Wrkncacnter wrote:I watched this hoping for some good drama, and I can't figure out what you're talking about.
I kind of see what the OP is talking about.
In all three reviews he really bashes the level design and movement physics. He really hates those two aspects of the game. Over and over.
He's got some good points, but a portion of his complaints have more to do with him than with the games.
For example, he says the story in M2 becomes incomprehensible but I think that just speaks more to his lack of interest in the story than in the story telling itself.
He also says that Marathon is badly designed because he died frequently on normal difficulty, but he can beat Doom on the hardest difficulty. That's not really a criticism of Marathon; that has more to do with him just being really familiar with Doom. And yeah, there are some pretty stupid traps and ambushes in M1, but I think he's exaggerating the issue.
He complains about the movement physics being too floaty and how it's like moving through molasses. Yeah, it's floaty, I get what he's saying. But, again I think this has more to do with him having gotten used to the physics in games like Doom.
One of his biggest complaints about the Marathon series is the complicated, nonlinear level design that snakes in and out of itself. He says the level design in infinity is so bad that no one should ever play it for any reason. And yes, there's definitely some frustrating switch hunts and you can get lost a lot, but getting lost in convoluted nonlinear levels was just an aspect of most FPSes in the '90s. I remember getting lost in the Doom series just as much as I got lost in the Marathon series. And games like Unreal, Duke Nukem 3D, and Thief (2?) were also games where I remember getting so lost that I got angry at the game. I think that was just an aspect of the era.