Marathon 2--Worst. XBLA Game. Ever.

[Clark Beyer]

In case you haven't noticed, a game came out on the Xbox Live Arcade recently called "Marathon: Durandal."  It was made by Bungie, the same company that created Halo, but the Marathon trilogy began in 1994 on the Mac.  Marathon Durandal is a first-person shooter, but be warned--just because you like Halo, doesn't mean you'll like Marathon.  Allow me to explain.

1--UNNECESSARY CHURNING OF THE STOMACH.  Marathon 2's graphics and framerate have caused MANY players to get a bad case of motion sickness and/or headaches.  I, myself, now have a headache that still hasn't gone away after 2 hours, and had to take medicine to make sure that I don't barf all over the place.  Thanks Marathon. 

2--UNCANNY SIMILARITIES TO DOOM.  You all know Doom--arguably the first shooting game to ever become famous.  Lemme tell you something.  Doom came before Marathon.  But they both look and play exactly the same.  Doom has 2D sprites set in a 3D environment, just like Marathon.  Also, when one Doom monster accidentally shot another, they'd beat each other up.  For some reason Bungie thought it would be a good idea to copy that unique aspect and incorporate it into their game.  Marathon fans always say "well it's the storyline of Marathon that sets the 2 franchises apart!"  Um.  Since when was story more important than gameplay?

3--HORRENDOUS WAY OF TELLING THE STORY.  This is really where it gets ugly.  In order for the game to progress you must find dozens of computer terminals everywhere and read oceans of brightly-colored text in order to find out your next objective, or even to find out the story as it goes along.  This is a poor way of storytelling.  I find it rather annoying to have to stop what I'm doing to read a computer, and then another, and another, etc. 

Final Analysis--The game fails, big time.  Don't download it if you don't feel like getting motion sickness.

[MaxVance]

XBLA always sounds like some sort of sports league to me.

[Vidgmchtr]

The Marathon series was a favorite of mine. :|

I was only able to beat Marathon 2 once, merely because I lost interest in subsequent playthroughs. I enjoy the first game out of the three the most. The graphics are even more inferior to the latter two, but that doesn't make it a bad game.

I also liked the story telling through the terminals. It's a first person shooter, and you start out with very limited knowledge of what's going on, kind of like in a novel told in the first person. You don't know what's going on, because the character doesn't, either.

[Chupperson Weird]

Xtreme Beet Leeching Association

[MEGAߥTE]

I totally thought the above post was going to be:

That's because there were only three games for Mac lolololol

[Vidgmchtr]

Seconded.

[Glorb]

Super Mario Bros. sucks, like, so hard, because there's no vehicles, and no eight-player co-op, and the story is crap. And it's old and stupid, and 2D, just like Sonic the Hedgehog! It's a total ripoff of Sonic.

[SushieBoy]

You must die! No, seriously, you really must die!

[Glorb]

I'm being sarcastic (or maybe ironic...not sure which). Most of the criticisms directed at Marathon 2 in this thread are due to the limitations of the time. Full-3D grapics were nearly impossible for games back then, and the low framerate/sickness issue is certainly not unique to this game. Marathon's storytelling through terminals is because cutscenes were difficult to do; at least it's not like Doom, where you get a text-only plot recap at the very beginning and very end of each episode. Besides, Marathon introduced dual-wielding and, more importantly, free-look, which were revolutionary back in '94.

[Kimimaru]

I understand what you are saying Glorb. Cutscenes WERE difficult to do, but if they caused a problem in the game, then perhaps the creators shouldn't have included them. This game probably should have been a 2D shooter (like Contra).