So, Marathon... /spoilers

[Commander Awesome]

What? Didn't think Halo was Bungie's first video game series, did you?
You're far from the truth, Soldier. Halo was Bungie's ticket into super stardom, but the Master Chief blasting his way through waves of Flood and Covenant wasn't where it all started...

It all started way back on the Mac platform with a game called Gnop!. Now, the mystery of that name and game should be relatively... Ah, easy to decipher.

However, our story starts later, Soldier, so listen up!

"There are obviously many things which we do not understand, and may never be able to." [Leela, Ship Operations AI, UESC Marathon]

Bungie created a first person shooter in 1994, a little gem known simply as Marathon.

You starred as an unnamed Security Officer aboard the U.E.S.C. Marathon, orbiting a colony on the planet Tau Ceti IV, in 2794. Your objective is to respond to a distress signal, but everything hits the fan really quickly. You spend most of the original game defending the ship againsnt a race of Alien slavers known as the Pfhor. All the while witnessing encounters of three shipboard AIs. Tycho, Durandal, and Leela. However, Durandal goes Rampant, and things get even worse. Rampancy is the three stage process of uncontrolled expansion in an AI, and exists in the Halo universe as well.

In the second game, Marathon 2: Durandal, Durandal sends you and an army of ex-colonists to search the ruins of Lh'owon, the S'pht homeworld seventeen years after the original game. Another way that Halo 'borrows' elements from Marathon is revealed, as an ancient race is revealed. The game ends with you activating one of the race's AIs.

Marathon Infinity, the last title, is confusing as hell, and thus I won't bother attempting to explain the story. It uses time travel, alternate realities, etc.

What really brought Marathon out into the public eye in the time that iD ruled the FPS market was that it was based around a consistant and really deep storyline, and brought incredible multiplayer. You really have no excuse to not play Marathon, as it's open source and free to legally download.

Aleph One

Frog blast the Ventcore!

[IAMTHEGAMER]

i only read to the second paragraph and ive known all of this!

(i saw the "icon" for it on g4  ;D)