MacMall accidentally sent my dad a box of Marathon games, probably meant for a store's shelves.
Marathon ended up being one of my favorite games from that era. The Windows kids had games like Doom and Quake, but we had Marathon.
Mac marketshare was so small at the time that there was an implicit craftsmanship that came from anyone targeting Mac - you expected higher quality, because they cared enough to use Macs in the first place. (Some of that mentality lives on to this day.) Of course id made great games too, some of which did eventually come to the Mac.
Marathon is a first person shooter, set in space. It has a compelling storyline, as well as fun art and weapons.
My dad's office had an AppleTalk network, which was kind of like Ethernet but strung together with regular phone cables. I used to bribe my little brother to commandeer the network with me and play Marathon.
There were ultimately 3 Marathon games, that were eventually open sourced and ported everywhere. You can find them online and on Steam as Aleph One.
Fun fact: the game that launched the Xbox was originally made for the Mac. Bungie, the creators of Marathon, showed off their new game Halo at the Macworld conference. The hype train went through the ceiling, and Microsoft bought it as a launch title for their new gaming project.
Since then, Sony bought the rest of Bungie and is preparing to launch a new game in the Marathon universe.
I got into Escape Velocity and EV Override on my brother in law's Mac. Since I had a PC at home, I was really excited when EV Nova was also released for Windows. Recently I picked up Endless Sky which is inspired by those games and is open source.
Absolutely love EV and EVO. I played a bit of Nova but it didn’t grab me the same way (perhaps it was too many years later, although I did replay EV much more recently and loved it).
This is the second time today I’ve seen someone mention Endless Sky. It looks really interesting to me. Have you started playing it yet? I think what makes or breaks these games is the quality of writing and the effort and detail that goes into the different planets, factions, missions, and story.
bsimpson|1 year ago
Marathon ended up being one of my favorite games from that era. The Windows kids had games like Doom and Quake, but we had Marathon.
Mac marketshare was so small at the time that there was an implicit craftsmanship that came from anyone targeting Mac - you expected higher quality, because they cared enough to use Macs in the first place. (Some of that mentality lives on to this day.) Of course id made great games too, some of which did eventually come to the Mac.
Marathon is a first person shooter, set in space. It has a compelling storyline, as well as fun art and weapons.
My dad's office had an AppleTalk network, which was kind of like Ethernet but strung together with regular phone cables. I used to bribe my little brother to commandeer the network with me and play Marathon.
There were ultimately 3 Marathon games, that were eventually open sourced and ported everywhere. You can find them online and on Steam as Aleph One.
Fun fact: the game that launched the Xbox was originally made for the Mac. Bungie, the creators of Marathon, showed off their new game Halo at the Macworld conference. The hype train went through the ceiling, and Microsoft bought it as a launch title for their new gaming project.
Since then, Sony bought the rest of Bungie and is preparing to launch a new game in the Marathon universe.
amcaskill|1 year ago
I will have to give it another go.
goda90|1 year ago
chongli|1 year ago
This is the second time today I’ve seen someone mention Endless Sky. It looks really interesting to me. Have you started playing it yet? I think what makes or breaks these games is the quality of writing and the effort and detail that goes into the different planets, factions, missions, and story.