Frog blast the vent core!

[engineer]

http://www.midnightcreek.com/images/sto ... randal.jpg (http://www.midnightcreek.com/images/stories/news/games/marathon-durandal.jpg)

[SMELLY OLD MAN]

>:(

They're everywhere!

[Miasmatic]

Never had the pleasure of playing this.

[Cheeto]

Is that a remake version or something in 3D?

[SMELLY OLD MAN]

>:(

The picture is of the 2D remake availiable only on the Xbox 360 as far as I understand. To those that don't know, the Marathon trilogy (seen in picture above) first came out fourteen years ago on the Macintosh platform. It was really Apple's answer to Wolfenstein 3D, the Doom series and Quake. Though at the time it couldn't compare graphically to Quake as characters, weapons and objects were entirely sprite based, the gameplay was kick ass and the story truly groundbreaking -- it's writing puts todays games to shame, starting with the humungous turd called Halo which just happens to be Marathon's spiritual successor. Both games were developed by Bungie.

Go to source.bungie.org (http://source.bungie.org) to get the three games, they're free and work on all platforms. Oh, and THEY KICK MAJOR ASS.

Here's one of Marathon 2's chapter screens. The artist is Craig Mullins (http://goodbrush.com), and he is my hero.
http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/412/citadel3dz8.jpg

Seriously, the Marathon trilogy is right up there with System Shock 2, Deus Ex and Fallout. Go get it (http://source.bungie.org).

[DarkPenfold]

There's a theory floating around - which Bungie refuse to confirm or deny - that the Marathon series' hero is actually an un-suited Master Chief following the conclusion of the Halo trilogy. So there you go.

(The Marathon symbol pops up a lot in the Halo games - Captain Keyes has it on one of his medals in the opening of the first Halo, it appears on the "eyeball" of Guily Spark and his fellow Librarians, and in the background of the computer screens the player can access in Halo 3.)

[SMELLY OLD MAN]

>:(

You can also see it in the background of the difficulty selection screen, visible on the easiest settings. As far as the rumor goes, I'm pretty sure it's already been denied. Well, I hope it has... People have talked alot about it on the net, and lots of incoherencies have been pointed out.

[Cheeto]

Would make things more interesting. They use a lot of the same terminology. 'Rampant' AI pops up in both games, for example.

[engineer]

Originally, Halo's Master Chief was intended to be a reincanation of the player character from Marathon, a Cyborg security guard. Though since most of the original people from Bungie are gone, that has been changed.

[engineer]

There's a theory floating around - which Bungie refuse to confirm or deny - that the Marathon series' hero is actually an un-suited Master Chief following the conclusion of the Halo trilogy. So there you go.

(The Marathon symbol pops up a lot in the Halo games - Captain Keyes has it on one of his medals in the opening of the first Halo, it appears on the "eyeball" of Guily Spark and his fellow Librarians, and in the background of the computer screens the player can access in Halo 3.)

Watching all of the terminals in Halo 3 gives you the Marathon Man achievement.

[DarkPenfold]

Indeed it does.