Somewhere in the heavens... they are waiting

If there’s one thing that I could nerd-talk all day about, it’s probably music, Dungeons & Dragons or Marathon – a first-person shooter released by Halo/Destiny creators Bungie Software back in the old days of 1994 when the company was solely a developer for Macintosh computers.

This was before the Halo hype, before Macs became popular home computers, before the solid 3D graphics of today and before video games really took the spotlight in pop culture.

Back in the ‘90s, video games were still being produced en masse and though they aren’t as visually stunning when you look at what current-gen consoles can do, they packed a hell of a punch for their players. It was a game that spawned a trilogy, which has long been overlooked and under appreciated.

To briefly go over the premise of the game, Marathon was essentially a forerunner to Halo in that you play as a space marine with a mysterious, unexplained background who can perform superhuman feats that are beyond the average human’s abilities.

You are dropped onto the U.E.S.C Marathon, a star ship colony that is built amongst the shell of the Martian moon Deimos after the ship was attacked by a species of alien slavers, the Pfhor. As you progress and encounter the elusive Durandal, you dive further and further into a story that is caked with Bungie-esque lore and mysterious sub-plots that seek to explain who you are and what you are actually doing. The beauty of the game is that there are no voice overs and no cutscenes.

Everything in the story is told to you through terminals in which you read the information, creating a literal experience not seen in many games. There are quotes, nods, and references to Lovecraft, Shakespeare, Phillip K. Dick, and William Gibson at almost every turn. Its beautiful in design for having an engine that was just a mere improvement of Doom with bleak, dark levels and alien architecture that only serve as an artistic picture themselves.

Bungie subsequently released two sequels Marathon 2: Durandal and Marathon: Infinity in 1995 and 1996 respectively, ending as a trilogy with a jaw dropping final pan over the ending screen that serves as the ambiguous and hotly debated ending. Since then, Bungie has long made reference to the series through its iconic symbol, released its source-code, and re-released it on Xbox Live Arcade.

The community surrounding Marathon is small but tight and some equally astounding third party projects have been made with the editing tools that Bungie released with Infinity. These fan-made projects expand the universe and offer their own beautiful reconstruction of the series. Some of them such as Marathon: RED are incredibly unique in style and are just as much of a mind fuck as the rest of the main series is.

Beyond its incredible story, the gameplay is solid. It doesn’t feel clunky for a ‘90s shooter game. You traverse the environments with grace, swimming through liquids, jumping chasms – dodging the alien projectiles launched in your direction.

It was one of the first shooter games to have duel-wielded weapons which included the badass shotguns that reloaded in one hand. The enemies were hard but not frustratingly difficult, enjoying the perfect balance for skilled gamers and casual players.

All of this only made multi-player even more frenzied and to this day, an active internet presence allows players from all over the world to blast each other away under the light of an alien landscape.

Check out Marathon entirely for free at marathon.bungie.org where you can begin your own path of carnage.