Marathon Infinity
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Bungie's Pathways Into Darkness comes back to Mac for free
Back before Halo was the biggest title on Microsoft's Xbox, it was actually planned as a Mac title. That's because Bungie, the game's developer, was actually a Mac game company -- they made a number of really terrific shooters for the Mac, including Marathon (which has since been released on iOS along with its sequels). But the company's first game was Pathways into Darkness, and now, 20 years after its release in 1993, Bungie's first commercial release has come in a free version to the Mac App Store. The game's been "painstakingly recreated" by Bruce Morrison, a former employee from Ngmoco and Freeverse, for his company, Man Up Time Studios. Bruce notes that developer Mark Levin worked with him on the coding for Pathways' new version. Pathways features the award-winning first-person adventure gameplay that started earning Bungie its reputation back in the day. It's great to have this classic game back on the Mac, and it's even better to get to play and download it for free.
Full Marathon trilogy now available on iOS
The original Marathon has been free ever since it debuted on iOS, leading the way for Marathon 2: Durandal to launch last December, also as a free app. Now the final game in the Marathon trilogy, Marathon Infinity, is available on iOS.Marathon Infinity also debuts on iOS as a free universal app for both iPad and iPhone/iPod Touch devices. Marathon Infinity is a lot like the other two Marathon games on iOS: you get the full original game, but if you want higher-resolution graphics you can pony up two bucks.
Bungie fan porting Marathon to iPad, Marathon Infinity going open source
Daniel Blezek has been working on an iPad port of Bungie's nearly 20-year-old franchise for quite some time now -- more or less since the iPad launched in January of 2010, he says. Years of perseverance, a loving family, and some basic technical chops allowed Blezek to complete the port recently. Bungie and Blezek expect it to arrive on the App Store any minute, pending Apple approval, for the low, low price of zero dollars. If that weren't enough, Bungie has released the final game of the Marathon trilogy, Infinity, to the open source community, meaning it's likely to be included in the iPad App. Between the release of an iOS App recently and Marathon this week, it looks as though Bungie's support for the iOS platform is really up and running.
Bungie ponders a Marathon revival
In the latest weekly update from Bungie, a fan asks: "Marathon and XBLA (referring to Xbox Live Arcade): is it at all possible?" Bungie, via Frankie, responds "Of course it's possible, it's just not on any current agenda. If it's any consolation, many, many people think it's a good idea." It sucks that the statement is technically closer to a denial than a confirmation, but that won't matter: any time Bungie even mentions its legendary (originally Mac-only, I'll have you know) first person shooter series it's an excuse for Marathon fans to break out the bubbly. Just make sure you're not around when the fans swap the champagne for an M-75 combination assault rifle and grenade launcher after they realize that after they* stole Halo from the Mac platform for their* Xbox platform, they* could also be about to steal the definitive Mac game. *"They" of course refers to a certain software company beginning with the word "Micro" and ending with the word "evil".
