This is a spoiler-free guide for people who wish to check out the Marathon trilogy, a series of FPS developed and published by Bungie in the mid-90s. Since we are apparently getting a new PVP-focused Marathon, I thought I would write up this intro for people who want to check out the original trilogy and see why it has so many fans even decades later. The Marathon trilogy is a sci-fi FPS series that starts with you playing a security officer trying to repel an alien invasion of your colony ship. The three games, Marathon, Marathon: Durandal, and Marathon: Infinity, were released in 1994, 1995, and 1996 respectively. With the exception of Durandal, the Marathon games were exclusive to the Macintosh. Due to it being technically superior to the Doom engine and the Macintosh being known as a platform with less games, this was seen as a big win for users of the platform and partially why it has a devoted fan base to this day.

Why Should I Play It?

If you’re a fan of Bungie or older FPS, I would strongly recommend this game. The comic book-like artwork for all the characters is very charming, the gameplay mostly holds up, and Bungie fans will enjoy the story told in these games, which was a novel feature for FPS during this time.

How Do I Get Started?

Luckily it’s very easy to get these games for free. In 2005, Bungie said it was ok to freely distribute these games and the open source engine Aleph One makes these games playable on Windows, Mac, and Linux. You can download all three games here and it’s very easy to install the games and get them running.

Tips for Playing Marathon

There’s a couple things to keep in mind while playing the game that will help you from getting frustrated since it is an older FPS and doesn’t follow all the FPS conventions that we know today. First, please look at the keyboard mapping in options before playing. Some of the key mappings are a little odd and you might want to change them. Using terminals, doors, and switches is essential to completing the game and understanding the plot, and by default it’s at the Tab key. The game also relies on Save Terminals for saving your game, so you are unable to save at anytime through options. Terminals are also used for other things like advancing the plot and restoring health. At the bottom of your screen are two bars, a red health bar and a blue oxygen bar. At parts of the game you have to travel through areas with no oxygen and you will have to quickly move through them as your bar depletes. Hopefully knowing these quirks ahead of time makes it easier to get into, because it’s a fascinating trilogy and I think Bungie fans who like retro games will enjoy it.

This is a spoiler-free guide for people who wish to check out the series Blake Stone, two first person shooter games developed for DOS by JAM Productions and published by Apogee. This is not a walkthrough and is just meant as an intro to the series to help people get started playing the games. The two games are sci-fi first person shooters made with the Wolfenstein 3-D engine where you play as a British spy named Blake Stone and must stop the evil Dr. Goldfire. The first game, Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold, was released one week before Doom in December, 1993. The second game, Blake Stone: Planet Strike, was released a year later in 1994. Planet Strike is a sequel similar to how Spear of Destiny is a sequel to Wolfestein 3-D, where there are not any major overhauls but it changes the graphics for the enemies and makes a variety of little changes. The first game had strong sales until the technically superior Doom came out and Planet Strike struggled to sell with it still using the dated Wolfenstein 3-D engine. The development studio shut down fairly soon after the release of Planet Strike.

Why Should I Play It?

Even though it was quickly overshadowed by the superior game Doom, I think there’s still a lot to appreciate about this series. It has a lot of features that weren’t in either Wolfestein 3-D or Doom such as vending machines, friendly NPCs you can interact with, a silent weapon for not alerting other guards, being able to travel back to previous levels, and it did some things before Doom like an auto map and textured floors and ceilings. If you’re a fan of retro FPS, you will probably enjoy playing this series.

How Do I Get Started?

It’s easy to get the games running on modern computers. If you don’t have the series, you can buy them on GOG or Steam. While they run well in DOSBox, I recommend the BStone Source Port. This adds a some nice features like customizable key bindings and improves the graphics a small amount. Just download the latest release here

Tips for Playing Blake Stone

There’s a couple things to keep in mind while playing the games that will help you avoid some headaches people can run into with this series, and to fully appreciate them.

Search for Secret Walls
If you’re unfamiliar with early 90s FPS, one important thing to know is that they frequently had secret rooms filled with health and ammo hidden behind walls. The way to discover these is pretty much by spamming the Open Door button while walking along walls.

Save Often
You will want to save regularly. Encounters with enemies can go poorly and may require reloading, especially since there are some enemies that can drain your health very quickly.

Read the Manual
There’s nothing too important in here. I just think the comic they included as the backstory is kinda neat.