June 24, 2013 (Monday)

Narcogen and Blackstar complete The Rose in part 2 of their co-op tour of this
classic Greg Kirkpatrick level. They duke it out with hordes of Hulks, unearth the
secrets of MIDA and still get home in time for tea.

Missed out on a copy of the Marathon Scrapbook? Now's your chance to grap a
copy for a reasonable price.

June 15, 2013 (Saturday)

How many suicide traps are there in Marathon (the 1st game). We asked this back in
Jan 27, 2011 and Oct 8, 2011. But got no answers. :(

Is anyone counting... because here's another one.

June 14, 2013 (Friday)

Narcogen and Blackstar continue their co-op journey through Marathon with Level 6 - The Rose.
This is actually a two part video. Part 1 shows them take on the infamous Hulks. Will these
shambling ammo sinks be too much for the Rampancy boys? All will be revealed in Part 2.

PerseusSpartacus continues his Tour of Duty with three levels in quick succession:

Blaspheme Quarantine
Bob-B-Q
Shake Before Using...

In a Story forum post, Treellama <wolfy@treellama.org> points out that the 'Rescue'
mission type will not work in M1A1 (nor Marathon 2). So no matter how hard you try
you won't be able to save enough Bobs for Leela.

Two suicide traps in Blaspheme Quarantine? Oh yes indeed. One here and the other here.
Is someone writing these down? For Health and Safety reasons. :)

June 12, 2013 (Wednesday)

Hot on the trail of G4 Sunbathing, PerseusSpartacus <perseusspartacus@gmail.com> continues
his Tour of Duty with Blaspheme Quarantine. A Greg Kirkpatrick level which first appeared in
the Marathon demo.

A new Aleph One coming out with... grenade climbing?

June 11, 2013 (Tuesday)

The Rampancy crew (Narcogen and Blackstar) continue their co-op exploration of Marathon.
This time they take on Couch Fishing and find out first hand some of the problems (intentional
and unintentional) with this level. Join in on the Story forum discussion.

Other levels in the on-going series, include:

Level 4 - Defend THIS! and Story forum discussion.
Level 3 - Never Burn Money and Story forum discussion.
Level 2 - Bigger Guns Nearby and Story forum discussion.
Level 1 - Arrival and Story forum discussion.

PerseusSpartacus <perseusspartacus@gmail.com> continues his Tour of Duty with G4 Sunbathing.
Tour of Duty is a refreshing new look at the Marathon levels from the perspective of a
relatively new player. The playthrough includes terminal discussion and other gameplay
observations. Unfortunately the discussion is regularly interrupted by a grizzled old fella
who reminisces on the old days and how the game was much harder back then. Can this
old gunny teach this young Jedi some new tricks or is it time to hang up those boots?

Other levels in the Tour of Duty series, include:

Cool Fusion
Smells Like Napalm, Tastes Like Chicken!
The Rose
Couch Fishing
Defend THIS!
Never Burn Money
Bigger Guns Nearby
Arrival

This series was first started back in June of last year so it is nearly one year old.
We'll all be old by the time this one is finished. ;)

For other 'earlier' discussion of the Marathon levels check out the Volunteers series.

May 24, 2013 (Friday)

Narcogen and Blackstar take on Bigger Guns Nearby and Never Burn Money in
'gentlemanly' co-op style. So far no fear of their co-op escapade turning into a carnage
fest. But then again... the mind numbing Colony Ship for Sale awaits them.

Treellama <wolfy@treellama.org> reveals that there will be no co-op mode in the
new Marathon support in Aleph One. Canon lovers rejoice.

Also on the Story forum:

Marathon Rampancy (old Half-Life mod) resurrected.
Necronomithon - the first ever Marathon conversion project.
A conversation with Craig Hardgrove.

May 3, 2013 (Friday)

Narcogen <narcogen@rampancy.net> writes:

Over at Rampancy.net, Blackstar and myself are embarking on a Let's Play series of
Marathon 1 using the Aleph One engine and Chris Hardgrove's remixed music, to tide
us over until Destiny is released.

Note that they are tackling the levels co-operatively even though Marathon 1 was never
designed with this in mind. Their first film is of Arrival.

Pros:   Interesting gaming discussion between old and new games.
Cons:   Game play is a little rusty. Not on Total Carnage. Parts of the level are missed.

How long will this co-op escapade last before one-on-one carnage ensues? As Randy Reddig
(Double Aught Software) once said:

...all "co-operative" games degenerate into carnage eventually.

Apr 16, 2013 (Tuesday)

In the original Marathon game the terminal text was coded in the Marathon application
rather than in the map file (as in M2 and Infinity). But if you ever wondered (or tried
to find) where the Marathon logon graphic (the green Marathon symbol) is you might
search in vain. Now thanks to Hopper in the Story post we have the exact location.
He writes:

The logo itself is in the Shapes file: Interface collection, frame 44.
Underneath it, the "U.E.S.C. Marathon" text is printed from stringset 135,
index 0 (the unused-in-M2 _marathon_name).

Of course, you might ask yourself so what? Why would anyone want to know this? Well it
is important if you are trying to get the original Marathon terminals working in Aleph One.
And by all accounts progress is good.

And on the subject of terminals, Hopper writes:

...has anybody noticed that the apparent date in the Marathon terminal header
advances at the rate of roughly seven minutes per in-game second?

Now added to The Number Seven section.

Apr 9, 2013 (Tuesday)

Yes folks... it's finally here.

Pathways Into Darkness for OS X at the Mac App Store

Brought to you by Mark Levin and Bruce Morrison.

Now a whole new generation of fans can play Bungie's hardest game.

Take a bow guys. :)

Mar 30, 2013 (Saturday)

On the Story forun over the last couple of weeks:

Bungie revealed a little more of their next game 'Destiny' at the Game Developers Conference.
They released a video which was screened as part of their presentation. Lots of new concept
art including one piece that looks like a modern rendition of a Teutonic Knight. Thanks patrick.

Claude Errera draws some parallels between Destiny and Marathon.

And this pic looks very reminiscent of something... but I can't exactly remember...

Craig Hardgrove (Mr. Marathon Music Remakes) gets interviewed by a Destiny fan site.

Yossarian kindly compiles all the Rubicon: Volunteers threads posted back in 2002.

Yes, people are still interested in Marathon Magazine.

Marathon Machinima anyone?

ihavebee}rolandbeowulfachil!esgilgameshduke

Was the Marathon 2 level  'We're Everywhere' originally designed for  no water?

Who remembers Gnop?

What canon should or should not be preserved in M1A1?

Mar 17, 2013 (Sunday)

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all Story page readers... everywhere!

Feb 8, 2013 (Friday)

Gabriel Rosenkoetter <gr@eclipsed.net> sends in the following screenshot from
the iOS game Spaceteam.

As Gabe remarks... "Relevance should be obvious."

On the Story forum over the last few weeks:

Yes, there was a USS Marathon.

More Marathon fan fiction.

Used copy of the Marathon Trilogy Box Set sells for... US $150.99.

Bungie's Destiny at GDC 2013.

Old Duality stuff.

PerseusSpartacus continues his Tour of Duty with Couch Fishing.

Alex Seropian's new sci-fi game... Morning Star.

PID secret page revealed... but everyone missed it. :(

Jan 1, 2013 (Tuesday)

Happy New Year to all Story page readers... everywhere!

So what happened last year? Can't remember? Well here's a little retrospective of some
of the highlights in 2012, in reverse chronological order (or something like that).

Josh Goldberg opened up his Marathon artwork at Rising Studios for public viewing
and went on to re-envision David Candland's 'The Ancients' poster.

Marathon made it into the list of the 50 Most Unique Firearms in Video Games.
And its position? Well 42 of course. Life, the Universe... and everything.

marathon.bungie.org got a long overdue makeover thanks to Gregory Smith (aka treellama)
and artwork by Josh Goldberg.

A very rare copy of Super Marathon was sold on eBay for a whopping US $370.00
along with a Pippin for US $515.55.

Bungie's 2010 contact with Activision was made public and revealed details about their
next game 'Destiny' and another called... 'Marathon'?   But like Estragon and Vladimir
you might be waiting for the later.

And then there were three. Soli Deo Gloria Productions released Marathon Infinity for iOS.

Bungie day (7th July) saw the release of Doc Hopper's original Marathon Classic HUD.
Old-timers needed only install.

Mickey <mickeywember@gmail.com> posted the video portion of the IMG interview with
Bungie Software from Jan/Feb 1995 on YouTube. You can read that particular interview here.

In retro mood, nay retro mode... Doc Hopper extracted the contents of the Marathon alpha Shapes
file to reveal the largest lunar landscape panorama... ever.

A fitting epitaph for Doug Zartman? Orihaus had the low down. (Please note Doug is still alive)

Those extractions kept coming... Doc Hopper did the Marathon betas next.

Rebus? A new word of the day on the Story page. But what did it mean... come to think
of it what did B.U mean?

Philtron reanimated the Volunteers series with the largest Story forum post... ever!

Memories of Traxus? Philtron speculated that we had and the Marathon's Story just got
that little bit more intriguing... 17 years on. :)

Want to read (re-read) those old copies of Marathon Magazine (aka MaraMag)?
Well now you can thanks to Hopper.

Greg Kirkpatrick is alive and well !!! :)

So we might be going to Tau Ceti after all.

Marathon turned 18 on the 21 December 2012... the world didn't end.
But this iOS app did do a very strange thing when it got to zero. ;)