Remembering Marathon

I never owned a PC. Ever. I’ve always had Macs (and other Apple varieties). So when Doom came out exclusively on the PC, I felt left out on my Performa 636CD.

Toward the end of 1994 I found my answer: Marathon. It was everything Doom was, and so much more. The mouse and keyboard configuration made the game so immersive, and secondary triggers on weapons were totally cool.

Marathon 2: Durandal improved on the game in almost every way, including a full-screen mode where the first game was displayed in a small window. My college roommate and I networked our Macs and played Deathmatch for hours at a time. It was like nothing else at the time, at least in our world.

Marathon Infinity didn’t see as much play. The addition of the Forge software to build your own levels seemed promising as we wanted to replicate our dorm. It never happened.

So cheers to the good old days of Marathon. I was mad as hell when Microsoft bought Bungie as they were developing Halo, but I have better reasons to be mad at Microsoft now. I appreciate all the love Bungie gave to Mac gamers in the day. We needed it.

The fine folks at Bungie have been kind enough to provide a free download of the entire Marathon Trilogy. Thanks dudes!