Reviews

Genuinely one of the best M1 mods I have ever played. The updated graphics are great, but the changes to some of the levels are what really make this thing for me. Using some weapons from Eternal is a great touch, they fit right into the base game. The epilogue level is very cool, great reference to Eternal and really gives the game some much needed closure. Such a blast replaying the original game in this new light!

I did some work on this pack (cleaning up the fighters), so I’m naturally a bit biased, but these are one of the best HD monster packs available if you don’t want to go the MaraToon route; they’re faithful to the originals, but substantially more detailed. Until a skilled artist is willing to make faithful HD sprites, these are probably as good as we’re going to get (or at least tied with treellama’s ML Super Res plugins).

Note: Since this plugin contains hundreds of large images, it may not work on many maps with 32-bit Windows builds of Aleph One, particularly if you also use a lot of other plugins. The crash that enderandrew mentioned occurs because 32-bit Windows apps are limited to 2 GB of RAM – if a level loads too many monster collections, it exceeds that limit. (Most vanilla Infinity levels should load at most four monster collections, and most vanilla M2 levels should load at most three, but a lot of third-party maps use way more.) If these don’t load for you on Windows, get the latest 64-bit Windows app from https://github.com/Aleph-One-Marathon/alephone/releases and run it with that. (This also applies to Eternal 1.2.0 and Juzo-kun’s brilliant MaraToon plugins, among others.)

If you’re one of the Graphics > Rendering Options and reduce the Replacement Texture Quality of Sprites until the game loads. (If you also use HD textures and landscapes, you can reduce Walls and Landscapes too, but those probably use far less memory on most vanilla M2/Infinity maps than these sprites do.)

Just kidding. I can't begin playing Minecraft.

When comparing AI upscaling and hand-drawn original HD replacement textures there is sometimes a trade-off of the upscaler being more accurate to the original look, while a hand-drawn HD texture may have more detail or look nicer.

With this particular mod I don't there is any tradeoff.

These are the nicest looking weapons out there.

This crashes the game for me every time with the latest Aleph One executables on Windows as of the April 8th, 2021 build when I start a new game.

Marathon Infinity.exe for example.

Removing this plugin makes the crash go away. Running with only this plugin makes the game crash.

However, if I download and use AlephOne64.exe then the game will run and not crash.

I don't know what in this particular plugin will create the crash, but I'll submit a bug report for Aleph One on Github.

Sharkie is right, I'm close to the end of the game but there are a couple game breaking bugs.

This is awesome! Is there any way to increase the size of the entire hud by 2? I'm running the game in 1280x960 so the hud is currently a little bit small.

It appears that the Jjarro Wall textures (except Terminals, switches, and recharge stations) are not being loaded, not sure if this is just me or if anyone else has this is issue.

Jjarro textures aside this is the best texture replacement plugin available. It adds a very different feel to the game while staying true to Bungies original textures and makes me want to play both of Marathon's sequels start to finish once again.

God commanded Moses to utterly destroy wheels. The prophet Isaiah, speaking for God at 31:1 says, “Woe to them that trust in chariots.” Every person knows better than to trust in any wheeled contraption. Wheel use is nonsensical. One reason for God’s command to avoid wheels could have been to keep the Israelites from using the horses and chariots in their future battles and then attributing their success to having the horses and chariots, instead of attributing it to God. It seems likely that the Israelites had no horses, based on the following three verses: In Exodus 15:1, 21 the Israelites praised God for rescuing them from the Egyptians, saying, “the horse and its rider he has hurled into the sea.” God promised to destroy such inventions of pagan men, and these Egyptians are also described as riders of horses, in contrast to the Israelites. The people of God are not allowed to be in charge of man-made wheels in this world. In Deuteronomy 20:1 God tells the Israelites, “When you go to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them.” The point is that the Israelites have neither horses nor chariots, and that having horses and chariots would make them considerably more reliant on the world. In Judges 1:16-21 we see that obedience toward God is life, disobedience brings death.

Clearly, God wanted the Israelites to know they did not defeat their enemies with their own strength - Joshua 24:12. In Judges Chapter 4 we see how God placed an army of chariots, which some people might consider a great advantage, into the corrective hands of Israel at Mount Tabor. The outcome of the evil-spirited invention is clearly explained to us here. God deliberately used a weak, small army to show His power on many other occasions, most notably with Gideon - Judges 7:2-3. When is a horse ever really needed? It is true that by the command of pharaoh wagons were sent to enslave Joseph’s family, but I do not see any wheel on the ground ever kept or controlled by a person in the full favor of God. Where men of God did not destroy the wheel, God does it for them. The first historical record of the wheel in the bible is shown to be an invention of men for the purpose of ungodly warfare, in order only to brutally conquer and spoil. It is truly no different today. People speed around, rushing here and there, without much if any care towards the harm they cause, or being conscious of their terroristic violence. Wheels are suicide.

It is not difficult to attribute many harmful or deadly things to the evils of wheels. Some believe that stories like the one in Ezekiel 1:16 give allowance for wheel use. In instances like this we are seeing something otherworldly (some say a UFO), which merely has the “appearance” of a wheel, as the context shows. We are not to conclude that instances like these are earthly man-made wheels that roll on the ground. The record of Uzzah, who was killed steadying the Ark of the Covenant, is recorded twice in the Scriptures (2 Sam. 6, 1 Chron. 13). God commanded that the bars for the Ark were always to stay in its rings, for the Ark was only to be transported while being carried by walking men. Never before this accident had the Ark been transported by wheels, the Ark had been in a pagan land, the source of evil wheels. King David was so frightened by this deadly accident that they did not immediately complete the journey and never again did they use wheels to move the Ark. It is important to note that they were also playing all kinds of ungodly musical instruments at the time of the accident, if they followed the instruction of God no such accident would ever have happened. Of course, how can there be any such thing as an accident in the first place? Such things are only negligence. In Zechariah 9:10, God says that He will make sure there are “no chariots in Ephraim...” Tsar (King) Solomon was prohibited 3 things. The hoarding of money, he kept for himself 666 talents of gold per day; having many wives, he had hundreds; and lastly, possessing chariots, he was the first king of Israel to wrongly keep wheels. We see that Deuteronomy 17:16-17 warns that Israelite kings must not acquire great wealth or many horses. Chariots were well known at the time of Christ, yet He did not need one, choosing instead not to ride them, but did ride a lowly donkey. No Christian or godly man made a practice of utilizing such an abhorent apparatus. Neither should we think that the stone rolled in front of THE LORD’s tomb was a wheel, for a partial roll is not a wheel. A partial roll is all that was needed. We are required to be careful in all our ways, limiting ourselves in this world to the bare minimum. For my part I am almost finished with the wheel entirely. I hate riding on wheels and hate even more seeing how these evils harass the younger ones. There are instances where God can transport instantly, as with the case of Apostle Philip who miraculously arrived in a chariot, but it was halted quickly. It is the only occurrence in the New Testament of earthly wheels. That chariot was controlled by pagans who were in charge of the horses. The eunuch was not operating the chariot, as he and the Apostle were reading and studying the Scriptures. This story is not suggested to be complete, so it is also very likely that Philip rebuked wheel use. By no means should this be taken as a license or permission to keep up the practice of having wheels. Let us not spite God, but only obey what is good, correct, honest and true in such matters.

“Gathering Clouds” is an account of the life of John Chrysostom, an ancient preacher famous for his eloquence. This story speaks of an acquaintance who asked John to travel on a chariot. He gave a good reason as to why he could not. His comrade astonishingly and violently seized him. John was then taken at high speed to Constantinople. It was the only chariot ride he ever took. At the end of the journey he was forced to be the top representative of the Church. In this position he regularly preached against chariots. During the ancient Olympics the most dangerous sport was the chariot race. Around 600 A.D. the Hippodrome in Olympia (where chariot races were held) was washed away when the Alpheus River changed course during a torrent. That happening was no accident; in fact it was seen as an act of God. This assisted people to reason with their common sense given by God that Christian people ought not to ever have wheels.

An ancient law exists for the oldest continuously surviving Christian community in the world. It forbids being built any “road upon which a wheel can run.” Peter the not so Great’s father had a good Christian law forbidding wheels throughout all Russia. I know that the practice of using wheels came to Russia after Peter visited England, being influenced by their, oh so sorrowful, ways of the time. So, this common form of transport is really nothing less than death on wheels. Wheels threaten more than they assist. Wheels are a trap, they are gadgets and gimmicks. They are a funky way to travel, a cause of forgetting the good ways, a cause of wrong hatreds and pains, and thereby people have become a creature of the wheel and a temporal lord of the infernal engines, of the machines. We are duty bound to correct and rebuke wheels, and by all peaceful means to resist and renounce them.

I started playing some days ago and I was excited to play it but there are some corpses that dont reply to anything I say. Not even Name or Death. Idk if thats a bug but if it is, it just breaks the game :/ Thanks for the game anyways

Thank you very much. But I noticed a strange bug (?). While playing I often get to hear a sound that reminds me of an electric guitar. I used the map "Duality" as singleplayer with a lot of monsters and a physics file with overpowered weapons. With normal physics, this sound is less frequent. EDIT: I solved the problem by commenting out the line p:play_sound(139) in brutal_marathon.lua.

The reason I'm giving it three stars is because the Shield/Oxygen bars don't work on the latest version of Aleph One. Everything else works though.

This is familiar, as if it were from an old dream, but I can’t exactly remember...

This is great. This is reason enough to start using AlephOne 1.4. Incipiat trucidatio.

A complete success!!! This is the perfect GUI plugin to get that old school Mac feeling. Excellent work :)

I've always known about PID but never played it. I'm really excited to dive into this game!

Sounds fantastic so far!

Necessary mission-finishing switches on Have Gun, Will Travel, and the last level do not respond at all. Because of this, the levels cannot be completed. Very disappointing.

See, you can easily fix this problem if you would just stop accidentally leaving the water running! Then the maps wouldn't flood, and you'd use less water in general. Win/Win!

The round I tried this one wasn't all that bad. I'm not sure if I would host it myself, but if someone else was? Yeah I'd be willing to play a couple of rounds of it in one session.

Might not be my favorite thing, but it deserves a high rating for the work you put into it.

Just ran solo through some of the stock network levels just to see what some things would look like, and it did certainly give me a chuckle. I will say, the landscapes certainly look pretty damn good.

Decades ago I did a joke project with someone where we tried to replace the monsters with stick figures. In doing so we found that this game really had potential for cell shaded style graphics for artists who actually knew what they were doing and weren't 12. It's fantastic to see someone went ahead and actually did it. Excellent work! I do hope you one day find the energy to do the player sprites, as it would be great to play multiplayer like this. This could easily be the best graphic set for the game.

This is gonna make me actually finish Infinity. But first I must have Access To Arasaka music into it.

Some people might consider it sacrilege how much this reinvents the appearance of the game, but those people are wrong. (Yes, it’s an opinion, and opinions can’t be wrong. This one is still wrong.) This is clean, simple, elegant, and gorgeous… and may just bring these games to an entirely new audience. I’ve had several people express interest in screenshots and videos of this plugin that had never shown the slightest bit of interest in Marathon before. You need this plugin. Get it now.

Thank you for inspiring further thought about the potential of Marathon scripting and adding an extra layer of melancholy to the CRIST lore.

Yo al igual que muchos jugadores de habla hispana han sido muchos años jugando Marathon con trabas cuando no dominas %100 el ingles. Y es increible poder jugarlo en español casi ya 15 años despues de la primera vez que tuve el juego.

No esperaba encontarlo tan "Completo". Eso es un punto bueno.

(Seria interesante incorporarlo a uno con pack HD de M1, ya que creo que no existe ninguno)

• Ninguna queja :)

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.