That’s really cool. I had no idea that the original games were remade:
Classic Marathon: store.steampowered.com/app/…/Classic_Marathon/
Classic Marathon 2: store.steampowered.com/app/…/Classic_Marathon_2/
Classic Marathon Infinity: …steampowered.com/…/Classic_Marathon_Infinity/
Denjin@lemmings.world 19 hours ago
And whatever this new Marathon is it bears exactly zero relation to the original. Innovative, original, single player experience vs derivitave, cut and paste multiplayer “live service” grift.
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 19 hours ago
I am not optimistic in the slightest.
But the Marathon trilogy was really a bog standard FPS of the era that was mostly tied together with a completely out there story that was told almost exclusively via text logs.
So, a bog standard whatever buzz word genre it is at this point tied together with blog posts and youtube videos would actually be keeping with tradition.
Denjin@lemmings.world 19 hours ago
Marathon was pretty innovative at the time. The fact that there was any form of plot at all was unique in the action and shooter genres. It was the first major release with free look and being able to aim up and down at all. Plus reloading weapons, dual wielding weapons, weapon models visible on the player in multiplayer, plus network voice chat pretty much all of which have become standard in shooters today.
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 18 hours ago
No. It wasn’t.
There is this mindset that all that existed was DOOM (which actually did some interesting things narratively).
Marathon 1 came out in 1994 and built on Pathways into Darkness (1993). It came out the same year as System Shock and the year after CyClones (woefully underrated). Both of which also heavily relied on text bits but also, in my opinion, did a much better job of tying that narrative into the level/encounter design itself. Something Marathon… kind of wouldn’t really do until Infinity in 1996 where there is even more competition.
Again, CyClones and System Shock
“Tactical” shooters had already existed and I want to say there were a few DOOM Engine games that had reloading by this point?
Weapon models? I doubt it, but sure. Voice chat? Sure? That sounds real fun over sub 56k internet.
None of which changes Marathon classic mostly just being a “generic” FPS with a wall of crazy lore bible used to make the log entries.
To be clear: I LOVE the Marathon Trilogy. But if you actually look at what the games were, rather than what we wanted them to be… they were great writing, awkward level design, and decent shooting.
KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 18 hours ago
I love the callout that the story was delivered via text logs, as if voice acting was typically present in anything except FMV-based games in that time period. “Bog standard FPS” is a really funky term for an era when there were only really a few well-known FPS games out there at all.
You’ve got to remember that Marathon 1 was released in 1994, the same year Doom II was released. What else was there at that point? You really had Doom, Marathon, Pathways Into Darkness (also a Bungie title and only sort of an FPS at all), Wolfenstein 3D, System Shock, and some really niche ones that most people had never even heard of at the time, never mind now.
altima_neo@lemmy.zip 18 hours ago
My buddy was a huge fan of it. From what I could tell, it’s biggest two gimmicks were that it ran on Mac and it was an fps with story.
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 18 hours ago
I think the Mac thing was the biggest advantage. It meant that it was forbidden fruit that the vast majority of us could never play but MAYBE saw the box at a Circuit City. And then, fast forward a decade or so, and Halo comes out and suddenly EVERYONE is curious about the games that Bungie are totally referencing to a meaningful degree… and nobody played them or they MAYBE booted up Aleph One once and were scared off.
And I already ranted about how “FPS with story” is not some miraculous thing that didn’t exist… That is one of those things that really bother me because so many people just assume there was nothing but iD until Half-Life (or even Call of Duty).
But yeah. Mandalore Gaming did a few videos on Pathways->Marathon Trilogy that are REALLY good and convey the useful bits. And the reality is… they were good for their time but they weren’t mind blowing. And the narrative, while fun to read lore on, is also the kind of thing that you can completely ignore… and probably won’t even understand unless you find the hidden terminals and cross reference them with EVERYTHING else.
Which… kind of reminds me of Dark Souls come to think of it.