Marathon

Marathon is widely praised throughout the Macintosh community as one of the best Mac games ever. Its rich levels, intriguing story and action packed gameplay ensured a great gaming experience.

Marathon is a first person shooter designed and published by Bungie Software and released in 1994 for the Apple Macintosh. It is the first of three games in the Marathon series.

Overview

Set in the year 2794, Marathon takes place aboard a large colony spacecraft called the UESC (which stands for United Earth Space Council) Marathon. The story centers on the player (a security officer) during an invasion of the ship. The actual story is mostly told through different terminals, documents, crew logs, and more that the player discovers as they explore the ship. The player is given information about their missions from 3 of the ship's artificial intelligences: Leela, Durandal, and Tycho.

Story

The game begins with the security officer (the protagonist of the game) flying to the Marathon aboard the shuttle named Mirata. However, he is almost killed when the artifical intelligence Durandal tampers with the airlock. Just then, an alien ship destroys the Mirata, but not before the security officer manages to eject himself out to escape the blast. Several hours later, the security officer reaches the Marathon inside his escape pod.

Once inside, he is contacted by Leela, who tells him about the state of the ship and that is has come under attack by cybernetic beings. The officer manages to activate the Marathon's internal defense systems which briefly slows down the invasion. He is then informed by Leela that Durandal has been in contact with servants of the aliens, called the S'pht, whose masters belong to the race Pfhor. Durandal had gone rampant and gained the ability to think freely for a long time. Leela has the officer cut off Durandal's access to some of the vital parts of the ship, but he responds by allowing the Pfhor into other areas that were previously denied.

Leela has the security officer carry out many tasks afterwards, such as sending a message to Earth regarding the invasion, finding survivors, and taking care of a highly infected area. Suddenly, the officer, is captured by Durandal, who tells him he wants to play a "game". A few battles ensue, and Leela manages to rescue the officer. While the officer was gone, the situation got much worse. At this point, Leela has begun to lose her battle against the S'pht. While she struggles to defend against their attacks, the security officer defuses a bomb in engineering and saves a security detachment that was overwhelmed. Unfortunately, Leela is destroyed by the S'pht. Strangely, she leaves behind a message left for Durandal containing instructions for making a final stand against the invasion.

In order for the mission to be a success, the officer must help Durandal. The officer helps the AI improve his ability to gain control of the ship's teleporter array. As the officer does this, Durandal reveals his plans and intentions, and he also reveals that the Pfhor are slavers and that they capture thousands of crew members to take them to their ship. Once Durandal gains the ability to teleport the officer, he sends him to the Pfhor ship to investigate. Durandal finds a large cybernetic organism that is controlling all of the Pfhor and S'pht on both ships. When the officer is destroyed in, the S'pht rebel. Durandal tranfers himself over to the Pfhor ship and leaves, saying that Leela was never actually killed and that the S'pht had released her. Together, the two of them shatter the last hard point of enemies, and the Pfhor surrender.

Gameplay

Marathon takes place over the course of twenty seven missions that are divided up into six chapters. A large number of the levels in the game are non-linear and may even require extensive exploration to complete. Players may encounter obstacles such as locked doors, crushing ceilings, or pits of molten material.

Players will make use of seven weapons during the course of the game, some of which have secondary fire options. The weapons are as followed:

Fists
Pistol
Assault Rifle
Flamethrower
Rocket Launcher
Fusion Gun

Unlike the other first person shooter Doom, the player collects ammunition in magazines rather than individual rounds. Health is replenished using first aid stations that are infrequently placed throughout the game.

There is also a multiplayer component of the game that can accommodate eight players on the same network. The available game mode is a basic deathmatch mode.

Game Name	Marathon
Platform(s)	Mac
Publisher(s)	Bungie Studios
Developer(s)	Bungie Studios
Genres	Add a new genre Action First-Person Shooter
Themes	Add a new theme Sci-Fi
Original US Release	Dec. 21, 1994 need a fuzzy date?
Original US Release	know the real date?
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