Marathon
Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2025 7:34 pm
In the leadup to Marathon The Extraction shooter I started playing Marathon The Original Trilogy because it's like Earthbound to me: I talk about it a lot but never played it lmao.
So impressions
Marathon 1: Liminal spaces, some cool levels, lots of wandering around trying to find a door a switch opened. There's a level called Colony Ship For Sale that features a platforming puzzle, in an early FPS, it was very stupid and it made me install a cheat script so I could jump past it. Cheats came in handy because the game has very far apart level saves, some of them don't appear until mid level, so you will sometimes replay whole parts of older levels to get to the next level and try to find a save point. Levels are kind of linear and sometimes kind of not linear and easy to get lost in. There's a lot of Halo DNA in these games too.
Marathon 2: Got a lot of ambient sounds now instead of music and it really sets the tone and makes the levels feel alive. Better weapons and UI, new enemies, more fun and open levels....sometimes. And then there's a huge fight in the middle of the game with a zillion enemies and it's very easy to just die and have to redo whole half of a level (with a bunch of enemies) and get through multiple fights until you can save. That's where cheats came in very handy. The story is a lot more pulpy sci-fi which was a step up from Marathon 1
Marathon Infinity: Bungie hired a bunch of mapmakers to make the third installment and things just get harder from here. There's two levels that take place in a vacuum, and they take oxygen that slowly ticks down, so you have to run through the levels as fast as possible so you don't die. The story with Marathon Infinity gets interesting, there's time travel, loops, non-linear storytelling, it's kind of all over the place. I haven't finished it yet but am working my way through the levels.
Pretty much every game has required me to have a guide open on another screen and cheats to get through lmao, some of the levels are just nails hard or unfair. I do like the level designs and vibes in some of the games, but a lot of them require you to literally swim through lava at points. Dual shotguns are inspired though.
So impressions
Marathon 1: Liminal spaces, some cool levels, lots of wandering around trying to find a door a switch opened. There's a level called Colony Ship For Sale that features a platforming puzzle, in an early FPS, it was very stupid and it made me install a cheat script so I could jump past it. Cheats came in handy because the game has very far apart level saves, some of them don't appear until mid level, so you will sometimes replay whole parts of older levels to get to the next level and try to find a save point. Levels are kind of linear and sometimes kind of not linear and easy to get lost in. There's a lot of Halo DNA in these games too.
Marathon 2: Got a lot of ambient sounds now instead of music and it really sets the tone and makes the levels feel alive. Better weapons and UI, new enemies, more fun and open levels....sometimes. And then there's a huge fight in the middle of the game with a zillion enemies and it's very easy to just die and have to redo whole half of a level (with a bunch of enemies) and get through multiple fights until you can save. That's where cheats came in very handy. The story is a lot more pulpy sci-fi which was a step up from Marathon 1
Marathon Infinity: Bungie hired a bunch of mapmakers to make the third installment and things just get harder from here. There's two levels that take place in a vacuum, and they take oxygen that slowly ticks down, so you have to run through the levels as fast as possible so you don't die. The story with Marathon Infinity gets interesting, there's time travel, loops, non-linear storytelling, it's kind of all over the place. I haven't finished it yet but am working my way through the levels.
Pretty much every game has required me to have a guide open on another screen and cheats to get through lmao, some of the levels are just nails hard or unfair. I do like the level designs and vibes in some of the games, but a lot of them require you to literally swim through lava at points. Dual shotguns are inspired though.
