Marathon

Doom started a revolution: it took the concept of First Person Shooters beyond a mere running and shooting, introducing good graphics and the use of switches and keys.

Then, Bungie Software came up with Marathon.

By the beginning of the 1990's, Mac games were lame, and they couldn't stand against PC games, a fact that distressed Mac users. Marathon proved Mac games could be as good as PC games or even better.

As stated on Bungie's website, "Marathon would introduce elements that would become recurring themes in the Bungie experience – networked play, full 3D movement, state of the art graphics, and advanced, disembodied AI characters that aided the player…"

Concerning the "state of the art graphics", the characters (which weren't as pixelated as in other games) were represented in eight different ways, depending on your point of view, and the scenarios where claustrophobic and creepy.

It indeed had full 3D movement, supported by Marathon's unique physics model. In vacuum levels you would move slowly, as your oxygen meter (yes, you had one) depleted. When you fired a rocket with your rocket launcher, the aliens, known as the Phor, would be thrown far away, staying for a while suspended in the air before being dismembered.

The AI characters provided Marathon's best feature: its story; it was catchy and contained lots of pop culture and mythological references.

Marathon is important for a number of reasons:

-It turned Bungie into a leading Mac publisher. Since then they continued growing, and now Bungie is best known for its Halo series.

-It improved the FPS concept established by Doom

-It generated a whole culture of fans of the Marathon series; there is even a website dedicated entirely to the interpretation of Marathon's story.

Well...that's why Marathon can be considered one of the best video games of all time.