Trivia
The complete Marathon trilogy has been freely released by Bungie to the public, you can download your copy at http://trilogyrelease.bungie.org/ .
Be aware that these are the original Mac releases and the W95 Marathon 2 is not included in the pack so you are going to need a Mac emulator or Aleph One (http://source.bungie.org/) to run the titles.
Contributed by
Zovni (9138) on Jun 28, 2005.
In 2000, when Bungie was bought by Microsoft, the full source code was released. Ever since, people have been modding the game. There even are ports for the Linux and BeOS platform. The full development diary and all the latest binaries can be found at Bungie's source page.
Contributed by
Sciere 
(119292) on Dec 26, 2004.
Halo can in many ways be seen as a spiritual successor to the Marathon series; a way of bringing their Marathon innovations to a bigger crowd. The following Halo features stem directly from the Marathon series:
- Dual wielded weapons with dual firing modes
- Weapon clips
- The alien pistol, SPNKR rocket launcher, Needler, magnum megaclass and assault rifle are all direct descendants of Marathon weapons, right down to the names.
- Rogue/Rampant AI constructs
- Alien technology not even the aliens know what is (The Forerunner in Halo; The Jjaro in Marathon)
- "Releasing an ancient terror from the stars upon the universe by activation of ancient alien artifact" (The Wr'knkacnter for Marathon, the Flood for Halo)
- The UNSC in Halo is a redux of the UESC of Marathon: United Earth Space Council / United Nations Space Council
The Marathon logo is used repeatedly in Bungie's more recent xbox/pc game, Halo. Bungie must really like that circle/circle motif
The subtitle, Durandal, stems from a rogue artificial intelligence that is both aiding and foiling the player through the course of the game.
The Marathon games were originally a Macintosh-platform series, and introduced numerous multiplayer games and effects not seen on the PC through DOS or Windows for years, including twin pistol action. Marathon 2: Durandal was the only Marathon game to be ported over to Windows.
The B.O.B. colonists take their names from the storyline- B.O.B. stands for "Born on Board", or not born on a planet or moon.
