Marathon: Durandal

Reviewed by:
Scott Jones

Before the Master Chief corn-holed the Covenant, Halo makers, Bungie, cut their teeth on an obscure first-person shooter called Marathon. If you're wondering why you never played Marathon, it's because the game only came out for Macs. And no one owned Macs in the '90s, except for your loser college roommate Derek. (Who still owes you $20.) The graphics? Hideous. The action? Nap-inducing. And the game forces you to do a lot of reading. And we mean A LOT. You know us—we'd rather get cock-kicked by a donkey than have to fucking read. But in its day, Marathon was known as "the thinking man's Doom." Which is kind of like saying, "The toilet with broken glass scattered around on the seat." Or, "The canned ham that smells so good but you can't eat it because it has rat poison in it." Still, if you squint really hard and take lots of Excedrin PM, it's almost like you're playing a cave painting of Halo.

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