Beaten: Marathon: Durandal (XBox 360 via XBox One) and the Glory of XBox Backwards Compatability

Before the Halo series and whatever they did after that, game studio Bungie cut their development teeth on a first person shooter series called Marathon, released primarily on Apple Macintosh computers in the middle 1990s. While I was enjoying the joys of this new genre on the Atari Jaguar and then the Sony PlayStation, PC and Mac elites got the best of the best, and Marathon 2: Durandal was one of the best.

For some reason, perhaps riding high on all that Halo 3 cash, Bungie re-released Marathon 2: Durandal on the XBox 360 as simply Marathon: Durandal in 2008. Fast forward to 2020 where I am equipped with a new sense of direction in terms of playing old games I missed over the years as well as a gift card for the online store, enabling a very cheap purchase of this forgotten masterpiece.

It’s a science fiction first person shooter a la Doom, but with aliens. If that sounds standard, it is, but it’s all those Bungie idiosyncrasies that make it shine. Weapons are standard- pistol, shotgun, and up the chain - but ammo can be scarce at times forcing one to get proficient at each one’s use. In one level, I was down to fists for a time. Enemies are generic aliens too, but with AI weirdness that the player can discover quite by accident, such as by observing the horde of aliens that had just spawned begin fighting among themsleves because one stepped into the line of fire of the other.

Level design is outstanding, and of course unorthodox. In one level I was vexed for a time because I couldn't find a save point, only to realize that it was partially submerged in a pool of acid. One has to take damage to use it, but it's right next to a health station, so no foul. My gaming instincts ruled out the idea that the save point could be in the acid pool, until I was cornered and forced to dive in and check.

One will spend a lot of time in vats of acid, falling into pools of lava, and diving into water levels, all the time managing oxygen levels as well as health bars. This is a standard nineties shooter, so there will be switches to find, but no Doom-style secret doors that I remember. But there are secrets of a sort. In addition to managing the above, save points can at times be few and far between, and at other times casually close.  It is worth backtracking to a distant save point after a tough fight, as enemies can spawn right on top of the player, and one cannot push through them in tight spaces. Death can occur suddenly.

The backstory unfolds on monitors one finds scattered throughout the levels, bringing the player up to speed with the events of the first game and narrating the context of the action as one plays. It unfolds gloriously and I would not recommend skipping any of them because the story is so well crafted. I honestly found the storyline more engaging than the one that accompanies Halo.

Marathon: Durandal was extremely fun and engaging, full of surprises, and is a great way for any middle aged gamer to enjoy classic shooter gameplay with some refreshing twists. An additonal point of satisfaction for me is that classic games I missed are becoming available in ways that does not require the setup of every classic system to play them.

Right now, thanks to Microsoft's XBox backwards compatibility initiative, my XBox One has games from three generations on its hard drive waiting for me to play. I am fairly certain with the XBox Series X release, they have continued that program onto a fourth consecutive generation of their console. While not yet as comprehensive as I would like, it is a welcome change which allows me to jump all over their vast software library and find something old or new to play.

Which fits perfect with my newfound wanderlust through decades of gaming. So, good job, Microsoft.

Beaten: Assassin's Creed Odyssey (XBox One) and the Weird Ubisoft Open World Malaise

 Back in the day, when one finished a great game, there was often this accompanying sadness that it was over. All the content that the game had was enjoyed, every side quest checked off, and one could walk away from the game knowing that the world left behind was completed and wrapped up in a nice bow. But sometimes, one wanted more.

I've played three nearly perfect Ubisoft open world games over the last year - Assassin's Creed Origins, Farcry 5, and now Assassin's Creed Odyssey, and each one started out as fun, but by the middle or so I was burnt out on the endlessness of the game world and was ready to move on. At that point, I would ignore everything but the story quests and race toward the end.

Am I complaining about too much content? No. Am I saying that the excessive content was bad? No, but some of it is very cookie-cutter and repetitive. I'm saying that, it's not Ubisoft's fault, but it seems my own gaming priorities and my desire to eventually experience other games is incompatable with a three month commitment to a videogame version of ancient Greece that probably has more content that actual ancient Greece.

Rushing through to the end worked well in AC Origins, as by the time I was burnt out, I was levelled up enough to finish. Farcry 5 was a slog, though, as there were unavoidable triggered boss fights that were not that much fun. The first time one occurred, I was somehow drugged and kidnapped while alone and flying a helicopter, forced into one of a series of overwrought cutscenes and weird time limited escape scenes, wrapped up with an unwelcome boss fight. As soon as the first one occurred I was done with any and all of the game’s story or characters and blasted my way to the end.

I was done with AC Odyssey, however, before I was levelled up enough to finish. So I spent days and play sessions scraping for content that I could enjoy enough to get there. There were some stupid player-made side missions that helped with that, but at the end I'm asking myself why I even cared enough about finishing at all.

Well that ones's on me too. My own gaming ethic requires me to finish a game if I can, and it bugs me forever when I don't before moving on. I hope to return to some of them in the glorious retirement I envision starting in 2036. Will I return to a finished game with unfinished content, though? My character in Assassin's Creed Odyssey sits there, on a rooftop forever, wondering if I will come back and get on all those unfinished side missions.

I cannot say if I will do that, because if I want to scratch the Assassin's Creed itch, there is already another installment in the series that just came out, featuring Vikings and such. At this moment in time, I can safely say that it will be years before I pick up another one of their gigantic open worlds, and if i do, it will probably be Watch Dogs Legion anyway.

To sum up, Assassin's Creed Odyssey is as good as the real critics say. As long as you're not burnt out on the Ubisoft open world games, you will enjoy it as the testament to annual mass-production open worlds that it is.