Marathon Durandal on Live Arcade...

Mat · Post by **Mat** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 11:32 am 0

...has made me very happy

Quite possibly my favourite gaming franchise ever, and it works on the 360 pad incredibly well.
The joys of shoving an assault rifle in the face of Pfhor scum and unloading a clip have been under-appreciated for far too long.
Lovely HD graphics updates that are completely faithful to the original, fantastically smooth framerate and no deviations from the original whatsoever.
Absolute aces

The only warning I'd offer is that apparently it's been making more users than usual suffer from motion sickness, so if you're prone to this kind of thing, stay away.

Total Carnage and a quest to kill every BoB in existence is the only way to play

trezzer · Post by **trezzer** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 12:34 pm 0

I'm not prone to motion sickness. In fact I've never experienced it before in any 3D game. I still got it with Marathon on XBLA

I was looking forward to play it, but looks like I'll have to sit this one out. In the corner. Crying quietly.

Flabio · Post by **Flabio** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 12:42 pm 0

The incidence of motion sickness seems very high with this game, they're trying to work out why that is and see if they can patch it.

teamonkey · Post by **teamonkey** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 1:42 pm 0

I was really disappointed to see the poor review on Eurogamer.

Flabio · Post by **Flabio** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 2:26 pm 0

I don't think Eurogamer have ever given an XBLA retro title a good review.

Maybe Castlevania.

trezzer · Post by **trezzer** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 5:04 pm 0

I find Eurogamer very hit and miss. While there are some insanely good reviews (EDF2017) there are far too many that are so far off it's not even funny.

I've pretty much given up relying on any one site and just look at a place like gamerankings or metacritic and sample a couple of reviews in the top, middle and bottom to see what they have to say, then form my impression of whether I should give something a shot based on that.

tentaclesex · Post by **tentaclesex** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 5:15 pm 0

It makes me want to barf like crazy. It needs an adjustable field of view.

legion · Post by **legion** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 11:32 am 0

Would have been better if the demo was longer, the first level didn't make me purchase the full game.

rockwaldo · Post by **rockwaldo** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 4:25 pm 0

See, I need convincing.

never played the original and I found the demo to be absolute PAP - well below Doom standards for example.

Whats so good about it then?

Flabio · Post by **Flabio** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 4:32 pm 0

It's not really very good. Purely a nostalgic 'it was on the Mac! Therefore better than Doom!' thing going on.

teamonkey · Post by **teamonkey** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 4:55 pm 0

I played it for the first time on the PC a few years ago. I thought it was great, better than Doom, but also very different. It's closer in feel to System Shock. If you try and play it in the Doom way then you'll probably be very disappointed.

I can't remember the first level, but if you want to try it on the PC without spending any points it's a free download. Search for "Aleph One".

Mat · Post by **Mat** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 6:03 pm 0

There's a couple of things that make it a stand-out game for me.

For one, the story is fantastic, and definitely my favourite story from any game ever. Durandal is an incredibly well realised character that you learn to love and hate in equal measures.

Second, when the action's good, it's fantastic. Hordes of monsters, all moving quickly, where the most effective tactic is the one mentioned above: shoving a gun in their faces and emptying a clip.

It also had much more complicated maps than Doom. Rooms can be layered on top of eachother allowing for (literally) more depth.

And finally, the weird physics allowed for all sorts of tricks and interesting exploration options, "floating" around corners, grenade / rocket jumping before Quake was even a glimmer in Carmack's eye, and speed-affected melee damage.

Flabio · Post by **Flabio** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 11:04 pm 0

Interesting that they've picked Marathon2 for live rather than the original. Anyone would think that it's plot is somehow relevant to Halo 3...

legion · Post by **legion** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 11:19 am 0

Flabio wrote:Interesting that they've picked Marathon2 for live rather than the original. Anyone would think that it's plot is somehow relevant to Halo 3...

IGN: How was the decision made to bring the second Marathon game to XBLA first? Are there any plans to bring the rest of the Marathon trilogy to Xbox Live Arcade?

Bruce Morrison: I've answered this question quite a bit, I have it down to a science. Consider this, what if we could only bring one Marathon game to the Xbox. Which would it be? We pretty much all agree, Marathon 2 was the best of the series. There are also technical reasons. Marathon 1 was small and really simple and fairly shallow. Infinity was confusing. Marathon 2 fit just right between them. Marathon 2 has a better story, better characters (can you really get any cooler than Durandal?), great multiplayer levels (House of Pain and Thunderdome), and dual shotguns.

The Captain · Post by **The Captain** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 8:23 pm 0

I really, really like Marathon: Durandal but it seems I'm missing something fundamental. I've started the demo ten times now and don't seem to be able to get anywhere new! I've installed the two chips at Durandal's behest and explored all of the map but. . . nothing happens.

I'm not buying the bugger if I can't complete the demo.