Reviews

I appreciate that you didn't make everything look smooth and plastic when it wasn't appropriate.

It’s a quarantine miracle!

Windbreaker seems to be the last net map creator standing since RyokoTK 4GOT again. If you don’t have this collection yet, there’s a good chance that you’ve been wasting your life. These maps are staples of modern net games, alongside Windbreaker’s previous few packs. They’re gorgeous, they flow incredibly well, and they’re even fun to explore and wander through. They also work well with Survival, since Windbreaker was even thoughtful enough to merge in scripts raising the monster activation limits.

Basically, if you’re still hosting Marathon net games in 2020 and aren’t hosting this pack for at least some of your games, you need to reëxamine your life choices. A set of net games without at least one Imperium map hosted is probably a subpar set of net games. I’d recommend this, Infra Apogee, Caustic Dystopia, Second Quest, Red Spectrum, Paradise Lost, and Starlight as a starter kit of packs for newcomers to learn (an admittedly very Windbreaker and RyokoTK-heavy kit, but their maps tend to be some of the most commonly hosted).

As for the maps here, they’re all great. I think “Yucatan Dive” is my favourite to wander through, though it’s rare to have enough players to make it worth hosting (so games where there are enough players are a treat). “End Times” and “Getaway UK” are very distinctive looking, memorable levels. “Hyacinth House” is also always a load of fun. I think “Inaugural Trams” is my favourite of the new levels – it feels like a cousin of “Tempus fugit” from Infra Apogee, not that I’m complaining. “TRON” is probably the most stylish, though.

If I do have a complaint, it’s that treellama made Visual Mode in Weland, and not one new map from Windbreaker since then. What gives? :V

tl;dr: It’s great that someone released new maps in 2020 and they’re actually good. Get this. If you already had an old version, get it again.

ryoko please im so sorry

i love this file and i love you don't do this to me

youloveme iloveyou

readmes are good

It takes a lot of work to make a long-form Marathon scenario like this, so although I put this down somewhat quickly due to lack of interest, I want to give credit where it's due for the effort put in to give it the polish that the author was striving for. Most notably, apparently collaborating with various mapmakers from the community help build the maps, which all look visually stunning.

What I liked:

• Visually appealing map design throughout. Looks better than a lot of TCs.
• A lot of attention to detail in the terminals, texture sets, weapons, enemies, and items (also lol @ the DOOM armor pickup for shields). Though there is playful "reimagining" of existing images, nothing feels slapped on.
• I never got lost or confused; the map flow is decent
• Secret areas
• Team effort
• Cohesive presentation overall

Constructive critique:

• This might not bother people who are just in it for the gameplay, but the writing is not strong, and personally I noticed it right away which is a poor first impression. If you're striving for something that has an impact on the player, you want to evoke a sense of mystery, build strong characters, and give the player a sense that they're on the map for a reason that feels like more than just a fetch quest, none of which I felt here. If you're collaborating again, consider bringing on one or more writers or editors for this. Hunt down some scifi or comics writers! I think having a strong story-first approach will also result in more interesting maps from a gameplay perspective.
• Enemy encounters seem bland. Consider positioning that takes advantage of the enemies' strengths. Have them sneak up or have the high ground; Let them have the upper hand, and don't make them deaf. Surprise the player -- but not by having enemies teleport in right in your face, which happens several times in the first (actual) map. Also please don't teleport the player directly into a pack of hostiles, that's just rude.
• Too many weapons introduced in the very first fighting map. This uses up all the excitement around weapon reveals almost all at once.
• There's a bit of an ammo shortage.
• (nit-pick) The first terminal that a compiler is sitting in front of doesn't look like a terminal, it looks like a wall. Then there's a ton of other walls that don't do anything which have the same texture.
• I would have liked to see new enemy types since we got new weapons, but this doesn't affect my enjoyment that much.
• Rebellion is a sucky map preference, especially when there's no pattern buffer immediately available. (your scenario is not the only one with this problem -- looking at you Rubicon X)

Soo I know I gave a lot of critique here, but I hope the author takes it in stride. Despite my criticisms as a player, I made a lot of maps and several longer scenarios for Marathon in my formative years and nothing came close to this, so I want to say nice work and I think anyone could enjoy this if they're just looking for a casual good time. Keep making stuff, and email me if you want an editor, playtester, or original music for future scenarios. ;) dreameter.music (at) gmail (dot) com

Frankly, I'm a little turned on.

mate

Took a little bit, but I found out what the top 3 pics are from.

1st - Marathon Squadron

2nd - Portal of Sigma

3rd - Excalibur Morgana's Revenge

No I couldn't.

The test runs we did were a lot of fun, even though we had more players than some maps were meant for, haha. Channel Z definitely reminds me of Mucking About and Master Slave from Red Spectrum. TRON was really a unique and fun experience. Just takes a little getting used to as sometimes the plain-colored walls can be a litte confusing in terms of where you are and some movement, but then again, we had 5 players on there during one of the test runs.

Pretty awesome work on Phantom Power with the precipitation and wind volume effects, I had no idea the precipitation got stronger the first time I played it, as well as the fog getting darker, but that's because I didn't have fog on the first time until I did a solo run. Sorry. :P

The other new maps are fun too.

My first review of this game was made on Aug 2012 and it's quite stunning seeing how much history I have with this particular game.

My opinion still stands that this scenario, Eternal, and Rubicon surpass the original trilogy. I'd say EVIL and The Gray Incident are on par with the trilogy. Red is really the only one I'd rate below M2/MI. (Not a huge fan of M1 myself, too much Doom.)

Regarding Phoenix, unlike the previous commenter, I find the combat a thrilling experience; it's especially adrenaline-inducing when playing on Total Carnage; the enemies are so aggressive and ruthless, prompting me to strategize to take advantage of their weaknesses.

I find the level design very complicated and interesting. (The complicated level design grew on me over time; I don't need a guide to beat MP anymore.)

Perfect scenario... except for that typo in Tantive IV. Sytemic glitch indeed.

Another absolute classic, I remember playing this one vividly. Thank you very much for this! Might I suggest a port of "Marathon Revisited"?

I am surprised and amazed to see a port of the last M1 TC in 2020. I played through this one 3-4 times over the years and loved its weird creativity, especially the later alien sections with the original art. At one point I even unearthed and set up a 20 year old mac just so I could play this TC again. Thank you so much for bringing this one back to a playable form.

Bugs for me:

*Game crashed a few times (not sure why).

*Troopers and garbage cans were transparent.

Minus ten thousand stars

I haven't downloaded these yet, but just from the screenshot, if you're going to remake maps, you should make them look better not worse.

I have wanted to replay this scenario for so long. One of my most favorite TCs for Marathon. Now I can finally hear the music again and experience this scenario once more. Good job.

i like the purple but it's not as fun as you'd think

Elevatesquality of sound a lot

Nice

Because of course it is

What are the scenarios on first 3 screenshots?

Speaks for itself, nice, 44 maps of awesomness

If you host net games at all, you need this pack. (And if you only join others' net games, you still need this pack to familiarise yourself with one of the most frequently hosted third-party packs on the metaserver.) It's utterly massive, with (as of this writing) 44 levels from tiny to absolutely gargantuan, all gorgeous, all with fantastic flow, all with impeccable weapon and item placement.

I must confess I haven't actually played all 44 of these as net games (again, there's 44 of them!), but I've never had a bad experience with any of the ones I have. In my ideal world, we'd see the stock maps hosted on the metaserver a lot less often, replaced by maps from packs like this and Windbreaker's Imperium.

While I'm at it, Ryoko's Paradise Lost, Second Quest, and Red Spectrum also hold up really well. (Red Spectrum is quite architecturally simple compared to Ryoko's later work, but still has great flow and weapon placement.) Grab those too.

It's actually very useful, even for official M1, keep up the good work

It's there now. I don't have java and just experimented with some minor changes manually just to see what'd happen. One o my resistances to changes is that the enemy really doesn't care about your preferences, so mostly I just fight against whatever comes along. It's good fun and I doubt that any changes I did would make it any better. Also, making changes directly teaches me how lua works. It's a multi purpose package.

There is no script in the download, just pgn files. The 5 star is for the older version which I have and use.

Well this is......I mean...damn it's black magic at this point

I don't have time to play this, can someone spoil the whole thing for me please?

I'll edit this review when I am able to do a thorough trial of this.

For now — and at the risk of abusing a review: The textures are done well. I would recommend to the author either that they develop a scenario which makes good use of these aesthetics, from this and from Frolic, or that they release all their textures alone for others to build upon.

Review of the mapmaking is forthcoming.

I'm one of those who remembers the scantily clad female BoBs done for M1.
I think the Orphanage had some female BoBs too, but I might be remembering incorrectly — I'm probably remembering this, in fact. Is my memory getting as bad as HS now? ;-)

Anyways, as the header of this review said, I didn't try these and so cannot comment on how well the sprites are animated. Therefore, I cannot in good conscience rate it at a 5.
I do, however, approve of the attempt: unlike the bikini sprites, this is not a joke and could be used in a serious scenario.
Well done, Loren.

Furthermore, I'm not complaining about the name not being an acronym because I get the joke. 8-)

Almost five stars, but the Pfhor ship is also in scenery, so this causes there to be multiple ships.

Almost five stars, but the Pfhor ship is also in scenery, so this causes there to be multiple ships.