Marathon

0

0

0

0

0

0

Generally speaking, First-person shooters from the 90s have suffered in the face of age. Pixely items/weapons, flat and homogeneous backgrounds, 8-bitty sounds, and overall lack of direction makes revisiting old shooters difficult. In my experience, shooters which are less confined and faster-paced aged best. Marathon is neither of these, but fortunately it sets itself apart with a deep, moody story and great gunplay to take a competitive stance in the realm of its peers. Some 400 years in the future, an Artificial Intelligence named 'Leela' sends a distress beacon from military ship Marathon, where her rampant partner AI, Durandal, has wreaked havoc on the shi****stems and inhabitants. You are a nameless soldier sent to stop Durandal from causing further destruction. From the outset, this premise seems pretty standard for an early shooter, something that could be easily delivered to the player with some introductory text. Its counterparts, Doom and Wolfenstein, did exactly this, and their simplicity stoked reliance on frenetic and bloody action to maintain player attention. This served those titles well, as they focused on the action. Marathon moreso leans on its story to keep players entertained -- a story delivered via computer terminal text with occasional stop-gaps of shooting corridors. Marathon is a dense Sci-fi game, almost literary. It would make a great book series, TV show, or even episodic narrative game. It is a bit of a relic in terms of shooter design, with slow action and confusing corridors, but it will delight ******** Science Fiction fanatics even nearly 30 years later.

0

0

Waves were the battles, and the battles were waves.

0

0

Challenging gameplay, complex story, but ultimately satisfying.

0

0

0

0

0

0