Dear Jason Jones

[doctorbenjiphd]

I am so fucking pissed off right now. I'm trying to enjoy a trip down memory lane, playing some old school Marathon, thanks to the latest Aleph One... and I got to Colony Ship For Sale Cheap. I always remember hating this level, but it wasn't too bad... I got the platform puzzle correct on the first try. No sweat. Then I go on to Habe Quiddam (one of only two levels in the entire trilogy I was never able to vid) and those fucking kamikaze Lookers and exploa-Bobs killed me before I could reach the 2x recharge.

So I resume game; oh great, my last save was at the beginning of Colony Ship. OK, I just did this, I can do this again. Again, no problem, first time through on the puzzle, made it. Off to Habe Quiddam again. I'd better go for the save terminal before the 2x this time. What, Lookers around the corner, Lookers appearing behind me? Dead. Back to the beginning of Colony Ship. I hung my head in my hands for a few seconds, cursing this stupid game. Fuck this, I thought. I'm going to Bungie.net and using their Contact Us page and write Jason Jones a letter about how much shit his level eats.

Bungie.net doesn't even have a Contact Us link anymore? Weak sauce. I remember back in the day it was right there, at the bottom of the page - Contact Us! Nope, not anymore. I probably have to get a Twitter or something stupid like that to send them a message.

Sure, it would've been mostly a joke, maybe even an appreciated trip down memory lane for whoever read it. Then I realized the webmaster person who sorts through all their email and such is probably younger than me. Hah!

Well I feel better now. It is almost 7am, I should probably go to sleep... but I was really enjoying my Marathon playthrough. If I hadn't gotten stuck like that, there would've been a good chance I played all the way to the end. But nope, thanks to that dumb, dumb, dumb Jason level.

In conclusion, fuck Habe Quiddam, fuck bad enemy placement, fuck those lookers and FUCK Colony Ship.

[VikingBoyBilly]

But wait! There's more!
If you die on ingue ferroque and didn't save after killing the last juggernaut on try again...

[Crater Creator]

Boy, wouldn't it be great if Jason Jones explicitly apologized for Colony Ship for Sale, and then built a better level to atone for his sin? As it happens, he did exactly that… over 18 years ago.

[Shocktart]

I have never had any problem with Colony Ship for sale, what's the problem?
Its not even a puzzle. You just hit all the buttons and you win, only the middle one moves and for that one the switch is in the room.

[Blastfrog]

I have never had any problem with Colony Ship for sale, what's the problem?
Its not even a puzzle. You just hit all the buttons and you win, only the middle one moves and for that one the switch is in the room.

Have you only ever played the original M1A1 and not the updated one or the real Marathon 1? The original version of M1A1 changed that level to make the switches one time use that move the platforms to the appropriate height. In actual Marathon 1 as well as the updated version of M1A1, the switches were repeatable use, and they never stopped at the appropriate height on their own, you had to stop it manually when it got there.

Frankly, that's one thing I really like about M1A1 better. It's not a thinking puzzle, just a frustrating "tweak the height until it's finally usable". The solution is obvious, but it's absolutely torturous to physically fiddle with it until it's at the pixel perfect height.

[Shocktart]

No I haven't played the original, I played Marathon 2 in Elementary School as they were built into every Mac computer but I never owned a computer myself so the game became forgotten.

I picked up Marathon again YEARS later during the AlephOne days, it was about a year before Bungie released the trilogy as freeware. I remember because I was disappointed about buying the Mac Action sack and jumping through fiery emulator hoops to play them.

[patrick]

I have never had any problem contacting Jason Jones.