Since Hamish hasn’t yet put up the film packs I’ve been uploading, I’ve uploaded them myself, with Dr Sumner’s permission. Here are:
·
Marathon 2 fists only (all 28 levels)
·
Marathon 2 no recharge (26 of 28 levels; some duplication with old sets; “Begging for Mercy Makes Me Angry!” and “All Roads Lead to Sol…” are the exceptions, and are probably impossible to complete without recharging due to the goo/lava baths they require)
·
Marathon ∞ fists only (31 of 33 levels; “Whatever You Please” and “Electric Sheep Three” are the exceptions)
·
Marathon ∞ no recharge (31 of 33 levels; “Hang Brain” and “Try Again” are the exceptions)
…looking at that, I’m astonished that it’s possible to complete “A Converted Church” without recharging. Holy shit. I’ll make that one a priority to encode.
(Has anyone heard from Hamish lately? I’m a bit worried.)
There may be a few others Dr Sumner has sent that aren’t on the Vidmaster page – probably mostly M1-related, though there are also a few odds and ends from M∞ that I haven’t really looked at. Regarding M1, I’ll probably make a serious effort to get an emulator running Thursday or Friday.
My own progress vidding levels (I’ve been sticking almost exclusively to M2, I think largely because I’ve been uploading Dr Sumner’s films of it):
We’re EverywhereDone fists only – for the most part. I went through four fusion packs trying to figure out a way to blast the way through the secret before concluding that it must be impossible. (I thought I remembered doing this in M2 a long time ago, but I must’ve been mistaken.) I also attempt to lure one of the Compilers to the ledge with the secret shotgun in order to launch myself up, but I haven’t managed to figure that out yet either. There must be a trick to getting them to cross monster & item impassable polygons, but I haven’t yet figured it out.
Apart from that, it’s fists only, and I clear out the level, but I’m sure I’ll improve on it drastically in future attempts. I hadn’t played this level in years, or even looked at any films of it, so I didn’t remember it very well.
Kill Your TelevisionCompletely fists only, including the underwater switch. I’m getting better at this each time I do it, I think. There’s still a little bit of room for improvement – I’m sure I can shorten this by a few minutes and I can do better at killing some of the cyborgs/F’lickta, but I felt better about this attempt than I did about any of the previous ones. The level is completely cleared out (apart from Ticks, possibly) and I pick up all ammo, AFAIK. This is longer than my previous film by a couple of minutes, I think, but it’s still a few minutes shorter than Dr Sumner’s fists only film.
As for other levels, I’m sporadically attempting “The Hard Stuff Rules…”, but having little luck so far; Flame Cyborgs are almost impossible. I’ve also been attempting “All Roads Lead to Sol…”, but that final room keeps killing me (I’ve killed the Juggernaut, but I’ve yet to survive its explosion). And “This Side Toward Enemy” has given me trouble because I’m still not very good at dealing with Troopers. I briefly attempted “For Carnage, Apply Within”, but I think it’s well above my current skill level. Maybe I’ll give “Begging for Mercy” a go – I successfully vidded the Chronicles variant and, as a result, know the level fairly well, so I might be playing above my usual skill level on that one.
“People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.” —V,
V for Vendetta (Alan Moore)
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
“If others had not been foolish, we should be so.” —William Blake,
The Marriage of Heaven and HellLast.fm ·
Marathon Chronicles ·
Marathon Eternal 1.2 ·
Where Monsters Are in Dreams ·
YouTube Vidmaster’s Challenge