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Review: Marathon: Aleph One |
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 Do you remember 1995? I do. I was a Junior in High School, I just got my drivers license, and my favorite game was Marathon 2: Durandal, which I played on my parents PowerMac 7500. Marathon, was one of the first "first person shooters", and it was the first to include something that graces every FPS game title today; a story. Plus Marathon was very important for the Macintosh. Because Marathon 1, and Marathon infinity were only ever made for the Macintosh. (There is a version of Marathon 2 for Windows, but it is the only one.) The games were very captivating, and very difficult.
These games were made by a small software company called Bungie. You may be familiar with this company, they made a little game called Halo a couple years ago. Unfortunately, Microsoft purchased Bungie in June of 2000 to make games for there upcoming X-Box. Even though Microsoft bought the company, Bungie is still able to turn out great games - I play Halo almost everyday on my X-Box, and I have even beaten it in legendary mode. (That has nothing to do with my article, I am just bragging.)
Still, Marathon will always have a special place in my heart, not only because of how good of a game it was, but also because it was the first time the Windows community actually looked at the games we had for the Mac with envy. Well, now thanks to a project called Marathon Open Source we can now relive the good old days in OS X.
They have created an OS X application that goes in your original Marathon 2 or infinity installation, and can run the original game. The graphics are the same, it all runs the same, it's great. Plus there are none of the little annoying bugs that I expected to see. The game works exactly as it is supposed to. In fact, I was amazed at how easily, and quickly everything got up and running. The only Marathon Game CD I could find was Marathon 2, and luckily it had a primitive installer (drag and drop folder) So I didn't have to install OS 9.
So I put the Marathon 2 folder in my Applications folder. Mounted the DMG file I downloaded from the Marathon Open Source site, then dragged the "Aleph One" application to the Marathon 2 folder, and opened it. Everything just worked.
Playing the game brings back great memories, and it shows how far games have come. I know I will spend hours playing Marathon 2, and I can't wait to try out the network games. Plus once I find Marathon ?, there will be even more old gaming going on!
With no bugs that I have found, the great game play bringing back memories from the System 7 days, and the easy installation, I give Marathon Open Source's Aleph One a 5 out of 5 pants.
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December 8 2003, 8:11 PM EDT, by
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Comments:
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| David Duncan |
12/8/03, 9:07 PM EDT |
I've only beaten Halo on hard. I can't get by the second level on legendary.
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| Jonathan |
12/8/03, 10:54 PM EDT |
Preordered 3 copies of Halo for Mac. Gnnn this shoulda been out like years ago but oh well :P
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| Maeric |
12/9/03, 2:19 PM EDT |
Oh yeah, Marathon 2 was my initiation into that world too. I must have played the demo a million times before I bought the full version and I ran it on a IIci , of all things. The Marathon universe with the rest of the versions and all the custom scenarios were awesome. It's good to hear that there is a place on OSX for some nostalgia.
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| sweetjimmyhugs |
12/9/03, 6:09 PM EDT |
You were still in Junior High when you were 27? Damn. My favorite FPS back in the day was Wolfenstein 3D. That was THE OG.
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| Jonahan |
12/12/03, 12:36 PM EDT |
I never really played Marathon or Wolfenstein 3D back then, but I was way into Pathways Into Darkness ... another Bungie game :)
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