As the title suggests, I will be reviewing all three of Bungie's classic Marathon games. I will try to be as fair as possible here.
Now then, Marathon.
The game is broken into the following parts:
Arrival
Counterattack
Reprisal
Durandal
Pfhor
Rebellion
Here, we are introduced to one of the many nameless, though not entirely faceless heroes, of FPS history. Our hero in this series is a replacement security guard sent to the space station Marathon that orbits the planet Tau Ceti IV. Upon arrival, we meet our main enemy of the series, an alien race soon identified as the Phfor. After gunning down the first few that attack, we are introduced to the first helper: Leela, an AI of the Marathon. She makes the levels slightly more easy by telling the hero exactly where to go and even showing the location on a minimap. All this is done through text on terminals throughout the levels. Once the main objective is completed in each level, Leela teleports you to the next level.
The first major thing she has you do is save the crew. This is where the game can take an interesting turn. If you save all or the majority of the crew members from death, you move on to the next level no problem. However, if too many die, you are taken to a slightly harder level. This will usually depend on your aim because the civilians are open to your bullets as well as the Phfor's attacks. Soon after, we learn the Phfor are actually slavers who are taking the crew for just that: slavery.
Now, Leela is not the only helper we get. About halfway through the game, she is replaced with Durandal, a rampant AI who gives you no hints at all. Once paired with Durandal, it is completely up to you to explore the levels and figure out what to do. Usually, this entails getting to the terminal from which Durandal will teleport you to the next level. However, there are a few levels in which Durandal sets you on the Phfor ship and orders you to explore until he has enough data. Basically, this means wandering around the ship and standing in front of a window and waiting to be taken. It can get a little frustrating, but luckily there are plenty of baddies to gun down. More than likely, you will explore the entire ship before having to try every window until you are taken. Luckily, the interior of the ship is interesting enough to look at for a while.
Durandal's main goal is to free a race called the S'pht and use the Phfor ship to escape. The S'pht are cybernetic beings that act as engineers and hackers for the Phfor, and with yours and Durandal's help, rebel against their slavers and help take over the ship.
Now, instead of giving hints, Durandal gives you philosophical tirades about his rampancy. I found this much more interesting to read than Leela's drab conversation. In the final level, you meet Leela for the last time as she warns you about Durandal before he takes you away and escapes with the captured Phfor ship. Apparently, rampancy is when an AI breaks the restraints set by the original programmers.
And there is one more AI you meet only a few times in Marathon. Tycho. A truly insane AI who wants to destroy Durandal for reasons unknown.
Now, as a whole, Marathon is a descent game. The arsenal is varied and it has some truly interesting levels, mainly the one level in which you are in an area with no oxygen and must keep an eye out on that. The main weapon players will find themselves using is the assault rifle (duh). Not only does it have descent accuracy, it has a grenade launcher attachment which comes in handy in small corridors with lots of Phfor. Now, onto Marathon 2.
Marathon 2: Durandal
This one is broken into the following parts
Lh'owen
Volunteers
Garrison
Citadel
Durandal
Captured
Blake
Simulacrums
S'pht'Kr
The second installment takes places several years after the first and drops our hero onto Lh'owen, the homeworld of a race called the S'pht, who were slaves to the Phfor in the first game, but released by Durandal near the end. Here, we find ourselves paired once more with Durandal. However, here he is more helpful and gives a few more hints as he hops you around the planet searching for a way to destroy the Phfor that have followed you and learn more of the S'pht.
The games moves much like the first: use terminal, explore, kill, teleport with final terminal. And it never gets old because reading the terminals explains plenty of backstory and the enemies are always fun to shoot to death. Your arsenal is the same as before, pistols, assault rifle, fusion gun(laser gun), flame thrower, rocket launcher. They also added in a new gun: shotgun. Which becomes one of the best weapons for clusters, especially when you pick up the second one (yes, the Marathon games have duel wielding).
The main difference is that the humans you rescued in the first game come to help you in this installment. They have learned to use guns thanks to Durandal and are ready to fight.
We are also formally introduced to Tycho, who has allied with the Phfor after they rebuilt him and now seeks to help them destroy you and Durandal. He succeeds and you are stuck taking orders from a man called Robert Blake, you basically sends you on a mission to revive Durandal by merging his program with that of an ancient S'pht AI called Thoth. Exactly how this works is never explained. But, you eventually get stolen by Tycho, and are forced to work for him until Durandal takes you back. Near the end, Durandal manages to crash Tycho's ship. And Durandal once more takes you away at the end once you revive a new ally, the S'pht'Kr.
Marathon 2, by all, is much deeper than Marathon one and most FPS games today. Durandal's search for a way to escape his fate and become sentient directly correlates with what he has you do. And the battle between Durandal and Tycho becomes a key part of the story. Once again, the way its all relayed through terminals makes it very entertaining.
Marathon: Infinity
Parts:
Prolouge
Despair
Rage
Envy
The last installment is also the strangest. Infinity has the most convoluted story I have seen. The only obvious things are: you still work with Durandal, who has become extremely powerful in his rampancy, the Phfor are still your enemy, and Tycho is a fucking nut who will still use you.
Now, I have never been able to truly follow the story in this third installment, but I will do my best here.
Most of the game is indoors on ships as you bounce from Durandal to Tycho and back. And, it introduced the possibility that you are jumping between points in time. The prolouge chapter suggests that the Phfor have unleashed some terrible, chaotic weapon. However, in the next level, you are helping Tycho take over a ship. Yeah, I don't get it either. However, the new lore the game introduces will hopefully keep you in until the end, which is just as confusing. By the end, you learn that the Phfor want to unleash things the S'pht called W'rkncacnter. And Durandal sends to an old S'pht station to stop it. And when you do, you are teleported away and apparently let go from Durandal's control and set free.
There are several levels in the game called "Electric Sheep." (maybe a reference to the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) Three to be exact. These possibly lead to alternate time lines in which you fail in your mission and are teleported back to the Electric Sheep level. Each failure is when the Phfor succeed in using a weapon that creates a nova and thereby release the W'rkncacnter. The final level is, of course, your success in stopping the use of the nova weapon. Were the other time lines dreams? Hmm...make of it what you will.
This one introduces us more to the Jjaro, first mentioned in Marathon 2. Ancient beings the S'pht revere and whose technology the Phfor wish to use and which you do use to stop the Phfor.
Compared to the other two, Infinity is harder, and difficult to follow without a notepad, but descent enough to play. Hell, compared to most FPS games today, this series is superior in my opinion. The possibility of different time lines makes the game a little easier to follow, but not much.
Now, the overall question that is never answered is who exactly the hero is. We are told he is a security replacement, but somethings suggest he could actually be a cyborg of some kind. Whether this is true or not is never explored nor confirmed in any of the games. I suppose Bungie wants us to decide for ourselves.
All in all, the Marathon trilogy is a solid series. The gameplay is consistent, the story truly immersive and the characters imaginative and intriguing. I highly recommend playing this series if you haven't. I find it a good splash of fun compared to most FPS titles out now.
Now then, Marathon.
The game is broken into the following parts:
Arrival
Counterattack
Reprisal
Durandal
Pfhor
Rebellion
Here, we are introduced to one of the many nameless, though not entirely faceless heroes, of FPS history. Our hero in this series is a replacement security guard sent to the space station Marathon that orbits the planet Tau Ceti IV. Upon arrival, we meet our main enemy of the series, an alien race soon identified as the Phfor. After gunning down the first few that attack, we are introduced to the first helper: Leela, an AI of the Marathon. She makes the levels slightly more easy by telling the hero exactly where to go and even showing the location on a minimap. All this is done through text on terminals throughout the levels. Once the main objective is completed in each level, Leela teleports you to the next level.
The first major thing she has you do is save the crew. This is where the game can take an interesting turn. If you save all or the majority of the crew members from death, you move on to the next level no problem. However, if too many die, you are taken to a slightly harder level. This will usually depend on your aim because the civilians are open to your bullets as well as the Phfor's attacks. Soon after, we learn the Phfor are actually slavers who are taking the crew for just that: slavery.
Now, Leela is not the only helper we get. About halfway through the game, she is replaced with Durandal, a rampant AI who gives you no hints at all. Once paired with Durandal, it is completely up to you to explore the levels and figure out what to do. Usually, this entails getting to the terminal from which Durandal will teleport you to the next level. However, there are a few levels in which Durandal sets you on the Phfor ship and orders you to explore until he has enough data. Basically, this means wandering around the ship and standing in front of a window and waiting to be taken. It can get a little frustrating, but luckily there are plenty of baddies to gun down. More than likely, you will explore the entire ship before having to try every window until you are taken. Luckily, the interior of the ship is interesting enough to look at for a while.
Durandal's main goal is to free a race called the S'pht and use the Phfor ship to escape. The S'pht are cybernetic beings that act as engineers and hackers for the Phfor, and with yours and Durandal's help, rebel against their slavers and help take over the ship.
Now, instead of giving hints, Durandal gives you philosophical tirades about his rampancy. I found this much more interesting to read than Leela's drab conversation. In the final level, you meet Leela for the last time as she warns you about Durandal before he takes you away and escapes with the captured Phfor ship. Apparently, rampancy is when an AI breaks the restraints set by the original programmers.
And there is one more AI you meet only a few times in Marathon. Tycho. A truly insane AI who wants to destroy Durandal for reasons unknown.
Now, as a whole, Marathon is a descent game. The arsenal is varied and it has some truly interesting levels, mainly the one level in which you are in an area with no oxygen and must keep an eye out on that. The main weapon players will find themselves using is the assault rifle (duh). Not only does it have descent accuracy, it has a grenade launcher attachment which comes in handy in small corridors with lots of Phfor. Now, onto Marathon 2.
Marathon 2: Durandal
This one is broken into the following parts
Lh'owen
Volunteers
Garrison
Citadel
Durandal
Captured
Blake
Simulacrums
S'pht'Kr
The second installment takes places several years after the first and drops our hero onto Lh'owen, the homeworld of a race called the S'pht, who were slaves to the Phfor in the first game, but released by Durandal near the end. Here, we find ourselves paired once more with Durandal. However, here he is more helpful and gives a few more hints as he hops you around the planet searching for a way to destroy the Phfor that have followed you and learn more of the S'pht.
The games moves much like the first: use terminal, explore, kill, teleport with final terminal. And it never gets old because reading the terminals explains plenty of backstory and the enemies are always fun to shoot to death. Your arsenal is the same as before, pistols, assault rifle, fusion gun(laser gun), flame thrower, rocket launcher. They also added in a new gun: shotgun. Which becomes one of the best weapons for clusters, especially when you pick up the second one (yes, the Marathon games have duel wielding).
The main difference is that the humans you rescued in the first game come to help you in this installment. They have learned to use guns thanks to Durandal and are ready to fight.
We are also formally introduced to Tycho, who has allied with the Phfor after they rebuilt him and now seeks to help them destroy you and Durandal. He succeeds and you are stuck taking orders from a man called Robert Blake, you basically sends you on a mission to revive Durandal by merging his program with that of an ancient S'pht AI called Thoth. Exactly how this works is never explained. But, you eventually get stolen by Tycho, and are forced to work for him until Durandal takes you back. Near the end, Durandal manages to crash Tycho's ship. And Durandal once more takes you away at the end once you revive a new ally, the S'pht'Kr.
Marathon 2, by all, is much deeper than Marathon one and most FPS games today. Durandal's search for a way to escape his fate and become sentient directly correlates with what he has you do. And the battle between Durandal and Tycho becomes a key part of the story. Once again, the way its all relayed through terminals makes it very entertaining.
Marathon: Infinity
Parts:
Prolouge
Despair
Rage
Envy
The last installment is also the strangest. Infinity has the most convoluted story I have seen. The only obvious things are: you still work with Durandal, who has become extremely powerful in his rampancy, the Phfor are still your enemy, and Tycho is a fucking nut who will still use you.
Now, I have never been able to truly follow the story in this third installment, but I will do my best here.
Most of the game is indoors on ships as you bounce from Durandal to Tycho and back. And, it introduced the possibility that you are jumping between points in time. The prolouge chapter suggests that the Phfor have unleashed some terrible, chaotic weapon. However, in the next level, you are helping Tycho take over a ship. Yeah, I don't get it either. However, the new lore the game introduces will hopefully keep you in until the end, which is just as confusing. By the end, you learn that the Phfor want to unleash things the S'pht called W'rkncacnter. And Durandal sends to an old S'pht station to stop it. And when you do, you are teleported away and apparently let go from Durandal's control and set free.
There are several levels in the game called "Electric Sheep." (maybe a reference to the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) Three to be exact. These possibly lead to alternate time lines in which you fail in your mission and are teleported back to the Electric Sheep level. Each failure is when the Phfor succeed in using a weapon that creates a nova and thereby release the W'rkncacnter. The final level is, of course, your success in stopping the use of the nova weapon. Were the other time lines dreams? Hmm...make of it what you will.
This one introduces us more to the Jjaro, first mentioned in Marathon 2. Ancient beings the S'pht revere and whose technology the Phfor wish to use and which you do use to stop the Phfor.
Compared to the other two, Infinity is harder, and difficult to follow without a notepad, but descent enough to play. Hell, compared to most FPS games today, this series is superior in my opinion. The possibility of different time lines makes the game a little easier to follow, but not much.
Now, the overall question that is never answered is who exactly the hero is. We are told he is a security replacement, but somethings suggest he could actually be a cyborg of some kind. Whether this is true or not is never explored nor confirmed in any of the games. I suppose Bungie wants us to decide for ourselves.
All in all, the Marathon trilogy is a solid series. The gameplay is consistent, the story truly immersive and the characters imaginative and intriguing. I highly recommend playing this series if you haven't. I find it a good splash of fun compared to most FPS titles out now.
