/vr/ - Retro Games

>>7992942
Depends on which aspects

-Monsters are worse-designed/less diverse than those of Doom II and Blood, but probably roughly comparable to Duke 3D
-Weapons more basic in diversity than most of the contemporaries; they fill most of the fundamentals and are situationally-balanced, but they don't go above and beyond
-Weapon mechanics are the most advanced of its contemporaries; 3D momentum physics, actual aiming, and no hitscan, plays more like a full 3D game aside from the lack of a jump button and the vertical view limits
-Level design is more technically advanced than Doom but less advanced than the Build engine; fun-factor is hit or miss and many describe the levels as maze-y (which some are)
-Story is by far the best and most advanced of its contemporaries

Overall I think it occupied a niche where it could stand ahead of its contemporaries in certain respects, but most people who play them retrospectively struggle, particularly with the level design. The games are free and trivial to set up (just download the latest Aleph One versions) so decide for yourself.

>>7992942
They're pretty good and they're all free these days.

>>7992942
The multiplayer was great.

>>7992942
It's really not fun to play, but the story is neat I guess.

I played them as a kid, but never really enjoyed the level design enough to beat them all. Often way too intricate in a very not fun sort of way. But I could just be a fag.

2 has the best levels. Infinity has a great story but the levels made sure I'll never play it again. Both may be some of the best looking sector-based games imo.

It's the polar opposite of Doom, with all the good and bad that implies. Yet somehow, it still manages to be better than Hexen.

Marathon is the anti-Doom, it deliberately sought to do the opposite of everything Doom did

-Doom was focused on FUN, the story was just an excuse to shoot things (as was the rule for games at the time), the only thing the player needs is too get to the exit, shooting whatever gets in the way (everything that isn't the player)
-Marathon is focused on REALISM (hard sci-fi more specifically), as far as 1994 technology allowed, it has a very intricate, complex plot, which the player HAS to pay attention to know what to do and where to go. There are mission objectives, there are friendly NPCs, some that the player has to protect, others assist against enemies. Since it's such an early shooter, the story is told through text, which is accessed through in-game terminals, as opposed to cutscenes or scripted events.

-Doom's gameplay is fast and chaotic, enemies are very diverse, there's no complex enemies like the Pain Elemental or the Archvile on Marathon.
-Marathon's gameplay is significantly slower, but not as much as say, System Shock, serving as a middle ground between Doom and that game. There isn't the variety of enemies that Doom has, Marathon's enemies just charge and shoot things at the player, but their AI is noticeably better, they can intentionally go up elevators and drop down ledges to give chase, patrol areas and even camp on spots instead of carelessly throwing themselves at the player, none of this is possible on Doom.

-Doom follows an hierarchy of weapons, some guns are just better than others, and with sufficient ammo there's no reason to use weaker guns at all.
-Marathon's gunplay has much more in common with Halo than Doom. There's no hierarchy, all weapons are equally important and can be used from start to finish, they all have defined strengths and weaknesses. Marathon also pioneered being the first game with reloading, independent dual wielding, secondary fire and having no hitscan weapons.

>>7992942
I wanted to like Doom, but I just couldn't . Marathon on the other hand, had me hooked immediately. Play the original — It's free anyway.

I'v only played the original and the first few levels are rough, its not fun right out of the gate like doom is
halfway through though I was really enjoying it and people say the next 2 games are better so its probably worth playing

>>7993790
-Doom's level design is more straightforward, texture usage is very good, and although there are puzzles, they are all very easy.
-Marathon's level design is very obtuse, lots of mazes, and it's very easy to get lost. It's puzzles are much more complex, too. It also doesn't use textures as well as Doom does, Marathon 1 looks particularly hideous.

-Doom has fixed view, you can use the mouse only horizontally, but not vertically
-Marathon has full mouse aim, although it feels very different to the way it's usually done. Due to the quirks of the engine, mouse movement is tied to speed rather than input. This makes turning effortless, but it's very hard to aim precisely, the player has to get used to assisting with the keyboard to hit things. This is the #1 thing that filters new players out of Marathon.

-Doom has keycards, monsters that can teleport (something that only happens with scripted events on Marathon), and quicksave.
-Marathon has swimming (another thing it pioneered), environmental sounds and the game can only be saved at savepoints.

-Doom reuses the singleplayer levels for deathmatch, just changing the items present in them.
-Marathon has dedicated deathmatch levels (yet another thing it pioneered)

-All of classic Doom games use the same engine (except for Doom 64, that uses an updated version)
-Marathon's engine is more advanced than Doom's, but less advanced than Build. Marathon 1 uses an earlier version of the engine than the other games

-Doom is very easy to mod, and there's tons of mods and source ports for it
-Marathon is also very easy to mod, however it's obscurity limited the number of mods for it. There's only one source port, Aleph One.

Am I still banned?

I like Marathon, too. Too bad there are only 4 monsters and 4 palette swaps of each.

>>7993606
>it still manages to be better than Hexen.
Filtered

It's trash. Controls and gameplay are sloppy as shit and there's absolutely nothing original about it.
Sort of like, you know, Halo.

>>7993818
Marathon's best levels are definitely in the middle. I'd say it drops off again a bit in the last quarter, but on the whole it sounds like you're past the worst (especially if you beat the infamous level 13). The worst Durandal levels are better than even an average M1 level, so hopefully you'll enjoy it even more.

>>7993953
>Too bad there are only 4 monsters and 4 palette swaps of each.
If we're counting just Durandal/Infinity, I'd say the meaningful spread is:

Fighters - imps, weak filler projectile-shooting enemies
Hunters - hell knights that self-destruct
Cyborgs - sort of the mancubus and revenant in one, tanky heavy enemies with homing projectile attacks
S'pht - cyborgs that climb walls and hover over liquids
Troopers - short-range chaingunner with longer-range suppressive fire, probably one of the best enemies
Enforcers - arachnotrons, projectile-spamming suppressive fire enemies

The drones and simulacra have niche uses for certain levels but are generally too unthreatening to add much to most encounters. What Marathon needed was a flying enemy that wasn't as boring to fight as the juggernaut, as well as a fast melee/zergling-like enemy to counter-balance all the projectile enemies, and maybe a "mage" type enemy akin to the archvile, if not a necromancer than perhaps some kind of conditional dude that buffs enemies or lays environmental traps. Marathon has the best combat of all the 2.5D games in a mechanical sense, it just doesn't quite get all it needs out of it.

Interestingly, Durandal originally had a Flood-like enemy that was cut before release, and although there isn't any information on what precisely it did, if it operated like the Halo Flood, that would have covered the need for a fast melee enemy at least.

>>7994102
Switch- The Game! is not fun to play and never will be.

>>7992942
Marathon was really solid as far as level design and weapons go, but suffered from lack of enemy variety.

Had probably the best out-of-the-box deathmatch multiplayer experience until Quakeworld came out.

>Marathon's best enemies are featured only in a single level of the original game
Lost opportunity there

I find the sounds these guys make to be incredibly funny.

>>7993007
>that pic
I get it. Lol

Anybody else play the 2009 HD Remake back on Xbox 360?

I was really into Halo like most people at the time on Xbox and I really enjoyed seeing how Bungie had a lot of the same ideas. Halo truly was an evolution of Marathon.

>>7996391
more like a devolution

>>7996398
Are you suggesting that the gameplay, level design, story, etc. were better in Marathon?

I mean Marathon was good and all but I don;t think you can make the argument Marathon was a 'Better' game than Halo.

>>7996432
Yes? The gameplay is better for the simple fact that moving around in Marathon is more fun. Halo feels like you're constantly under water or something. Level design in both is kinda shit with the exception of Marathon 2. At least the Marathon series isn't full of copy-pasted corridors, wide open areas with nothing in them and fucking wave defense sections. The story? Marathon has Durandal. The Security Officer is much more interesting than Master Chief without having a single line of dialogue. He also feels less like a tryhard badass. I really hate how Halo 1 just starts with everyone sucking your dick and the rest of the series is Master Chief does badass things. It feels like a child wrote him.

>>7996432
Marathon at least has hand-crafted levels rather than the asset copy-paste spam of most Halo levels