I've been playing Marathon again, a game that I haven't played for a year or two I guess. This is a standard first-person shooter developed for the Mac OS. The distinguishing characteristics being that it ran on the Mac (at a time when Mac graphics didn't support games at all) and it had a good storyline behind it. Unlike Doom or Quake, where all you do is wander around killing anything that moves, flipping switches and running over trip pads, Marathon also had a plot, as told through various computer terminals located in each level.

It's not a particularly imaginative plot. Aliens invade an asteroid colony ship, the computer sends the player from location to location, killing aliens and performing various tasks. It's very linear, and you don't even need to read the terminals to play the game (only to teleport out and perhaps to find out what the mission is). But this was far and away more involved genre-wise than PC offerings.

I didn't start playing this series with Marathon, I started with Marathon 2. Gives you an idea of my purchasing habits. Anyway, Marathon 2 improves on the Marathon engine with better graphics, underwater action, and sorround sound of the ambient environment. If you see the games it's obvious that Marathon is an earlier version, but the game play remains close to the same. Marathon has good puzzles, some being quite hard until you figure out its gimmick. Marathon 2 is more straightforward, it's harder to end up in a spot where you have to back to a previously saved game.

The Marathon levels were created and tested in house, hence why the difficulty varies since it was designed for one group of people. For Marathon 2, Bungie instituted a beta test program which shows as the levels are more balanced. I haven't played Marathon Infinity, although the levels are supposed to be harder than either of the previous games. Infinity has the same engine as Marathon 2, and I've heard complaints that it shouldn't be a separate game because of that.

The engine is not that important. Content and the story and levels are what is important. Young gamers tend to focus on frames per second and polygons per second, as well as the actual effects that can be simulated in the current crop of 3d games. And if you look at some of these games, they look great and the levels are visually appealing and all, but the gameplay is lacking. There is no story to engage your mind as well as your reflexes. It's all eye-candy, which I'm not really as into as I was when I was a kid.

Anyway, I've finished Marathon 2 a couple of times, and beat it on the hardest level once. That required knowing the levels quite well, since some are so tough at that hardest difficulty that it's easier to just run through and get on to the next level more or less in one piece. Marathon I've finished once, and I can't even get through the first level on the hardest setting. Less ammo going around and lots of little bad guys which become lots of big bad guys at the hard setting. Marathon 2 has a spread of bad guys so at hard the difference is not as large. After I beat Marathon on standard maybe I'll try it on hard again.

My favorite weapon is the fusion pistol. Lots of shots per ammo pack and you can carry 25 packs. Usable everywhere: atmosphere, airless, and underwater although underwater it also damages the user. It can flip switches on its B setting and it makes a cool sound when you fire it. The perfect weapon. The down side is that it explodes mechanical opponents, so at close range you take damage.

There are also some excellent scenario packs that people have made. Not just levels, but different story lines. It just seems more impressive to me than what the PC guys have done. I read some comments from PC guys that the graphics are primitive and cartoonish and they go on about some of the shortcomings of the engine. They just don't get it. It's the story that makes the difference. It becomes more of an immersive experience when you interact with the world mentally rather than just visually.