live Arcade back when it came out, and I have to be honest and say I didn't like it much at all. Pretty cool graphics though.

[taufan99]

I feel like I'd enjoy it just as much as Classic Doom if only other source ports were available, adding more quality-of-life features like others have said before. Might as well have the port(s) usable for potato devices too.

[Devalaous]

On 3/28/2020 at 2:27 AM, Agentbromsnor said:

I bought Marathon for XBox Live Arcade back when it came out, and I have to be honest and say I didn't like it much at all. Pretty cool graphics though.

 

It always annoyed me that it was only ever the second game on there. Why not all three in a collection?

[hybridial]

On 11/18/2019 at 2:04 AM, YukiHerz said:

You can forget about having a nice experience with Aleph One, the marathon community is extremely against changing anything beyond having the game run on modern systems.

if the Doom community had that attitude, good chance I wouldn't be here

[Maggle]

I feel like I should chime in and say that all the issues people are having with Aleph One are completely valid and are the biggest source of my frustrations playing the games, but tbh, they're not the only problems with the games. The Marathon games themselves are rather poorly designed in my opinion. The levels are all nondescript mazes with no landmarks, most of the weapons are deeply unsatisfying and suck, swimming controls in the second game are AWFUL, and the game's rather stingy with health, ammo, and save points at random points in the game. I find myself liking the story, artstyle, and the idea of Marathon way more than playing the game, which I suppose isn't unheard of (it seems to be the same problem a lot of Destiny fans are having nowadays, funny enough), but it's non-ideal. I would rather the gameplay be good while those points are lacking. It makes for a less memorable experience, but it makes it more fun.

[MrFlibble]

I played the Windows demo of Marathon II quite a while ago, and some Aleph One of the very first game. Yes, there are problems with mouse sensitivity but I managed to adjust it so that it did not bother me too much. The game is playable and there's a lot of story and atmosphere going on. I'd say give it a try, it's a very different experience from Doom even in spite of all the similarities.

[ketmar]

@Maggle yeah, map design and gameplay are not ideal. but the game has a soul (at least i think so), it just requires some efforts to find it behind the execution. Marathon may not become a game of choice, but it definitely worth playing at least once.

[amackert]

I've tried getting into these multiple times but they just never clicked with me. I can get around the controls, but they feel really sluggish compared to something like Wolf 3D or Doom, and the levels are kind of convoluted and not very much fun for me to go through.

[THEBaratusII]

Back then, it might be worth playing if you are a Apple Macintosh user at the time.

 

To be honest, playing the original pre-AlephOne version of the games was actually okay, just the controls were a pain since mouselook automatically centers the view while moving and not to mention a lack of Autorun 'Always Run' options. Alpeh One on the other hand had crappy mouse support and the only way of fixing that issue was changing it to use Software mode instead of OpenGL.

 

As for the FOV, I remember that issue as well, I used the latest beta version of AlephOne IIRC, changing the resolution to 640x480 or any 4:3 resolution in the game it sorta fixed it alongside switching to the original HUD. Then again, Marathon can be worth checking out if configured properly or if you like to play it on original hardware.