The classic sci-fi FPS Marathon from Bungie on Mac revived for modern hardware by the fan community.
This classic 1994 Bungie™ FPS had a foundational influence on the genre, and is now maintained by the fan community. Experience authentic game play using the original data files, with optional widescreen HUD support, 3D filtering/perspective, positional audio, and 60+ fps interpolation, just in case the original is too authentic.
Classic Marathon is powered by the Aleph One engine, which is available under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) Version 3.
Man this game was so amazing. Coming from wolfenstien and doom, it was a technological marvel. I remember being wowed by the fact that it had liquids, and vacuum, and maps that spanned multiple levels vertically. The map had moving parts, like elevators and collapsible staircases and stuff which was amazing. And then the whole plot- psychotic AI, alien invasion, exploring abandoned spaceships, etc.
Then the sequels shipped with the map editor that let you put together whole scenarios yourself, it was crazy good. As a Mac user in the 90s, it was one of the only times my pc friends were game jelly- it was Mac only!
Then bungie made two other amazing Mac-only franchises, Oni and another one you might have heard of, Halo. In classic Microsoft fashion, they bought the studio and fucked everything up and changed Halo from an amazing team based, story driven co-op alien invasion epic into an increasingly generic fps franchise to sell Xboxes and merch.
Myth I and II were SO GOOD. Man, I need to go back and replay those now. I’d kill for a remaster.
The writing for this series was great. Overall the game was really a cut above most other things out there at the time. As a Mac gamer (a rare breed for sure) it felt special to have something so good just for us. They did port Marathon 2 for windows, but I don’t think it was a huge commercial success. I’m glad that it was open sourced though so that it could be shared with everyone.
Marathon had a function to record and replay gameplays, and there was a community of people sharing their in game accomplishments and challenges. Vidmasters was probably my first taste of something like a speedrunning community. But it was enough to beat the level, we needed to vid it with style.
I imagine that most fans already know this, but just in case, I recommend checking out Marathon Rubicon, which is an excellent unofficial sequel to Marathon Infinity.
Always happy to have more freebies posted but if they’re not time-limited then could you save them for [Forever-free Friday] please?
Classic FPS game? I am in
Frog blast the vent core!