If you're looking to get your Marathon on and you don't have the XBLA port, the open source project Aleph One is still going strong. The latest update makes changes to the Lua scripting engine and adds HUD enhancements similar to the one in the XBLA version.
Aleph One runs on Macs, Linux, oh, and Windows, too.
The Bungie.net group For Carnage Apply Within, which plays classic Bungie games Marathon and Myth every week, notes that Project Magma has released version 1.70 of Myth II. Some info about the patch:
Myth II runs better than ever with accelerated hardware rendering on both Windows XP and Mac OS X platforms, while keeping support for the hardware it was originally designed for. Overall game responsiveness has been improved, and many old causes of crashing and out-of-sync gameplay have been eliminated. Dozens of annoying bugs and oddities have been fixed, making this update the most stable ever - rendering the Myth experience that much more enjoyable.
Be sure to get the patch if you want to join For Carnage Apply Within for its Myth games this month.
It's difficult to find words to express the privilege I feel to have been involved in this site and to have been a fan of Bungie for more than fifteen years and of Halo now for ten.
So on the occasion of this, Rampancy.net's tenth anniversary (first post here) I thought I would just make reference to this, one of the many videos of Bungie's first public demonstration of Halo at MacWorld in New York in the summer of 1999.
This is not the best quality version of that video, of course, but it is one that includes the crowd's reaction (and the reaction of the videographers) and for that reason I feel it best captures the enthusiasm that Bungie generates with its unique products, the enthusiasm that creates unique fan communities like Halo has.
There's also a YouTube version of the same demo that is of interest because it is annotated and includes more of Steve Jobs and Jason Jones and their introduction to the video.
A camrip from Halo's debut at MacWorld in New York in June 1999. This version in particular records the audience reaction.
MacWorld has mentioned Marathon as one of the best games on the Mac, as part of their commemoration of the Mac's 25th anniversary.
Heard about Marathon or Myth, but haven't played them? Played some solo Marathon or Myth, but haven't had a chance to check out multiplayer?
Then check out For Carnage, Apply Within, a group of fans dedicated to arranging regular multiplayer games of these classic Bungie titles.
Thanks for the heads-up to urk on Bungie.net.
Thanks to Louis Wu who wrote in to Bungie.net about Coldnose Sloth, who successfully recreated the serial number generator for Marathon. Wu has tweaked it, massaged it, and given it a web interface, for those times when you need some extra serial numbers for multiplayer.
What, you mean people don't keep stuff like this anymore?
Still ten shopping days left, but Aleph One has left all the old school fans a present to open early: a new version of the open source Marathon engine for playing Marathon 1, Marathon 2, Marathon Infinity and third-party scenarios on PCs, Macs, and Linux computers.
From source.bungie.org:
This is a minor feature release of Aleph One, which includes Windows improvements and support for the Unimap 2 format. It is network compatible with Aleph One 0.20.x
Go get it.
Palluxo.com has a (late) review of the Mac version of Stubbs the Zombie. Fair warning: it spoils the entire plot, if you happen to mind that, and doesn't really describe the gameplay.
Version 0.20.2 of Aleph One, the open source engine for playing Marathon games on MacOS, Windows and Linux, has been released.
This was an attempt I was making in my Banshee days (towards the end) to formulate a protocol for two-man Banshee wing voice communications. Prior to this the only way to coordinate in a wing was by feel and by occasional quick text codes, but this lacked versatility; when they released Ventrilo for Mac I was excited and set out to codify a protocol for this. Voice is fast enough for on-the-fly coordination, but only if you both have agreed on a stripped-down, unambiguous code for communicating tactical requests and data.
In any case, I banged this around a little and did a bit of testing, but it never got finished and I was fading out on HPC by this point. So it just sat around.
All I've got is the notes. Thought it might interest someone.
This video includes Halo, even though it isn't really about Halo. A system admin trying to while away the day playing Halo multiplayer causes office mayhem when dealing with people who don't quite speak the same language he does.
A must-see if you haven't already.
A new version of Aleph One, the open source engine for playing Marathon, is available. It fixes a few bugs and all current players are urged to update.