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Subject: What do the Bungie classic/Marathon fans think about Halo?
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Cronin's Law----The New Flood Drinking Game

Posted by: Agent91290
ForceMorph, I'm sorry but that's just wrong. You don't like Halo's story? The storys awesome man! Plus, yeah, okay, you don't here music, but don't you feel that mood? Oh yeah, and another thing, have you even played Halo? Because it deserves a TON more credit than your giving it.

halo's story is better than any FPS on the market, granted, but it doesnt hold a candle to marathon. marathon's story was deep an immersive, while halo's was somewhat superficial. Don't get me wrong, halo had great potential, but bungie was rushed PLUS they had to make it for Xbox... which isnt that great despite what you may say. in my opinion anyway.

  • 08.27.2004 7:03 PM PDT
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The United States of America-- STILL more rights than North Korea!
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Cronin's Law----The New Flood Drinking Game

Posted by: Agent91290
Okay, and another thing Halo slaughters UT and Battlefield. Especially battlefield. Battlefield is EXTREMELY glitchy, and Halo actually has a real storymode unlike UT. Halo is currently the best FPS on the market, and it will be put 2 second when Halo 2 comes out.

actually halo is 3rd already. marathon2 and marathon are first and second, respectively. I'm hoping bungiw will have halo2 up to par, because halo wasnt up to bungie standards. sure marathon is outdated, but it had stuff then that most shooters now don't even have (Dual wielding, a good plot, and fun multiplayer)

  • 08.27.2004 7:06 PM PDT
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It's a great show of how good Bungie can be... to make a game that is still unsurpassed in areas 10 years later! Go Bungie!!!

  • 08.27.2004 7:13 PM PDT
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I already announced that I prefer Marathon to Halo. However, I still have to give Halo the edge over most other recent FPS's. It may not have a story that matches up to Marathon, but it sure as hell has a better story than freakin' Unreal Tournament. I mean, the mere fact that Halo HAS a story means that it has a better story than UT.

Still not as good as Marathon though...

  • 08.27.2004 7:40 PM PDT
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The United States of America-- STILL more rights than North Korea!
--New official U.S. motto.

Cronin's Law----The New Flood Drinking Game

but really what is a good as marathon? I'll tell you what. Marathon 2. no wait. that's better than marathon. marathon was good, but Marathon 2 was the ultimate gaming experience (the first marathon was too dark and gloomish for my tastes. and the whole thing felt so... human you know? marathon 2 you were all over on those crazy alien places. )

  • 08.27.2004 7:48 PM PDT
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Marathon was supposed to be darker and more 'human' though... there wasn't anything wrong with that. I think it may also have been Durandal's greater role in the 2nd game that made it better... he rocks!

  • 08.27.2004 7:56 PM PDT
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What do I think of Halo compared to Marathon? Hmm… lets put it this way: I’ve been playing Marathon for six years. I’ve been playing Halo for two. In four years, I seriously doubt that I’ll still be playing Halo. Marathon ‘ll still be on my hardrive, though.

Oh, and yeah, Myth unfortunately does not get much attention around here :-(
Anyone here have a playmyth.net account?

  • 08.27.2004 8:38 PM PDT
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I don't understand this, how can you guys say that's Marathon is better, when Halo is a newer, brighter game? I mean, you can say that's it's better for the time, but how can you compare them, when Halo has so much better graphics, vehicles, a great story (and what do u mean by "superficial"?), and a great formula?

  • 08.27.2004 9:03 PM PDT
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Posted by: Agent91290
I don't understand this, how can you guys say that's Marathon is better, when Halo is a newer, brighter game?


Star Wars. I suspect I don't need to say anything else, but I probably should. The new Star Wars movies are bright, slick, have excellent graphics and can't hold a candle to the sheer, visceral joy of watching Mark Hamill escape from that yeti's cave in Empire. Newer doesn't mean better.

Posted by: Agent91290I mean, you can say that's it's better for the time, but how can you compare them, when Halo has so much better graphics, vehicles, a great story (and what do u mean by "superficial"?), and a great formula?

Better graphics? Ok, if that is what is really important to you, then you probably will contradict what I said above. Vehicles. Yes, you are right, Marathon does not have vehicles. Nevermind that the story and setting really presents no place for vehicles, seeing as how you can simply teleport with the help of your(much more interesting than Cortana) AIs. What we mean by "superficial" is:

1. Of, affecting, or being on or near the surface
2. Concerned with or comprehending only what is apparent or obvious; shallow.
3. Apparent rather than actual or substantial
4. Trivial; insignificant

Halo's storyline is, at least for the moment, superficial. Now. What do you mean by "a great formula?" Run around in a first person view and shoot aliens? thats the same as, not only Marathon, but about a third of all FPS games. A third are aliens. A third are -blam!-s. A third are criminals.

  • 08.28.2004 12:27 AM PDT
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Your leaving out the zombies. And -blam!-s. And zombie -blam!-s.

  • 08.28.2004 12:51 AM PDT
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The United States of America-- STILL more rights than North Korea!
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Cronin's Law----The New Flood Drinking Game

Posted by: Agent91290
I don't understand this, how can you guys say that's Marathon is better, when Halo is a newer, brighter game? I mean, you can say that's it's better for the time, but how can you compare them, when Halo has so much better graphics, vehicles, a great story (and what do u mean by "superficial"?), and a great formula?


easy. marathon is better, and thats why we can say its better. bungie was rushed in the production of halo, and as such werent able to make the plot as deep as marathon's (which is a shame, because the story of halo had great potential). and you keep saying over and over again that halo has a great story. it has a game story. or a movie story. games and movies, If you havent noticed, are by their very nature superficial (all you know is what you can see). marathon has a book story.
--next point
better graphics? so? what good are graphics if you cannot enjoy the game? for halo this does not hold true, for you can enjoy the game, but what about gameplay? doesnt that count for anything? and face it, besides from the shield and the almost perfect balance of weapons, how is halo's gameplay any different from and other FPS? it isnt really. but marathon and marathon 2... I have yet to encounter anything quite like them even to this day. and the only game I think I have ever enjoyed more than marathon is marathon 2, for reasons I before stated. simply put, halo is good, marathon is better.
--
P.S. I never played myth, and now I cant find it anywhere. help?

  • 08.28.2004 7:19 AM PDT
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Geeze! I wrote this topic yesterday and today it is full of great answers, discussions, arguements and good spelling! I think your all right that Marathon and Halo has their own good and bad sides and their quite difficult to compare because of the many years between them. Ofcorse marathon is and will always be "the master" and Halo is and will always be "the apprentice". I actually didn't know that there is a co-op function in Marathon. How does it work??

  • 08.28.2004 7:25 AM PDT
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Posted by: ForceMorph
Heh. I'm one of the few people around who will go to no end trashing Halo as the pile of crap that it is.

The points about Marathon and co-op and story and etc have been made for me, so I'll skip them.

But music... the original Marathon had some good music, yeah, and it added to the mood. Music was taken out of 2 and Infinity because the ambient sounds proved to be a lot cooler. Personally I don't believe in background music in games, it's not realistic, it doesn't really add to the immersion. You might think it adds to the immersion because it's music that might put you into a certain mood, but that's not immersion, that's cinematics. While striding down the hallway of a Lh'owon compound, do you think some scary music would be playing over the loudspeakers? No. You might hear the grinding of machinery, though, and that's a lot cooler sound.

I detest Halo's story. The whole game is centered around a big ring in space. Uh huh. Righto. That's not reallly close to making any good sense. If it were a ring around a planet... that's another thing. But no, it's just a ring in the middle of space, floating around. Congratu-freakin'-lations. A bunch of mutant parasites called 'The Flood'? Cheap excuse for a seemingly endless supply of enemies to blast with your shotgun. To me Halo is nothing but a regular cheap FPS marketed for the 13-year-olds who want nothing more than big guns and lots of enemies to shoot while God-mode is toggled. Not to mention Halo abusing a hell of a lot of Marathon concepts and icons.

The Marathon trilogy will always reign supreme as a pinnacle of gaming. Halo is just a sad cousin.


But music... Yes music is cinematics... But! the music is there to give you a feeling of how the main person feels. Like in Library the music could sound a little like heartbeat mixed with the sound of flood coming to take over your body and force you to walk around without purpose your whole life. It makes you a little scared and it makes your heart beat faster and it gives your body a signal to send out adrenalin couse something is wrong here... In the Maw the music sounds again like heartbeat but only much faster and is combined with the soundeffects from 343 guilty spark. Humming and thinking of an evil plan to take over the world... In the level 343 guilty spark the first time you see the flood the music is kinda claustrofobic and describes how MC feels when he stands in the middle of the room. No place to hide with only one opportunity... Shoot and kill eveything that moves... The music tells us what the picture cannot so it is a very good and important thing to have no matter what! And it makes Halo even better! The music in marathon is in my oppinion just as good as in Halo just as annoiying and scary. Music is important try to imagin silent hill without music or soundeffects?

  • 08.28.2004 7:46 AM PDT
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Right... Before I start my ramble I shall say "good work other Marathoners... you keep teh argument structured and well though out, and I agree with you all!"

Next... my bit.

Agent91290... Once again you fail to put forward an actual argument. You name things but don't say how and why they are better, so I shall take apart your points for you.

Newer and brighter- Ok, you have a teddy... you've had it for 20 years, you love the teddy. Someone brings you a new teddy that is oddly 'brighter'... Which teddy do you like more? Ok, that implies sentimental attachment and isn't the best example but it gets a point across.

"So much better graphics"- This is where the problem lies with people today, you can't appreciate something unless it's shiny, colourful and aesthetically pleasing (damn I lvoe that word!) Oddly enough, things can be good without looking as good as you want. Think food, think a book, think people... what you see isn't what is on the inside... and it's the inside that counts. And if I had the choice between Marathon as is, or Marathon with new graphics... I say go old-school... the awy it looks is so much a part of the game you can't change it, and it gets rid of some of the character... you tend not to have bodies float around for extended periods of time before falling these days.

Vehicles- As previously mentioned... they wouldn't fit... in the storyline or the hallways... ok lame joke, I know. The entire basis of marathon is closed in fighting, to throw in a big open map requiring sniping and allowing for vehicular warfare just doesn't work.

Story- One of my least favourate parts of Halo. Why? Because to a large extent it doesn't make sense and/or is repetitive. How many times does our retard of a captain want to get himself captured? How come they're so stupid as to open the pandora's box when they see how hard the covenant worked to close it? Further more... what is the easiest type of enemy to think of? A horde... so bang we've got our concept for our deadly enemy... umm, what do we call it? hmmm, how bout the aptly named Flood?
BTW does somebody want to explain how the humans transported their tanks down? I saw escape pods fleeing the PoA... But hang on... where then did the pelicans come from? They couldn't withstand atmospheric re-entry! And how come the entire PoA is completely screwed except for a big plane, ridiculously placed to be best for an escape and in perfect condition, with not even a single fallen girder marring it's path? Come on!!! This story is something a 5 year-old could think up... Everything just 'happens' to go right for the MC, and even when it doesn't he is given an easily escapable situation. ie "Oh no, we have to stop GS343... look all the power plants just happen to be positioned in the nearby canyons as oppose to all over the ring world as would make sense in the event of the flood ever escaping!

Before I sound too over the top and spiteful I'll change...

Great Formula... well I don't quite get that bit. But I do have one thing I'd like to point out.

Halo, totally rushed preparations, could have been great but didn't quite hit the mark... still an enjoyable game.
Marathon, unrushed, shipped out over a month late due to game designers and entire Bungie team being to wrapped up in multiplayer game to bother organising it.

Now that shows a kick-ass game!
Feel free to argue against me on anything... I realise some of my points might not make sense or may be too extreme or over the top...
Tristan

  • 08.28.2004 7:50 AM PDT
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I have tried Marathon and I liked it... But I like Halo better... It's not the graphics, not the story I think it's the thing that I play this game on a console with my friends and I talk about it with my friends and In here with a giant bunch of nice smart guys that doen't fill thei're posts with LOL and ROFL and OMFG. When I play a game on pc I sit alone and it's not as fun as when I'm playing Co-op with my friend on his room and playing on our Halo nights once in a while with a bunch of farting guys eating pizza in the most discusting ways. I think the reason why I like Halo better is the thing that it gave me so many good experiences with other people. But still Marathon is still the Master and Halo is the Apprentice...

  • 08.28.2004 7:57 AM PDT
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I would like to point out something else... Gameplay. In Halo you have varying degrees of enemy, likewise in Marathon. In Halo it is possible (and easy) to make a majority of your enemies flee, in Marathon nobody flees and they all hunt you remorselessly. In Halo you can stand taking fire for a while before you hide and you're good as new in a few seconds, in Marathon keep moving cos if you don't you're dead.

That final one is the make or break I think. Sure it's fun to totally wipe out every single alien, because in Halo you can rely on your shields to return after you get knocked around... and it is this fact that so attracts younger players. They charge in headlong and just spray bullets in random directions and still win. In marathon you have to conserve your ammo, given that it doesn't fall out of bodies everywhere (cept for BoB's but they're different) and your health is limited, unless you really suck and hang around the machines. Every single Halo player who has started playing Marathon has equated it's Normal difficulty to AT LEAST Heroic on Halo. That would make the next increment equal to Legendary... now how many more did it take to hit Total Carnage? So that place it far above the Halo difficulty, furthermore people got so skilled playing this game that they played the hardest difficulty using fists and grenades in preference to wasting bullets... I've seen some of the "masters of Halo" play and they're fighting for their lives every second, in Marathon they got soo good it seemed like a walk in the park.


Ramble ramble ramble... I'll be quiet til somebody else posts
Tristan

  • 08.28.2004 8:00 AM PDT

Co-op in multiplayer works by having a bunch of Macs networked together.

Halo is good. I'm a Halo fan. But, it is not a truly great game. The way I see it, Halo is Sci-fi. Marathon, in comparison, is SF. And good SF, at that.

Don't get me wrong, I still play Halo. In fact, I played it last night. That was the first time I've played it for a month or so. In comparison, I've been playing Myth regularly for several years. I even play Oni more regularly than Halo. Until I got a new computer a few months ago which inexplicably refuses to let me do so, I played Marathon even more regularly than Myth.

The thing with Halo is not that it feels half-finished or rushed, like some have said. It's much more polished than Oni. The whole fact of the matter is, the gameplay is forgettable. I am yet to experience a moment in any game that tops the insane fun of the start of "If I Had A Rocket Launcher, I'd Make Someone Pay". Sure, the music may be better than Alex's MIDI stuff in M1, and Power of Seven's title works for M2 and M∞, but I think Marty's stuff in Myth was better than his Halo stuff.

The story of Halo, while good, is nothing special. An over-zealous religious alien collective is hell-bent on humanity's destruction, and a single super-soldier is the only thing in their way. The war has a major battle on a mysterious artefact apparently built by some ancient alien race, where there happens to be a nasty surprise. There isn't anything new. Not only that, neither Cortana nor the Master Chief are very interesting characters. Most of the main characters in Bungie games are well-developed and interesting. Look at Durandal, Tycho and Thoth in Marathon; Alric, Balor/Connacht, Soulblighter, The Watcher, and many more in Myth; Konoko in Oni. If you compare these to the Master Chief and Cortana, Halo seems rather bland. I'm hoping that Halo 2 will in some way ameliorate this situation. I won't be surprised if Halo 2 is a lot better than Halo in every way, but I still don't think it'll be anywhere near as good as Marathon or Myth.

Halo is good. It is fun to play, but it is not memorable in the ways that Bungie's previous stuff is. I don't believe that as many people will still be playing Halo, or discussing its story in 8 years from now as Marathon, even considering that the number of people who play Halo is far less than those who play Marathon. It's a different type of game, for all its similarities. I believe that (I may be wrong) the majority of the Halo fan community will move on after a few years, and treat Halo as just another game, just as they treat every other game they've played. If you compare this to the fact that even people like the As the Apple Turns folks still play Marathon now and then, and indeed refered to it in a considerably recent episode, while they don't ever mention any other games (excluding their excitement for a few episodes when Myth came out). Bear in mind that these are just regular Mac fans, not really involved in the Marathon/Bungie community itself (in fact, their episode concerning the Microsoft Acquisition was particularly cutting).

Perhaps that's the reason why Marathon is so good. It's a Mac game. It has a Mac game feel. Halo has a console game feel. I don't know whether that makes any sense, but it has to at least have something to do with it.

Oh, and Hangbrain, I would do PlayMyth, but I can't get an account because they reckon that my e-mail account is free. I very infrequently go on MariusNet, but I generally just play single-player these days in Myth.

- Reiginko

  • 08.28.2004 8:00 AM PDT
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I've tried both ONI and Myth but I really didn't see anything fun about it. Myth was ok but ONI was really pointless and I'm afraid to say it but I thought it really sucked. Maybe it was because I played the demo adn teh spund didn't work or maybe I should have used more time on it... Matter of fact I maybe should use more time on marathon too It's just that I don't like to play on pc it's boring and there's no other people
to play with... (singleplayer)

  • 08.28.2004 8:14 AM PDT
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"I don't like to play on pc it's boring and there's no other people to play with..."

Ahh... another gamer is broken... consumed by the console...

Alas, the days of people rejecting marathon for it's platform have come... we are truly doomed!

  • 08.28.2004 8:26 AM PDT

Posted by: Gaara of Sand
Alas, the days of people rejecting marathon for it's platform have come... we are truly doomed!


I hope you weren't being serious there.

"Oh, it's a Mac game, is it? As if it's any good!"

- Reiginko

  • 08.28.2004 8:33 AM PDT
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No! it's not because of the platform... I can't explain it... I just like Halo better. It gave me so many good experiences and... well I guess marathon is just old... It's the fact that you can play with your friends sitting side by side...

  • 08.28.2004 8:33 AM PDT
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Yes that was my afterthought... but I have no probs with Macs... the problem here and now is that it's NOT because it's a Mac game!!!!! It's because it's a PC game too!!!!

Yes, for some reason I do feel the need to add that many exclamation marks!!! Besides Reg, it's 1:39 AM, what are you still doing here?

  • 08.28.2004 8:36 AM PDT

I was saying that Marathon has been dismissed because of its platform since the beginning. It wasn't always a PC game as well.

And it's not 1:39. It's 11:39 PM. This is quite a big continent we live on, and Perth is a long way from where you are.

- Reiginko

  • 08.28.2004 8:41 AM PDT
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Posted by: Belsebub
I have tried Marathon and I liked it... But I like Halo better... It's not the graphics, not the story I think it's the thing that I play this game on a console with my friends and I talk about it with my friends and In here with a giant bunch of nice smart guys that doen't fill thei're posts with LOL and ROFL and OMFG. When I play a game on pc I sit alone and it's not as fun as when I'm playing Co-op with my friend on his room and playing on our Halo nights once in a while with a bunch of farting guys eating pizza in the most discusting ways. I think the reason why I like Halo better is the thing that it gave me so many good experiences with other people. But still Marathon is still the Master and Halo is the Apprentice...


Thank you besebub for coming up with such a great thread! I would've given my two cents in earlier, but everything has mostly been covered!

However, the small wimper of "Myth" I've heard and your excellent explanation of why Halo is meaningful for you, I felt obliged to give my thoughts.

As FPS's go, and as singleplayer games go, Its Marathon and then Halo. Marathon for all the reasons described (play MP if you haven't already!). Though if you've ever lucky enough to play Marathon on a LAN, you'll find it just as enjoyable and rewarding as Halo MP on the couch with your friends. And Marathon had replays!!!

Ah, but I just said "as FPS's go." For me, the best game experience evarrrrrr goes to Myth. (actually, Myth 2). For exactly Besebub's own reasons for loving Halo. While I would say I love Marathon more for its originality and uniqueness - both then and now- Myth is truly unique and original in every sense of the word. I am still waiting for a game to surpass it. It had a free-floating camera in a 3d world, its cut resource gathering, unit and base construction, and gave the player pure, fast paced, and desctructive gameplay that centered on brains, tactics, and taking the initative rather than twitchy fingers, build orders, and the like. It made for quick, brutal, and CARNAGE filled matches that rewarded players with short and bloody games. Heads, limbs, blood, broken swords, and guts flew through the air with startling regularity.

While I could go on and describe every nuance of what made Myth so great, I will sum up and say that my friends and I played myth MP almost nightly for well over 4 years, and continued to play with some sort of regularity even after that. Most games last only a few months. Myth had replays, but more improtantly, it had moments that you wanted to recount the next day to guys, moments you wanted to swap with ppl who weren't in on the game (and you had replays to do just that!). It was something that you could spend the whole night playing, and then the whole next day talking about the previous nights playing. I don't know another game that has really done that for me. All other games - once I log out and turn off the machine - discussion about what happened ends. But Myth lived long after you turned it off (there are still a few stories I tell, harking back even to my "demo" assassin playing days of "You can't catch me! I'm The Gingerbread Man!")

P.S. Playing Myth got me so giggling and excited and brought me so much joy, I felt compelled to show my girlfriends the game (I was so blinded by my joy for Myth I couldn't see the absurdity of this. Unfortunately, they could).

"Suck Cocktail Elve-man!"

*I have a playmyth account, which I haven't gotten on in a long time. If i'm on i'm either Redcoat or Jäger (depends on mood).

**For those that want to check out myth, I'm not sure if the demo can be found. You'll have to find a copy of Myth 2 at some store for ~$10-15 dollars (get Total Codex, it comes with Myth 1 and Myth2, an expansion pack, as well as some very good plugins). Did I mention mods? Myth has some great mods that really kept the game new and fresh. And its still patched and kept playing smooth (thank god for the OS X installation patch in v1.5).

-Rë∂çøå† ∞TBR7∞ / Jäger ∞SÅS∞

  • 08.28.2004 8:45 AM PDT
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I know what you were saying about the platform... it's just ironic that people won't play it even now it's on the platform they wanted originally...

Ah yes, perth... lived there at one stage. Knew someone there this year, but sadly she is no longer with us.

Anyway... enough off topic conversation for me...
Tristan

  • 08.28.2004 8:47 AM PDT

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