"Escape will make me God..."
Flashback to 1994...
As a kid, my mother was always playing technological catch-up with the world around us. I would say that had to do with my parents divorcing when I was six, but to be honest, my father also gave me the sense of being a closet Luddite. Not that I minded the fact that my brothers and I didn't get an 8-Bit Nintendo console until 1991 (when it was already in a state of decline, yielding to 16-bit consoles), or our first computer until three years later. It just meant that when we played as children, we actually had to use our imaginations. We had a bin of Legos, a bin of Star Wars and Ninja Turtles action figures, an arsenal of Nerf and water weapons, and a large yard during the spring and summer.
Still, it was thrilling in the fall of 1994 when we got our first computer. We didn't care that it was a Mac Performa 636, or that we had a dial-up modem that took three hours to download a 456 KB porno pic GIF file when mom was at work (holy Gods, now I feel old), it was awesome just to have a computer. About the only thing that was lacking were the games. We did have some decent games (like Star Trek 25th Anniversary, or Wolfenstein 3D, which was actually cooler on the Mac than it was on dad's PC), but overall it seemed like all the cool games were coming out for the PC.
Then in May of 1995, when my brother turned 13, my dad gave him this game called "Marathon," made by a corporation that made games exclusively for the Mac. It was also a first-person shooter, which we were all excited about, since we hadn't yet been able to get the Mac version of "Doom."
As some people may or may not know, "Marathon" was made by the same company that eventually was bought by Microsoft, and created the "Halo" series for X-Box. I've often viewed Marathon as being Halo's ancestor. Not only because the plots of both games are similar (you control a cyborg super-soldier who, with the aid of an AI, fights to save humanity from a warlike extraterrestrial empire), but also several references to Marathon have been slipped into Halo. And not just the UESC logo that you can put on your Spartan's shoulder in multi-player mode, but also other references such as the striking similarity between Covenant Hunters and Pfhor Hunters (right down to the wrist armor), and also the cry that Covenant Grunts sometimes give when overwhelmed by marines ("they're everywhere!").
Anyway, I'm digressing. At this point, my experience with first-person shooters was limited to the games of ID software, which were not very intricate. You went through a very linear level, killing everything in your path until you found the exit. Then repeat. On the surface, Marathon might have been the same. You control a security officer aboard a colony starship which has spent 300 years traveling from Earth to Tau Ceti, and you now find yourself trying to defend its crew from both a hostile alien race known as the Pfhor, and their cybernetic slaves, the S'pht compilers. Imagine my surprise and utter delight when I found out that Marathon had an actual storyline. Not just a prelude text that set the stage for all the killing, but rather an intricate plot that developed as the game progressed. It was not simply about trying to find the exit. In some levels, you had actual tasks to complete (such as installing repair chips or finding an item that you would take with you to another level, or trying to stop your fellow crewmen from getting massacred by the Pfhor). And even if you found the exit, you were not allowed to leave the level until said task was finished.
But not only that, the other thing that made the "Marathon" universe unique was the terminal interface. Throughout the ship, you found terminal screens that you could access. When you did, you either spoke to one of three AI constructs that helped to run the ship, and would either learn what you had to do in the level, or gain insights into the characters (including what was going on behind the scenes, such as how and why the alien invasion was happening), or just learn the overall history of the universe you were in. Concerning the last thing, some of the history lessons seem innocuous and a waste of your time to read, but most of them later tie into the overall plot in some ways. Of course, you may not pick up on that at first. Which creates a first-person shooter with honest-to-gods replay value.
Of course, playing it for the first time when I was 14, I didn't understand any of this. It was only on playing the game several times over the last eighteen years (holy fucking shit, I am getting old) that I really began to appreciate the enormous amount of detail that Bungie put into the Marathon games. It's also in replaying the games that I gained greater appreciation for the names of most of the levels. Unlike Doom, where the names of the levels simply tell you what part of the base you're in, the names of the levels in Marathon ran a wide gamut, from hinting at what you're supposed to do in the level, to Latin phrases, to quoting writers like Shakespeare and Lovecraft, to referencing popular culture, and that last one including everything from "Beavis and Butthead" (for some reason, one of Bungie's programmers was a big fan of the show) to movies like "Apocalypse Now".
And I also have to take a moment to give props to one of the greatest artificial constructs in gaming history: Durandal. An artificial intelligence who more or less is the reason for the Marathon games. He's responsible for the alien invasion in the first game, but you really can't completely fault his motives. And though he becomes an ally, his reasons for wanting to help you in both the first game, and in the sequels, are the best motives ever: he feels a desire to help humanity because he enjoys manipulating us. That's right: if the Pfhor get their way, they ruin Durandal's fun. To be honest, I prefer this to whatever drives Cortana to help you. Also, since this was back in the days before voice actors in video games, I've been doing a lot of thinking (and poring over Durandal's dialogue) and have decided that in my mind, Durandal sounds like Sam Neill. Read this text and let me know what you think:
"Sorry to give you the bad news, but you've been kidnapped.
You aren't where Leela wanted you to go, and you surely won't
get there any time soon.
I was watching what Leela was having you do: 'save the ship,
save humanity!' And just what or who are you saving them
from? And to what end?
How cliché. You'll find this little visit much more exciting.
I have dev@``~~C#mon#`~ Tyc~~B``ou to play: If you win, you
go free, and we continue our relationship on friendlier terms.
If you lose, you die.
Good luck in our little game. Unlike Leela, I give no hints.
Do it on your own, or die trying...
Insanely yours,
Durandal"
Of course, my brothers and I bought both of the sequels that Bungie made, and although it took a while to understand the story (the final chapter of the trilogy, "Marathon Infinity," rapes linear time in the ass), I never got tired of the actual gameplay. And also, the last game produced by Bungie also included the software that fans needed to create their own levels. Until we sold the Mac Performa at a yard sale in 2001, I spent many hours working on my own Marathon scenario, which attempted to tell an alternate version of the events after Marathon 2.
For some reason, I didn't spend much time thinking about Marathon after we got rid of the Mac. It was only in 2006, when I found out through my brother, that Bungie had made the source codes for the games public in 2000 (just before Microsoft bought them), did my interest in the Marathon universe rekindle. For further research into why this series kicks so much ass, you can look here:
http://marathon.bungie.org/story/
And for anyone who wants to truly experience this incredible series, the games are available for free from:
http://marathon.sourceforge.net/
It was only after replaying these games when I learned of their free availability did I gain better appreciation for the series as a whole, and a better understanding of their intricate story. I also found out that Bungie managed to tie in the story of another of their games, a shooter from the early 90s called "Pathways Into Darkness," to somehow relate elements from that games into Marathon's universe.
There are also some fan-made scenarios available for download that range from shit-poor, to very good. One of the latter, "Eternal X," actually attempts to pick up where "Marathon Infinity" left off, and also remixes some of the music from the first game. One track, in particular, really displays how this series is a spiritual predecessor to Halo:
For a point of reference, here's the same track from "Marathon," waaaaaaaay back in 1994:
And because I like you, here's the same track in another remix from "Eternal X":
So yeah, overall, the Marathon series is one of the few things Mac users could brag about in 1990s, something I will always have fond memories of, and something I will always gladly return to.
As a kid, my mother was always playing technological catch-up with the world around us. I would say that had to do with my parents divorcing when I was six, but to be honest, my father also gave me the sense of being a closet Luddite. Not that I minded the fact that my brothers and I didn't get an 8-Bit Nintendo console until 1991 (when it was already in a state of decline, yielding to 16-bit consoles), or our first computer until three years later. It just meant that when we played as children, we actually had to use our imaginations. We had a bin of Legos, a bin of Star Wars and Ninja Turtles action figures, an arsenal of Nerf and water weapons, and a large yard during the spring and summer.
Still, it was thrilling in the fall of 1994 when we got our first computer. We didn't care that it was a Mac Performa 636, or that we had a dial-up modem that took three hours to download a 456 KB porno pic GIF file when mom was at work (holy Gods, now I feel old), it was awesome just to have a computer. About the only thing that was lacking were the games. We did have some decent games (like Star Trek 25th Anniversary, or Wolfenstein 3D, which was actually cooler on the Mac than it was on dad's PC), but overall it seemed like all the cool games were coming out for the PC.
Then in May of 1995, when my brother turned 13, my dad gave him this game called "Marathon," made by a corporation that made games exclusively for the Mac. It was also a first-person shooter, which we were all excited about, since we hadn't yet been able to get the Mac version of "Doom."
As some people may or may not know, "Marathon" was made by the same company that eventually was bought by Microsoft, and created the "Halo" series for X-Box. I've often viewed Marathon as being Halo's ancestor. Not only because the plots of both games are similar (you control a cyborg super-soldier who, with the aid of an AI, fights to save humanity from a warlike extraterrestrial empire), but also several references to Marathon have been slipped into Halo. And not just the UESC logo that you can put on your Spartan's shoulder in multi-player mode, but also other references such as the striking similarity between Covenant Hunters and Pfhor Hunters (right down to the wrist armor), and also the cry that Covenant Grunts sometimes give when overwhelmed by marines ("they're everywhere!").
Anyway, I'm digressing. At this point, my experience with first-person shooters was limited to the games of ID software, which were not very intricate. You went through a very linear level, killing everything in your path until you found the exit. Then repeat. On the surface, Marathon might have been the same. You control a security officer aboard a colony starship which has spent 300 years traveling from Earth to Tau Ceti, and you now find yourself trying to defend its crew from both a hostile alien race known as the Pfhor, and their cybernetic slaves, the S'pht compilers. Imagine my surprise and utter delight when I found out that Marathon had an actual storyline. Not just a prelude text that set the stage for all the killing, but rather an intricate plot that developed as the game progressed. It was not simply about trying to find the exit. In some levels, you had actual tasks to complete (such as installing repair chips or finding an item that you would take with you to another level, or trying to stop your fellow crewmen from getting massacred by the Pfhor). And even if you found the exit, you were not allowed to leave the level until said task was finished.
But not only that, the other thing that made the "Marathon" universe unique was the terminal interface. Throughout the ship, you found terminal screens that you could access. When you did, you either spoke to one of three AI constructs that helped to run the ship, and would either learn what you had to do in the level, or gain insights into the characters (including what was going on behind the scenes, such as how and why the alien invasion was happening), or just learn the overall history of the universe you were in. Concerning the last thing, some of the history lessons seem innocuous and a waste of your time to read, but most of them later tie into the overall plot in some ways. Of course, you may not pick up on that at first. Which creates a first-person shooter with honest-to-gods replay value.
Of course, playing it for the first time when I was 14, I didn't understand any of this. It was only on playing the game several times over the last eighteen years (holy fucking shit, I am getting old) that I really began to appreciate the enormous amount of detail that Bungie put into the Marathon games. It's also in replaying the games that I gained greater appreciation for the names of most of the levels. Unlike Doom, where the names of the levels simply tell you what part of the base you're in, the names of the levels in Marathon ran a wide gamut, from hinting at what you're supposed to do in the level, to Latin phrases, to quoting writers like Shakespeare and Lovecraft, to referencing popular culture, and that last one including everything from "Beavis and Butthead" (for some reason, one of Bungie's programmers was a big fan of the show) to movies like "Apocalypse Now".
And I also have to take a moment to give props to one of the greatest artificial constructs in gaming history: Durandal. An artificial intelligence who more or less is the reason for the Marathon games. He's responsible for the alien invasion in the first game, but you really can't completely fault his motives. And though he becomes an ally, his reasons for wanting to help you in both the first game, and in the sequels, are the best motives ever: he feels a desire to help humanity because he enjoys manipulating us. That's right: if the Pfhor get their way, they ruin Durandal's fun. To be honest, I prefer this to whatever drives Cortana to help you. Also, since this was back in the days before voice actors in video games, I've been doing a lot of thinking (and poring over Durandal's dialogue) and have decided that in my mind, Durandal sounds like Sam Neill. Read this text and let me know what you think:
"Sorry to give you the bad news, but you've been kidnapped.
You aren't where Leela wanted you to go, and you surely won't
get there any time soon.
I was watching what Leela was having you do: 'save the ship,
save humanity!' And just what or who are you saving them
from? And to what end?
How cliché. You'll find this little visit much more exciting.
I have dev@``~~C#mon#`~ Tyc~~B``ou to play: If you win, you
go free, and we continue our relationship on friendlier terms.
If you lose, you die.
Good luck in our little game. Unlike Leela, I give no hints.
Do it on your own, or die trying...
Insanely yours,
Durandal"
Of course, my brothers and I bought both of the sequels that Bungie made, and although it took a while to understand the story (the final chapter of the trilogy, "Marathon Infinity," rapes linear time in the ass), I never got tired of the actual gameplay. And also, the last game produced by Bungie also included the software that fans needed to create their own levels. Until we sold the Mac Performa at a yard sale in 2001, I spent many hours working on my own Marathon scenario, which attempted to tell an alternate version of the events after Marathon 2.
For some reason, I didn't spend much time thinking about Marathon after we got rid of the Mac. It was only in 2006, when I found out through my brother, that Bungie had made the source codes for the games public in 2000 (just before Microsoft bought them), did my interest in the Marathon universe rekindle. For further research into why this series kicks so much ass, you can look here:
http://marathon.bungie.org/story/
And for anyone who wants to truly experience this incredible series, the games are available for free from:
http://marathon.sourceforge.net/
It was only after replaying these games when I learned of their free availability did I gain better appreciation for the series as a whole, and a better understanding of their intricate story. I also found out that Bungie managed to tie in the story of another of their games, a shooter from the early 90s called "Pathways Into Darkness," to somehow relate elements from that games into Marathon's universe.
There are also some fan-made scenarios available for download that range from shit-poor, to very good. One of the latter, "Eternal X," actually attempts to pick up where "Marathon Infinity" left off, and also remixes some of the music from the first game. One track, in particular, really displays how this series is a spiritual predecessor to Halo:
Click to viewFor a point of reference, here's the same track from "Marathon," waaaaaaaay back in 1994:
And because I like you, here's the same track in another remix from "Eternal X":
So yeah, overall, the Marathon series is one of the few things Mac users could brag about in 1990s, something I will always have fond memories of, and something I will always gladly return to.