Video games - Marathon Infinity

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	Video games - Marathon Infinity

Marathon Infinity was the third and final game in the Marathon
series of science fiction first-person shooter computer games from Bungie Software. The game was released on October 15, 1996 and included more levels than its predecessor Marathon 2. These were larger, scarier, and formed part of a more intricate plot that spanned both space and time. The underlying engine of the game changed little from the one in Marathon 2, and many levels can be played unmodified in both games. The only significant additions were the Jjaro ship texture set, vacuum-enabled humans carrying fusion weapons (called "Vacuum Bobs" or "VacBobs") and a new weapon. Marathon Infinity, unlike Marathon 2 was only released for the Apple Macintosh.

Story

Some gamers consider the story in the single-player version of Marathon Infinity confusing. For example, it begins as if large parts, or if not all, of the events in Marathon 2 had not happened. Through time travel granted by the Jjaro, the Security Officer finds himself jumping between alternative realities, seeking to prevent a chaotic entity from being released from Lh'owon's dying sun. For example, the Security Officer begins the game as Durandal's ally, only to be transported to a reality where Durandal did not capture the Security Officer after the events of Marathon. As such, he is controlled by the Pfhor-tortured AI Tycho.

Through multiple instances of these "jumps", the Security Officer (seemingly the only being who realizes he is being transported between possible realities) activates the ancient Jjaro station, preventing the chaotic entity's release — if it even existed. The ending screen of Infinity leaves the story's resolution open-ended, taking place millions of years after the events of Marathon Infinity.

Despite the player being teleported to a Jjaro station by Durandal and left with a grim message both Durandal and Earth did survive in the original timeline as can be seen at the end of Marathon 2.

Multiplayer modes

Every Man For Himself - The objective here is to kill everyone else and not die. The player with the best kill ratio (kills to deaths) wins.

Kill The Guy With The Ball - The objective is to possess the ball (which is actually a skull) for the longest amount of time. When carrying the ball, running is disabled. Also, the player can’t use any weapons when in posession of the ball, however, pressing the fire key will drop the ball and then reenable firing. The motion sensor displays an orange indicator indicating the location of the ball.

King Of The Hill - The objective is to stand on the "hill" the longest. "Hill" in this sense is just a figure of speech, it could be anywhere on the map and is indicated by the orange pointer on the motion sensor. Note that every player is trying to do the same, and others will most likely try to kill the player if he gets in their way.

Tag - The first person to die is "it". If the player is "it", he can tag someone (by killing them) and then they are "it". The objective is to be "it" the least. The magic orange indicator points to whomever is "it".

Team Play - Team play divides everyone into teams by the colors chosen in the Join or Setup dialog. The objective of each team is to kill members of different teams the most. The player can see his teammate's point of view by pressing the delete key.

Cooperative - The game scenario can be played cooperatively with other network players. The objective is to complete the Marathon Infinity Scenario as a team (i.e. cooperatively). All players teleport to the next level when the first one does. When a player dies, he drops his stuff (don’t die in the lava with the shotgun!) Save is disabled when using this feature.

Editing Tools

One of the most dramatic improvements in the game was the inclusion of Bungie's own level-creating software, Forge, and their physics and in-game graphics editor, Anvil. Forge and Anvil allowed a new generation of players to create their own levels and scenarios using the same tools as the Bungie developers themselves. Another improvement was the ability to include separate monster, weapons, and physics definitions for each level, a feature heavily used by Double Aught, who designed the Marathon Infinity levels.

Trivia

In going from Marathon 2 to Marathon Infinity, Bungie was given a joke award by MacFormat magazine for "largest version number increase".
The open source game based on the source code for Marathon 2
is called Aleph One
, the next "number" after ∞.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Marathon Infinity ]

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