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Title: Marathon Infinity
Author:Bungie (Now part of Microsoft)
Rom Player: Macintosh
Reviewer: VolCanon
Synopsis: Ever see a game series that was good but overshadowed because of company mismanagement, bad marketing, or just bad luck (The Dragon Quest series in North America VS. Final Fantasy: Sure, Square butchered almost every release until Playstation games, but Enix changed names, didn’t release the best sequels, censored the flaming crap out of their games, etc.) Anyway, the Marathon series was one of those series. Compared to Doom and Duke Nukem (main competition at the time), this game blows those away. Its a FPS with a brain.
A brain you say? No, not brains flying out of exploding bodies. This game makes you think. Levels have briefings, explanations, or lack thereof depending on story.
The story is pretty damn good. The original story was based on a colony ship attacked by weird lookin' aliens. You serve an AI, then an AI that has gone insane. Marathon 2, you keep following the mad AI, then you follow some humans an ancient alien AI. This game continues the tradition of following a bunch of different leaders, from the mad AI to another ancient AI and more.
The gameplay is what you'd expect from a FPS. You get a rocket launcher, a variety of missiles, and little alcoves where you can recharge your health and air supply (you can swim, but it sucks out your air since your in a big suit. You also play some levels in space.) Most enemies die after a few hits... this is a thinking FPS after all: There is only one unit, the juggernaut, that takes a lot to die.
The missions are hardly ever to kill everything. Its usually to destroy some circuits, flip a switch, etc. You usually have to do many objectives per level.
Graphics are superior to Doom and maybe a little better than Duke. It's still not truly 3D, but a copy more similar to 3D than doom and duke.
Difficulty: its quite difficult without cheating. Some levels are HUGE (one level is an entire space station), and there are two or so 'secret' levels you can reach from a hidden panel.
What’s the best part? You can make your own levels and missions. Not only that, its easy to do. Like all programming it requires not making too many mistakes. You can also change unit sprites, weapons, etc. You could make a big ass lazer that kills anything in one shot. This ties into the replay value. There are AT LEAST 8 GOOD total conversions for this game. At an average of 30 levels, that’s 240 extra missions. There’s one with more futuristic levels, an extension on the storyline, a weird tie-in with 1500 Europe where you get rocket launchers as well as a sword, etc.
Making your own levels is a blast. I made a 5 level scenario when I was really bored one time. It was so hard nobody could pass it except me ^^.
Best Cheats: Theres a level select code but you often need stuff you got in previous levels so often it doesnt work well for you.
Game Play: 10
Graphics: 10
Music/Sound: 8
Originality: 8
Overall Rating: 10
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