Marathon Trilogy Available for Free Download

Thanks to Blues for the news that the games making up first person action series Marathon are available for download from Bungie.org. The classic series, arguably the precursors to Halo, made up some of the finest action gaming available on the Mac platform. From the article: "The Mac .sit-format files are currently available, and apparently there is an effort underway to create a PC-friendly version of this release compatible with the Aleph One Marathon-based OpenSource project."

Frog Blast the Vent Core!

[andfarm]

Yay.

Re:Dude

[Bastian]

This is totally flamebait.

Flamebait? No. Flamebait and Troll? Yes.

[kiddailey]

Not flamebait? What fantasy world are you living in? It's actually flamebait AND a troll all in one -- which unfortunately, I've wasted my time responding too.

There are tons of current mainstream games for the Mac and many others on the way. [insidemacgames.com] And it's not [macgamefiles.com] even [apple.com] hard [gamedb.com] to find [ign.com] them [google.com].

Re:Flamebait? No. Flamebait and Troll? Yes.

[PaganRitual]

of course there are ...

like Breakout ... Super Breakout ... *whispers* photoshop

that would have been so much more funny if /. supported the "font size" command.

Re:Flamebait? No. Flamebait and Troll? Yes.

[moonbender]

There's Escape Velocity. That should be enough for a couple of years. Well, maybe not anymore, but it used to be, back when I was still more patient with my games. Of course, since like a year ago, EV is available for Windows as well.

Re:Flamebait? No. Flamebait and Troll? Yes.

[BlueCodeWarrior]

Even though this is very anecdotal evidence, EV and EV: Override and EV: Nova are awesome. EV: Override is the only shareware I've ever paid to register...

Damn space pirates stealing my cash.


Oh yeah, and Marathon is my favorite series ever.

Re:Games on Mac

[Oktober Sunset]

mac is great for games, I can get halo, only £60 for mac! (as opposed to £20 for PC). wohoo!

Re:Games on Mac

[koi88]

I know I'm feeding a troll... but, you know, there are much cheaper offers than £60.
In fact, I've never seen this game at SUCH a high price, even when it was all new...

Re:Games on Mac

[Oktober Sunset]

admitedly it was in HMV.

Link additions

[jvmatthe]

These really should be in the story posted on Slashdot itself. No good reason to link to another site first...

Marathon Trilogy Website [bungie.org] with the downloads of the games and the tools. Also the FAQ [bungie.org].

Aleph One [bungie.org] website with the Free software client which will hopefully be compatible with all three of the released games.

Re:Link additions

[mausmalone]

These really should be in the story posted on Slashdot itself. No good reason to link to another site first...

There's a great reason. The news story was probably submitted by someone from Blue's News looking to have some increased traffic for their advertisers. This happens a lot here on /..

Nevertheless, I can't wait to get home and fire up Basilisk II [uni-mainz.de]. Has anyone given these games a try using the Basilisk emulator? And do any of the games require Mac OS 8.0 or higher or PPC?

Re:Link additions

[jvmatthe]

That's fine if they want to send traffic to Blue's News, but these are the Slashdot editors who have some responsibility to edit the submissions, especially if they're deficient. When I've seen things like "Thanks to FooSite for their story on..." I've been under the impression that the editor READ the story on that site and decided to post about it on Slashdot. Maybe not...maybe there is a give-and-take between the larger sites, like when a GameSpot story gets posted on Slashdot. Regardless of the source,

Marathon V.S. every other FPS

[Needanewnick]

I still judge every FPS I play partially on how it compares to Marathon. Be it story, interesting play, mood or just fun.

What other games do people use as a base for comparisons in other genres?

Re:Marathon V.S. every other FPS

[Have Blue]

Pathways, Marathon 2, and Marathon Infinity.

Re:Marathon V.S. every other FPS

[Destoo]

by Looking Glass Studios, makers of Thief. [mobygames.com]

Doom 3 came close in concept, but I'd definitely need to "invest" in a new graphic card to even begin to enjoy it.

Re:Marathon V.S. every other FPS

[Destoo]

(that's what you get for not previewing)

System Shock [mobygames.com]

Yes. I'm still playing it.
Again, my ironic signature is still there.

Re:Marathon V.S. every other FPS

[cbrichar]

• For plot intensive fantasy RPGs, Betrayal at Krondor.
  
• For flight sims (okay, okay, flight sims "lite"), it's gotta be X-Wing & Tie-Fighter.
  
• For immersive mood setting, The 7th Guest.
• For graphic adventures (Come back!!), all hail the Secret of Monkey Island.

Many games have held residence on my HD for long periods of time, but these are the ones that stick in my mind my most memorable gaming experiences.

Re:Marathon V.S. every other FPS

[ashground]

Simple -- System Shock. Granted, the controls got a little in the way of the ingenuity, but the game was rock-solid.

StreetFighter Alpha 3

[rsilvergun]

flawless ballance, tons of great characters. Strategy, skill and button mashing all get rewarded. It's the sort of game that if I ever get sick of playing, I'm sick of Video Games in general.

Re:Marathon V.S. every other FPS

[jayed_99]

System Shock 2

Cool.

[FLAGGR]

/me hugs his Mac Action Sack

They're great to play on linux, and I can't wait till I get my iMac Mini, then I can finally test out Anvil and Forge.

What to do with the .sits?

[orpheus2000]

Are these playable games in OSX, or are we forced to use Aleph One?

Re:What to do with the .sits?

[DreadPiratePizz]

.sit was the file extention for stuffit files back in OS 9, which are analagous to .zip files in windows.

They're classic apps.

[porkchop_d_clown]

But looking over one, it looks like it has the data files you need to add to Aleph One to get the full game.

classic apps, not ported to osx

[kaan]

I guess it's easiest to just release the existing stuff for free, but it looks like these are the original, pre-OSX applications (aka, "classic"). So they have not been ported to OSX.

I don't have System 9 installed on my machine, so this isn't too exciting...

Re:classic apps, not ported to osx

[Anonymous Coward]

How to play on OSX -

Unstuff
Drop Aleph One.app in the directory of the game you want
Double click Aleph One.app
Enjoy

All Aleph One needs is the data.

Re:classic apps, not ported to osx

[slart42]

>FYI: Aleph One doesn't work with Marathon 1

That's right. However, get M1A1, which is Marathon 1 converted to Aleph One here:

ftp://ftp3.bungie.org/archives/mos.scenarios/m1a1. sit [bungie.org]

works fine for me.

Re:classic apps, not ported to osx

[sh00z]

All Aleph One needs is the data.

does Aleph One support network play? I assume that using the original Marathon engines would require a unique S/N for each player, right? I'm sure I still have my M2 and Minf manuals around if I need 4 S/N's...

Re:classic apps, not ported to osx

[sh00z]

Whoops. Never mind. I just RTFFAQ.

made my morning

[badnova]

This is excellent news. The Marathon games are absolute classics. Good on you Bungie.

A Great Day...

[empirionx3]

I've never found myself very interested in any video/computer games, and yet, this one drew me in so that I would spend off hours playing it across NASA networks.

A great game... I very much hope that this release will rekindle this game's following.

Now if i only could unpack .sit files on linux...

[cyberkreiger]

Couldn't some kind soul please repack them for me?

Re:Now if i only could unpack .sit files on linux.

[Anonymous Coward]

Stuffit.

www.aladdinsys.com

Re:Now if i only could unpack .sit files on linux.

[0racle]

That would have been better if you didn't include the link.

Re:Now if i only could unpack .sit files on linux.

[Kleedrac2]

Wow ... I got the weirdest output from trying this :) ... There are no directories just files like Icon? and "Marathon v1.2" what do I do with this now?

Kleedrac

Re:Now if i only could unpack .sit files on linux.

[notsoclever]

Yay for resource forks!

Re:Now if i only could look before i whine

[kop]

Look again, there are .zip files on the page too.
http://trilogyrelease.bungie.org/ [bungie.org]

Sweet

[TychoCelchuuu]

Something to do with my iBook other than sit in Starbucks and hope people think I'm trendy :D

Beware the Exploding Bobs!

[catdevnull]

I loved that custom map maker, etc. So, so cool. The flachette gun is my ultimate fave.

The aliens are all completely flat

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

I don't get it - did they all get steamrollered or something? And how come they always face precisely towards me whatever direction I move in? It's a weird universe this game is set in.