🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <450oss$7...@falcon.ns.net>, dme...@ns.net (David Mellenthin) wrote:

> DSKe...@UMich.edu (Dennis Keeler) wrote:
> 
[snippage of me saying that I think Marathon's story is better than DOOM
or DF's, from what I've seen]
> 
> Dennis,
> 
> I have to disagree with you.  After having played, and finished,
> Marathon, I feel like the plot of the game was much more similar to
> DOOM than people are willing to admit.  I will concede that the
> background behind the story (the AI's, etc.) made for an interesting
> premise, but the ultimate goal of each level was to make it to a
> transporter.  Plain and simple.  No oher goals.

   I disagree somewhat. There are levels where you must retrieve a certain
item or weapon, install circuit boards, flip switches, reset terminals,
save civilians. And for the levels where you just need to "get through",
there is usually some reason given for it. I've only played the first
level of DF, so I don't know how complicated the goals are, but from what
you describe below, the complexity sounds about the same as Marathon's
goals. Please excuse me if I'm wrong.
   Something I liked about Marathon is the huge amounts of text and
history that went into the storyline. It was a goal in itself to get to
the next terminal and learn more of the story. But I will agree with you
that in some ways it was like fighting aliens so you could read the next
page of a history textbook. The text of the terminals was extremely
interesting, but a lot of it didn't really affect gameplay. I would like
to see more complicated goals in later games which related more to the
storyline.

  In this case,
> Marathon is much too much like DOOM.  Find all the keys you need and
> then look for the end level sensor.  Not really all that realistic.
> Now, in DF, almost each and every level had some sort of basic goal,
> restart the hydro station here, obliterate General Mohc there, etc.
> The main idea may be the same as in DOOM, find the end level thang but
> the idea of having a goal that needs to be completed made it ten times
> more interesting for me. 

   As I say above, Marathon gave me this same feeling. A lot of the text
didn't have too much with what you had to do, but they added a lot of
atmosphere. Other times, the text did give you a goal which gave you a
reason to keep playing. You could probably complete a lot of levels just
by killing everything and going everywhere for no reason, but that gets
boring.

 Also, (I know this is one thing that is
> supposed to change with M2) there just wasn't enough variation between
> levels in Marathon for me.  You had primarily three types of levels:
> On the Marathon.  On the alien ship.  And in a no-oxygen environment.
> If they would have done more with the third scenario, the game would
> have been better.  As I said, I have heard that there is supposed to
> be more variation in M2 (outdoor worlds, etc.) but who knows what DF2
> will bring??
> 
> -Dave
>  dme...@ns.net

   Only three environments didn't bother me, but I'd agree that the more
variation the better.
-Dennis Keeler (dske...@umich.edu)