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MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai

I want to try Bungie's Marathon trilogy: what can I expect to get myself into?

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So after playing and enjoying Bungie's Halo games, I was thinking about trying their previous work, the Marathon trilogy.

I already watched some youtube retrospectives and also downloaded the games with the comunity sourceport, but I just wanted to know your opinions and experiences about the series.

How is the gameplay and how much is it similiar (or diferent) is it from Doom. Are the maps better compared to vanila Doom or Doom II or are they simply different? What are some fun quirks and gimmicks that made the series different from it's contemporaries?

And also how is the story? I heard it's quite intricate compared to other shooters at the time.

 

Also what were your fond memories when playing the games :) ?

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There is only one path and that is the path that you take, but you can take more than one path.

 

Spoiler

the only similarity it has with doom is the use of the first person perspective, and inclusion of the act of shooting.

 

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I love Marathon, but a word of warning:

You will encounter janky floaty physics

You will encounter some of the worst maps made in a 90's FPS game

You will be confused on where to go or how to proceed

 

My advice? I navigated the whole game without a guide, don't do this, use a bloody guide, also read the terminals, outside of the story (which is deeper than it has any right to be and is exceptional) they will often tell you exactly what you need to do and how to do it.

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There is also a greater emphasis on survival than Doom, as the game is designed for continuous play and ammunition can be really sparse.

 

Expect plenty of Hell Beneath-style maps.

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56 minutes ago, mrthejoshmon said:

I love Marathon, but a word of warning:

You will encounter janky floaty physics

You will encounter some of the worst maps made in a 90's FPS game

You will be confused on where to go or how to proceed

 

My advice? I navigated the whole game without a guide, don't do this, use a bloody guide, also read the terminals, outside of the story (which is deeper than it has any right to be and is exceptional) they will often tell you exactly what you need to do and how to do it.

Is the navigation and level design realy that bad compared to Doom?

And did the sequels improve on this?

 

Also what do you mean by floating physics?

 

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57 minutes ago, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai said:

Also what do you mean by floating physics?

 

Floaty, not floating. I have never played the games myself cause they were Mac only last I checked, but I am guessing Joshmon means that movement feels weird and unnatural. Like it might be sluggish to respond to input, and/or slow to come to a stop when you release the buttons. Stuff like that.

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No, it's more that it can be somewhat difficult to control yourself while moving in mid-air. Like there aren't any tricky platform puzzles which are required to get anywhere but it can prove an irritation if you're not taking care when making a leap.

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3 hours ago, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai said:

Is the navigation and level design realy that bad compared to Doom?

And did the sequels improve on this?

 

M1 is especially rough, with many clunky switch shenanigans throughout and Jason Jones's Mandatory Lava Dunk right at the end, but M2 and M∞ are in a league of their own (i would say 2 and infinity are both more consistent in quality across all maps compared to doom2.wad, but this is a subjective statement). to give a small taste of what to expect, some secrets may have a terminal, ammo (which spawns in), and rarely even a weapon. other secrets are nothing more than map to walk around in. all is worth exploring, in my opinion.
 

3 hours ago, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai said:

Also what do you mean by floating physics? 


each map can vary in gravity, there is a "physics file" that can be edited. but no matter what you will always feel like a golf ball bouncing around on concrete. there is air control which does help when you need to "jump" on some of the maps. you can steer yourself midair - like quake, unlike doom.


 

 

2 hours ago, Murdoch said:

I have never played the games myself cause they were Mac only last I checked

when was the last time you checked? Marathon 2 had a native windows 9X port, and i remember playing them through aleph one on a pentium 4 around fifteen years ago.

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Pretty much everything what @mrthejoshmon and @heliumlamb said. My dad had Macs at his job and I used to play it as a kid (9-10 y/o), but back then I couldn't make past level 14 because of an infamous puzzle (this is from the wiki hahaha):

 

Spoiler

image.png.c155d43175cfefd3550270093a1bf9c4.png

 

I came back to it as an adult when I found out there is a port for Windows (Aleph One) and only then I was able to beat it, but it was really tricky, progression is extremely cryptic at times (e.g.: there's a map where, in order to finish it, you have to pretty much kill everything, walk over every sector, and look through a specific window to get teleported to the next level).

 

That being said, I LOVE Marathon. For me its strongest selling point is how well developed the story is. If you play it, I really recommend that you try to abstract yourself from how badly designed the levels are and focus on the story, try to find every terminal and immerse yourself in it. The dialogs (or rather monologs) with the AIs are brilliant, I think the game is really ahead of its time in this regard.

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7 hours ago, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai said:

Is the navigation and level design realy that bad compared to Doom?

And did the sequels improve on this?

 

Also what do you mean by floating physics?

 

Some levels, yes, there are maps infamous ("Colony Ship For Sale, Cheap" and "Pfhoraphobia" come to mind) for being genuinely obtuse and confusing, not to mention the genuine insanity on how you progress to different "timelines" in Infinity (but that's its own beast for later).

 

Durandal (2) is probably the best in terms of level cohesion, I don't recall anything too bizarre.

 

As for physics, if you run off a balcony you don't really fall but instead you kind of just keep going for a while and fall like a leaf, you also have very interesting air control depending on how you actually got off the floor.

 

You also sink in water in a very odd way, disregard conventional FPS swimming in this game.

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7 hours ago, mrthejoshmon said:

Durandal (2) is probably the best in terms of level cohesion, I don't recall anything too bizarre.

I still think the final map is a bit bullshit: having to swim through lava, then fight a Juggernaut in close quarters is such a cruel joke.

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46 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

I still think the final map is a bit bullshit: having to swim through lava, then fight a Juggernaut in close quarters is such a cruel joke.

This is quite true, I should have specified what I meant by cohesive, by which I meant relatively straightforward compared to the other games. 

 

Marathon 1 had actual 4th dimension room over room stuff going on and Infinity's dream levels Require genuine moon lizard logic to complete without looping.

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1 hour ago, Rudolph said:

I still think the final map is a bit bullshit: having to swim through lava, then fight a Juggernaut in close quarters is such a cruel joke.

But is it worse then entirety of Halo 2 on Legendary difficulty?

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1 minute ago, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai said:

But is it worse then entirety of Halo 2 on Legendary difficulty?

No idea, I have never played Halo 2.

 

Is Halo 2 really that bad in the level design department?

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2 hours ago, Rudolph said:

No idea, I have never played Halo 2.

 

Is Halo 2 really that bad in the level design department?

Not on the level design no, that one is fantastic but the whole game has an uneven sense of difficulty that gets worse the higher you go on a difficulty scale.

 

Halo series has 4 difficulty options: Easy, Medium, Heroic and Legendary. Now Heroic is thought of as a ideal and canonical level of difficulty while Legendary offers extra, but fair chalenge for experienced players. Problem is that in Halo 2 due to lack of playtesting, which resulted from rushed development, the Legendary difficulty was completele imbalanced.

Master Chief sudenly turned into a complete wuss that could get killed in few shots by the most weakest enemies, instead of a complete badass that he is portrayed as. Every enemy also received a huge healthboost which also limited weapon sandbox, which forced you to rely on precision headshot weapons to quickly kill your oponents, there are sniper enemies that can instakill you and also appear to have an aimbot which allows them to zero in on you in a second and there are bigger waves of enemies which only makes the above mentioned problems even worse.

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I only played through the first game but I guess you should absolutely expect something more story driven, a bit janky, a bit confusing and a game where you really need to pay attention what you've done, where you've been and what your next goal is otherwise you'll need a guide for basically every level. That said while I think the second third of Marathon 1 is really weak, I'm excited to play Durandel and Infinity because I really enjoy the combat, most of the level design, the story and lore and just how unique it is compared to most other boomer shooters of its era.

 

Also the moon physics in the game are weird and dodgy at first but eventually becomes fun gliding through sections like you're Spyro the Dragon, but it also makes you consider your movement on different elevations during combat. Really adds a level of uniqueness to the games imo.

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16 hours ago, heliumlamb said:

when was the last time you checked?

 

Probably about 1995.

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18 hours ago, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai said:

But is it worse then entirety of Halo 2 on Legendary difficulty?

It's isn't even close to that, it's just the whole situation is kinda trolly. For some reason you start the fight deep in lava, then you have to fight a giant enemy who shoots slightly homing rockets at you in a fairly small area, where there's also few holes that drop you in lava. Then said enemy explodes on death so if you kill it in the wrong place or don't dip into lava hole in time you'll probably die and will have to do it all over again.

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4 hours ago, Beginner said:

It's isn't even close to that, it's just the whole situation is kinda trolly. For some reason you start the fight deep in lava, then you have to fight a giant enemy who shoots slightly homing rockets at you in a fairly small area, where there's also few holes that drop you in lava. Then said enemy explodes on death so if you kill it in the wrong place or don't dip into lava hole in time you'll probably die and will have to do it all over again.

Sounds like Bungie has a long tradition of troling it´s fans with nearly imposible chalenges or dickish enemy designs. First this guy, then Rocket Flood in Halo CE, Halo 2 legendary, etc.

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My experience with the series is limited to playing the three-level Windows demo of Durandal some 10 years ago, and a more recent playing Marathon 1 via Aleph One where I got to level seven and then stopped. The games are definitely vary atmospheric and play vastly different compared to Doom. There's a lot more exploration (or I should say, the exploration-combat ratio is more pronouncedly tilted towards the former when compared to your average Doom level), and in the first game, a good deal of confusing corridors and other areas. I believe that in a way, Marathon is somewhat closer to the original vision of Doom as a more adventure-oriented game with action elements, implemented in a Doom-like engine. Using terminals to progress the plot was a bit ahead of its time (although Dark Forces implemented digitized speech messages and animated cutscenes for this roughly about the same time), and this was also compensating for the lack of other means to keep the player updated on plot dynamics.

 

I can't say I was overly carried away by what I played, but there's indeed some eerie suspense about the world the player is thrust into, it's certainly unusual and probably worth checking out if you're interested in how the genre developed as a whole.

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So I finaly got around to play Marathon 1 and I must say that the game is quite impresive for something made in 1994, year after Doom. The narative is quite captivating for it´s time especialy among FPSes of the time, though it was outdone by System Shock 1 in the same year simply because the game also had voice acting with it´s text log and more impresive scripted encounters and scenarios coupled with a more impresive engine (then again System Shock is an ARPG).

 

Some of the levels have been tough to navigate I remember getting stuck for a long time in my first vacuum level, where I had to quickly reach Oxygen terminals or dying of asphyxiation, while navigating a maze like level design.

 

I´ll post my full impresion once I finnish the game, but I´m glad I gave it a chance.

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24 minutes ago, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai said:

So I finaly got around to play Marathon 1 and I must say that the game is quite impresive for something made in 1994, year after Doom. The narative is quite captivating for it´s time especialy among FPSes of the time, though it was outdone by System Shock 1 in the same year simply because the game also had voice acting with it´s text log and more impresive scripted encounters and scenarios coupled with a more impresive engine (then again System Shock is an ARPG).

 

Some of the levels have been tough to navigate I remember getting stuck for a long time in my first vacuum level, where I had to quickly reach Oxygen terminals or dying of asphyxiation, while navigating a maze like level design.

 

I´ll post my full impresion once I finnish the game, but I´m glad I gave it a chance.

 

 

That's kind of surprising. The level design tends to be an absolute killer for those who have tried it out. Admittedly, the combat and the atmosphere to a lesser extent carry it, imo, but in M1 especially, it feels rather like drawing like random shapes in spots (and the automap is inexcusably sloppy and sort of needs to be deciphered in room-over-room style areas)

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@LadyMistDragon I´m not sure how far in the game I am at the curent moment. I´m curently at the mission called "Shake before using" and Leela, the first AI, is still with me although:

Spoiler

She´s becoming extremely glitchy, so I think she is about to get killed off.

Will the game get more confusing after this level? Oh and does Marathon place a high emphasis like Doom on secret areas, for example did I miss on some secret weapons in previous levels or does your arsenal get better as the story progresess?

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21 minutes ago, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai said:

@LadyMistDragon I´m not sure how far in the game I am at the curent moment. I´m curently at the mission called "Shake before using" and Leela, the first AI, is still with me although:

  Reveal hidden contents

She´s becoming extremely glitchy, so I think she is about to get killed off.

Will the game get more confusing after this level? Oh and does Marathon place a high emphasis like Doom on secret areas, for example did I miss on some secret weapons in previous levels or does your arsenal get better as the story progresess?

By now your most advanced weapon should be the fusion pistol IIRC, unless:

 

Spoiler

you were able to find a super well hidden secret napalm launcher in "smells like napalm, tastes like chicken"

 

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29 minutes ago, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai said:

@LadyMistDragon I´m not sure how far in the game I am at the curent moment. I´m curently at the mission called "Shake before using" and Leela, the first AI, is still with me although:

  Reveal hidden contents

She´s becoming extremely glitchy, so I think she is about to get killed off.

Will the game get more confusing after this level? Oh and does Marathon place a high emphasis like Doom on secret areas, for example did I miss on some secret weapons in previous levels or does your arsenal get better as the story progresess?

well, mostly no, although you're still not quite to the map that has the annoying platform-lifting puzzle, and you'll have to grenade a switch or two if you haven't already. I wouldn't say it's considerably more confusing after that though.

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7 minutes ago, LadyMistDragon said:

well, mostly no, although you're still not quite to the map that has the annoying platform-lifting puzzle, and you'll have to grenade a switch or two if you haven't already. I wouldn't say it's considerably more confusing after that though.

 

I'd only add that:

 

Spoiler

"Pfhoraphobia" is, at least IMO, the most cryptic map of them all. I would have never been able to beat it without consulting a guide, I was stuck in there for a long time.

 

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20 minutes ago, Fernito said:

By now your most advanced weapon should be the fusion pistol IIRC, unless:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

you were able to find a super well hidden secret napalm launcher in "smells like napalm, tastes like chicken"

 

Nope haven´t found it sadly :(

 

6 minutes ago, Fernito said:

 

I'd only add that:

 

  Hide contents

"Pfhoraphobia" is, at least IMO, the most cryptic map of them all. I would have never been able to beat it without consulting a guide, I was stuck in there for a long time.

 

Man I´m kind of scared, what can I expect to encounter without spoiling the puzzles?

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8 minutes ago, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai said:

Man I´m kind of scared, what can I expect to encounter without spoiling the puzzles?

 

That's the thing, it's not even a puzzle. The only thing I can say is that when Durandal says "explore all areas", what he actually means is:

Spoiler

"WALK OVER EVERY @#~€&%$ SECTOR THE LEVEL HAS TO OFFER"

 

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