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Marathon Trilogy

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Marathon Poster
The Marathon Trilogy is a series of science fiction first-person shooter computer games from Bungie Software originally released for the Apple Macintosh. Marathon is also the name of the giant interstellar colony ship that provides the setting for the first game and figures prominently in the plot of the sequels; the ship is constructed out of what used to be the moon Deimos of Mars.

Marathon was first released for the Macintosh in 1994 and introduced many concepts now common in mainstream video games. These features included dual-wielded weapons, friendly non-player characters, and most notably an intricate plot. The sequel, ', was released in 1995 and expanded the engine technologies and the story universe. Unlike its darker prequel, Marathon 2 has often been perceived to be a brighter, vivid and more atmospheric game. It introduced several types of multiplayer modes beyond the deathmatch and cooperative game such as king of the hill. In 1996, the game was ported to Windows 95, and the Marathon Infinity package was released, including a new scenario using a modified Marathon 2 engine, and most importantly, the tools used to build it, Forge and Anvil. In 2000, Bungie released the source code to the Marathon 2 engine, and the Marathon Open Source project began, resulting in the new Marathon engine called Aleph One'''. Finally, in 2005, Bungie released the full original Mac OS trilogy for free distribution online [link]. Using Aleph One, Marathon, Marathon 2 and Infinity may now be played on any of the supported platforms (Mac OS, GNU/Linux and Windows).

While the fundamental technology underlying the Marathon engine is by now considered rather outdated, Aleph One has added significant improvements and a more modern polish to its capabilities, and ported it to a wide variety of platforms, bringing Marathon and its derivatives far beyond their Mac roots. Aleph One and the Marathon series of games are unique amongst first person shooters for their heavy emphasis on storytelling through the use of terminals, computer interfaces in the game world through which players not only learn and sometimes accomplish mission objectives, but also learn detailed story information about the game world. The textual form of this communication allows for much richer information conveyance than typically short voice acting in modern games, similar to the differences between a novel and a movie.

Story

Set in the year 2794 A.D. Marathon places the player as a security officer; in actuality, he is most likely a Mjolnir Mark IV Cyborg, dispatched to respond to a distress signal sent from the enormous human starship called the U.E.S.C. Marathon, orbiting a colony on the planet Tau Ceti IV. Throughout the game, the player attempts to defend the ship (and its crew and colonists) from a race of alien slavers called the Pfhor. As he fights against the invaders, he witnesses interactions between the three shipboard AIs (Leela, Durandal and Tycho), and discovers that all is not as it seems aboard the Marathon. Among other problems, Durandal has gone rampant and appears to be playing the humans against the Pfhor to further his own mysterious agenda.

Seventeen years after the events of the first game, in , the artificial intelligence sends the player and an army of ex-colonists to search the ruins of Lh'owon, the S'pht homeworld. He does not mention what information he is looking for, although he does let it slip that the Pfhor are planning to attack Earth, and that being on Lh'owon may stall their advance. Marathon 2 brings many elements to the game that can be considered staples of the series such as: a Lh'owon-native species known as F'lickta, the mention of an ancient and mysterious race of advanced aliens called the Jjaro, and a clan of S'pht that avoided enslavement by the Pfhor - the S'pht'Kr. At the climax of the game, the Security Officer activates Thoth, an ancient Jjaro AI. Thoth then contacts the S'Pht'Kr, who in turn destroy the Pfhor armada.

Marathon Infinity, the final game in the series, includes more levels than Marathon 2, which were larger, scarier, and part of a more intricate plot. The game's code changed little since Marathon 2, and many levels can be played unmodified in both games. The only significant additions to the game's engine were the Jjaro ship, a new rapid-fire weapon that could be used underwater, and vacuum-enabled humans carrying fusion weapons (called "Vacuum Bobs" or "VacBobs"). After having activated Thoth and after having aided the S'pht'Kr in destroying the Pfhor armada, Durandal is apparently destroyed (though he may actually have hidden from Tycho by transferring himself to the electronic implants of the human leader Robert Blake). At the end of the game your objective is to activate an ancient Jjaro machine that keeps the W'rkncacnter locked in the Lh'owon sun.

Themes

The following are frequently used devices in the Marathon Trilogy story:

Gameplay

Marathon 2 in play
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Marathon 2 in play

Throughout the games, the player accesses computer terminals through which he communicates with artificial intelligences, receives mission data, and gets teleported to other levels. Though contact with computers is how they are primarily utilized, they are a fundamental storytelling element; some terminals contain civilian/alien reports or diaries, database articles, conversations between artificial intelligences and even stories or poems. Messages may change depending on a player's progress. The ultimate goal of most levels is not to merely reach the end but to complete the type(s) of objective(s) specified: extermination of all or specific creatures, exploration of a level or locating an area in the level, retrieving one or more item, hitting a certain "repair" switch, or preventing half of the civilians from being killed (a mission only present in two levels in the first game).

The player starts armed only with a pistol and fists (or in the case of Marathon, only one fist), but may pick up other weapons: another pistol, a fusion pistol with normal and overload firing modes, an assault rifle/grenade launcher combination, a flamethrower that sprays napalm, a rocket launcher, two compact shotguns (in Marathon 2 and Marathon Infinity), a submachine gun (in Marathon Infinity only) and an unidentifiable Phfor weapon ( in "Marathon Infinity"). The Phfor weapon is simular to plasma rifles found in the Halo Trilogy, in that it cannot reload and has no known ammo. The player may encounter powerups on the levels (called BIOBUS chip enhancements) with temporary effects such as making the player invincible or transparent. These weapons are used in combat with alien creatures, each with its own allies and enemies, immunities and weaknesses, melee and ranged attacks as well as traits such as exploding and inflicting damage to nearby creatures upon death, flying or hovering at a specified height, firing symmetrically, or attacking by self-destructing explosively. Alliances and enemies change from level to level in some instances, especially in Marathon Infinity, which has a non-linear storyline.

Most levels contain platforms, defined as anything able to change its height. Though it is generally used to describe lifts, doors are included in this category. Doors may or may not show up on the player's automap and are usually opened with the action key. In cases where they are damaged or locked they can be opened by special designated triggers or switches. Switches control various functions such as lifts, doors and lighting and come in the form of manual switches that can be toggled with the action key, stations for computer chips or breakable circuitry. Some switches are "tag" switches that execute multiple functions at once or those that must be activated as part of "repair" missions. Another notable level feature is teleporters, able to send players who use them to different parts of a level or to other levels. Aliens are unable to use them.

As the player combats enemies, he will inevitably take damage and must replenish health by means of special panels that recharge his suit's shields. There are three types of such panels, recharging single (red), double (yellow) or triple (purple) health. In Marathon 2 and Marathon Infinity, the player can swim in four different types of media: water, sewage, lava and goo (both damaging). Levels of the original Marathon do not contain swimmable media. However, some do have floors textured with orange lava or green goo that will inflict damage on the player when standing upon them. When the player is submerged in true liquids, he can use his run key in order to swim and can only attack with fists or the submachine gun. It is possible to use the fusion pistol but it will backfire. In liquids or in "vacuum" areas, the player's oxygen depletes and it must be recharged using a special oxygen recharge station. Should the player lose all oxygen or health, he dies and is sent back to the last pattern buffer (a special terminal that according to the storyline saves molecular data) at which he saved. Because some levels do not have these devices, dying results in having to complete the entire level again.

The heads-up display has an inventory, health and oxygen bars and a motion sensor. The motion sensor displays alien creatures as red triangles and human or robots on the side of the players green squares and tracks their motion relative to the player, represented by a square in the middle. The brightness of the middle square represents how still the player is and how well he can be tracked. On some levels the motion sensor is erratic due to magnetic artificial gravity fields. Gravity is fairly low on such levels, and the correct application of the flamethrower or alien weapon allows the player to hover. In Marathon, the HUD is vertical and takes up more of the screen (in an effort to boost game performance) but is horizontal in sequels. An annotated automap is available as part of this display.

Marathon has five difficulty settings. Differences involve the omission of some creatures from each level and creatures marked as minor in the game's physics model are promoted to their major versions or vice versa. On higher difficulty levels, creatures attack more frequently and have more vitality and on the highest setting (Total Carnage), the player is allowed to carry an unlimited amount of ammunition.

Multiplayer

Multiplayer network game in the original Marathon
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Multiplayer network game in the original Marathon

The Marathon Trilogy has received wide praise for its multiplayer mode, which was unique in that it not only had several levels specifically designed for multiplayer as opposed to contemporaries that used modified single-player levels but also because it offered unique gametypes beyond the deathmatch. Games can be free-for-all or team ordeals, and can be limited by time or a number of kills or have no limited. The host of a game has the option of setting penalties for suicides and dying (once dead, players cannot revive for a certain amount of time). The motion sensor (which displays a player's enemies as yellow squares and teammates as green ones) can be disabled and the map is able to show all of the players in the game. Upon the preference of the host, levels can be played with or without aliens. The difficulty level of them is settable.

Marathon network games can be played over AppleTalk Remote, LocalTalk, TokenTalk, Ethernet, and more recently, a LAN network or the Internet. If a player's computer has a microphone, it is possible to use it to communicate with other players.

Every Man For Himself
This is the standard deathmatch. The winner is the person or team with the greatest score. A player loses a point if he dies but gains a point every time he kills. This is the only gametype present in the original Marathon; Bungie planned on adding the ones included in sequels, but could not due to time constraints.
Cooperative Play
Not heavily emphasized, cooperative play has players assisting each other in completion of certain levels. Scores are based on percentages of how many aliens they kill.
Skull from Kill the Man with the Ball
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Skull from Kill the Man with the Ball

Kill the Man With the Ball
In this game, the objective is to hold the ball (skull) for the longest amount of time. If holding the ball, a player cannot run or attack unless he drops the ball by pressing the "fire" key. The motion sensor, if enabled, acts as a compass to point players in the direction of the ball. It is likely that the Halo multiplayer gametype, Oddball, which has nearly the same rules, derived from this.
King of the Hill
Players try to stay on the Hill longer than anyone else. It was originally planned for a pedestal to indicate the location of the Hill but in the final version was indicated by a compass on the motion sensor.
Tag
The first player to be killed becomes "It", and the other players can only score points by killing "it". The killer becomes the new "it".

Characters

Pfhor

A Pfhor fighter
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A Pfhor fighter

The Pfhor are an ancient extraterrestrial space-faring race of alien slavers. They seek to control the galaxy and perform numerous evil deeds in the games. The Pfhor are bipedal, somewhat taller than humans, have three red eyes and grey skin. The arrangement of their eyes was changed from a triangle pointing down in Marathon to a triangle pointing up in the later games. 

The separate types of soldier equipped within the Pfhor garrison are divided up by basically a caste system, each with its own armor and weapons:

Conditioned ranks

The Pfhor also utilize "Conditioned Ranks", or enslaved soldiers who are forced to fight for the empire. Conquered races, such as the S'pht, make up the majority of these conditioned ranks:

S'pht

A S'pht compiler
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A S'pht compiler




Friendly creatures

A Marathon Automated Defense Drone (MADD)
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A Marathon Automated Defense Drone (MADD)




Content creation

A screenshot of Forge's Visual Mode feature
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A screenshot of Forge's Visual Mode feature

Forge is the name of the official Bungie map editor used to create the levels of Marathon 2 and Marathon Infinity. Unlike modern first-person shooters, Marathon has a pseudo-3D engine that only creates the illusion of 3D by placing two-dimensional objects together. Each level consists of polygons linked together, each with its own textures, heights and lighting. If specified, a polygon can be a platform (one that can change its height), teleporter (on-level or off-level), hill or monster/light trigger. Polygons must have fewer than eight vertices and be convex. Truly three-dimensional structures such as bridges and balconies are not possible but can be created illusionally using polygons that overlap each other, a technique Bungie calls "5D space". Forge has a two-dimensional plane for drawing polygons and can be used to place objects such has player starting points, scenery, aliens, sounds or even annotations in polygons. It can merge several maps into a single file and permits levels with unique physics files. A major feature that accompanies the 2D editing mode is Visual Mode, a three-dimensional environment based on the rendering code of Marathon Infinity in which a it is possible to see the level as it is in the game and set textures, lights, heights, switches, terminals and pattern buffers.

Anvil is the sister program to Forge, and it is mainly utilized for the creation of Physics files, which hold the attributes of the player, monsters, weapons and other mechanics of play. In addition to this, Anvil also allows players to import and export custom graphics. Each image also comes with custom color palettes, which can be modified in Anvil to create different "classes" of an alien, for example. Another feature of Anvil is sound editing, where sounds can be imported or exported.

Legacy

The Marathon Trilogy has been looked upon as one of the best games ever made for the Macintosh platform. It was released to much anticipation and received praise from reviewers. Marathon entered the market at a time when Doom, a PC game by id Software, was receiving much attention, and despite the fact that Marathon was technologically superior, it was by and large eclipsed by its competitor. After Marathon Infinity was released in 1996, players began to create total conversions using Forge and Anvil. These may use custom maps, shapes, sounds or physics files and may or may not be set in the Marathon universe. Such conversions are still created to this day.

Bungie produced a compilation of all three games of the series called the Marathon Trilogy Box Set in 1997. The collection was on two disks. The first contained all three Marathon games as well as Pathways Into Darkness, an earlier Bungie game and the spiritual prequel to the series. This disk also contains manuals for all three games, QuickTime 2.0 and other things necessary to run the game. There are beta versions of Marathon on this disk as well. The second disk of this contains thousands of user-created content, including maps, total conversions, shape and sound files, cheats, mapmaking tools, physics files, and other applications.

In 1998, QuickTime 3 was released, and the "QuickTime Musical Instruments" that permitted the playing of MIDI files was updated with some instruments changed. MIDI files do not contain any audio but instead provide instructions a synthesizer uses, which produces music. Since the background tracks in Marathon are MIDI files, many players who installed the new version quickly discovered that it drastically distorted some of the music, which was written for QuickTime 2. Tracks that were intended to be smooth and relaxing futuristic tracks sounded harsh and unrecognizable in some cases. Many feel that the music is now hideous and difficult to enjoy, and for that reason, many users reinstalled QuickTime 2, created modified music files, or did not play the game background music at all.

In the year 2000, Bungie was sold to Microsoft, who was interested in their Halo project. To thank Marathon fans for their devotion, they released the Marathon 2: Durandal source code under the GPL. Various projects have continued the legacy of the series by adding enhancements to Bungie's original code, such as Internet play, support for Lua and markup language and large resolutions. The most prominent and developed of these is called Aleph One (aleph is a number referring to all infinite numbers), which is compatible not only with Macintosh, but with Windows, Linux and even the Sega Dreamcast.

The Marathon Trilogy was finally released as abandonware in early 2005, along with Forge and Anvil.

Major total conversions

See also

External links

Bungie Studios Games  This box: [ view] • [ talk] • [ edit] 
Non-series Games

Gnop! > Operation Desert Storm | | Abuse | Oni | Pathways Into Darkness | Pimps At Sea
Marathon Games

Marathon (computer game)>Marathon | | Marathon Infinity
Myth Games

' > '
Halo Games

> Halo 2 | ''Halo 3

 


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