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From: ant@zimage.comANT (Ant)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Subject: Re: It's Marathon... but why?
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2025 00:53:09 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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I couldn't get into that series.


Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

> So, Bungie is making a new Marathon game. The original Marathon
> trilogy was famous not only for being a reasonably good Doom-clone
> --on a Macintosh!-- but it was one of the first FPS to try and wedge a
> story into the game, moving the genre beyond 'shoot monster, find key,
> unlock door, repeat' style initially introduced by Id Software.
> "Marathon" introduced NPCs and multiple factions to the genre. It was
> quite the looker (for 1994), running at SVGA resolutions when DOS was
> still in the 320x200 doldrums. It was moody, mysterious and
> atmospheric, and it --along with games like "System Shock" and "Half
> Life"-- helped push the genre from the arcade shooter style to the
> more cinematic games we have today.

> The new "Marathon" game -scheduled for a September release- will be
> none of that. It's a soulless extraction-shooter that looks like it
> was developed in RoBlox and will be extremely light on narrative and
> atmosphere (it will have AI-controlled bots for you to shoot, though).
> Early review --its currently in early access-- indicate that its
> shooty-shooty bang-bang mechanics are fine... but it's utterly generic
> beyond that.

> So why make it a Marathon game? 

> The people who know what "Marathon" is are just going to be
> disappointed. The ones to whom the gameplay will appeal will have no
> idea what the early "Marathon" games were like. Calling this new game
> "Marathon" only costs you sales with the former, and does nothing to
> attract new players. It's like announcing the next "Deus Ex" title
> will be a hidden-object puzzle game. It's such a disadvantageous use
> of a franchise. There are ways to leverage gamer nostalgia... but this
> isn't it.



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