Thread: Marathon 2: Durandal

It’s an concerning history lesson,we’ll give it that. Marathon 2: Durandal on iOS is some a glanceinto the past times of superstar developer Bungie Software and apresentation of only how far games have arrived in 15 years.


Sadly, this touch screen port of theearly first-person shooter is even nigh-on unplayable, a combinationof dreadful controls, archaic mechanics ill-suited to the platform,and headache-inducing visuals making it a thoroughly miserableoffering, also for release.


When Marathon was just playable with aniPad, its sequel is a Universal app, available across all iOSdevices. Still also a littler display doesn’t assist on its visualconsequences.

Afterplaying the Xbox Live Arcade version, many complained of motionsickness or dizziness, a trouble that appears to be an matter here. Idon’t incline to suffer from motion sickness, still after anhour-long play session I was left with feelings of nausea and apounding headache.







That’s may be in part down to therestiveness of player motion, which creates the more luxuriantsurroundings infuriating to negotiate. It’s fine for boxer rooms(as if you'll spend far too long looking at walls) but trying to talkterms walk across thin ledges never feels natural.


One early area in which a narrowwalkway is next to a body of water saw me slide into the drink 5times earlier I made it through. It did not acquire much better fromthere.

Oldbefore its time. Overcome the control foibles – not assisted by thetiny 'fire' buttons on the bottom-right of the display – and you’reremained with a 1st person shooter that may have been cutting-edge atthe time, but which has aged very badly surely.


When it may have been more appealed ascompared to the loves of Doom, Durandal isn’t almost as purelylovable as id’s classic – not least because this isn’t aparticularly thoughtful port.


Enemies with barely two frames ofanimation skate towards your gun, some shots sending them to thefloor escorted by a feeble ‘explosion’ - and I use the termloosely.


Soundeffects are discrepant. At one point I found myself in an empty room,with the sound of rushing water assailing my ears in 1 spot andsilence some feet away. These create the plot slightly moreimpressive, but no less vomit-inducement.
Surely,the shop does its own bit to injure your eyes, placing the itemdescriptions in bright white text boxes with green writing you canonly read if you tilt your iOS device to a sure angle.