Bungie Re-Trademarks Marathon

Long before Halo, there was Marathon. In fact it was a trilogy of games made by Bungie, the same people. They were released in the mid 90’s, mainly for the Mac, but were largely ignored by the PC audience, who were too busy playing Doom and Doom II. In fact only the second game, Marathon 2 was ever released on the platform.

Anyhow, it was picked up by Superannuation the other day that Bungie has re-trademarked the name Marathon.

Now comes speculation time. I doubt it’s going to be a re-release seeing as the Marathon games were released as freeware years ago. It could be some sort of re-boot, seeing as another cherished game from the 90’s, Rise of the Triad, recently got an iPhone version of the game.

There might be plans to remake one of those games, seeing as Doom was sort of remade in Doom 3, and Doom 4 might well be a remake of Doom II: Hell on Earth. But that’s just a rumour.

I somehow doubt that Bungie or anyone else would ever consider making a sequel in the series, seeing as the Halo games are really spiritual successors to the Marathon series. So, if they wanted to make another Marathon, they could just make another Halo, which is what they’re doing with Halo: Reach.

But I could be wrong.

Some rumours say it’s because one of the games might appear on Xbox Live Arcade. The 2nd game, Marathon 2: Durandal, was released on XBLA nearly three years back.

Then again, it could be nothing…

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Source: Superannuation

Bungie Re-Trademarks Marathon

Apocalypse Then: Marathon

15 Years of Marathon

On this day in gaming, 21 December, in 1994, a perhaps lesser known game by the name of Marathon was released.

Why do I say it’s lesser known? Because firstly it was released at a time when Doom and Doom II were on the scene, and secondly it was only for Macintosh. Despite being technologically advanced over other games like the aforementioned Doom games, not everyone knows about these games.

It’s a FPS developed and published by Bungie Studios, best known for the Halo series, which many claim is a spiritual successor to this series of games, collectively called the Marathon Trilogy,  which also consists of two sequels in Marathon 2: Durandal and Marathon Infinity. The Marathon Trilogy is set in the same universe as Pathways Into Darkness, another Bungie title.

Marathon 2 was released for PC as well as Mac, unlike the other two games, and also made it onto XBLA. If anything it’s arguably the best known of the games because of appearances on these platforms.

About five years after the first game’s release, Marathon 2’s source code was released and after that a fan-made source port, Aleph One, was made, initially for Mac but later other platforms like Windows. More than ten years after the first game’s release, Bungie released the trilogy as freeware, and total conversions of the other two games in the series were made, so nowadays PC gamers can play all the games in the trilogy.

Apocalypse Then: Marathon

Classics I'm Playing Now: Redneck Rampage, Marathon 2

I just downloaded ProAsm's Redneck Rampage port the other day- at least I think it's a port. It allows you to play Redneck Rampage on a modern OS, like Windows XP. So I got Redneck Rampage out and put the necessary files in the folder and started playing it.

What urged me to do all of this was an article I read in NAG magazine lately. There was a "Looking Back" feature which had a write-up and pictures of the game, and I just thought, Yeah, I'd like to play this now. It's been a while.

So, I'm sure eventually I'll get a Classic Games article up on my HP profile sometime about it. At the moment I'm about 90- 95% done on a review/article about Megadeth's latest album, Endgame.

I also had a look at a PC Format DVD which I "borrowed" from my brother (He was pi$$ed off about it! Ha ha!) and found Aleph One. This is a source port which allows you to play Marathon 2, which was originally available for PC, as well as the other two games in the trilogy, Marathon and Marathon Infinity, which were only for Mac. These games have conversions that were made for the PC.

Once again, I'll likely have an article up about this in the future some time.

Classics I'm Playing Now: Redneck Rampage, Marathon 2