Bungie’s Marathon has hit the iPad, built upon the open source Aleph One Marathon engine (the only open source project I can think of that I’ve consistently followed for any length of time) and it’s pretty neat!
I only mucked around on the first level, killed a few Phfor, read a terminal, grooved to atmospheric midi tracks from the 90s. But there was this wonderful excitement I got from playing it. It’s pretty rare we just take games and shove them almost untouched into a new interface scheme that is totally like it’s original, and it makes things click in your brain about how much technology has progressed (and how much of it is exactly the same). Sure sure, Nintendo ports Zeldas and Marios to everything, but not in total abandonment of it’s control scheme. At some point you’re still pushing buttons in ways too similar to last year.
But playing Marathon with my hands and fingers making direct contact with the screen, sliding and tapping to spin my character around guns blazing, it’s something wholly different to the physical senses on one level or another, and generates a sensation totally foreign to the original game play to date.
Pity the controls are kinda rubbishy.
Check it out @ http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/marathon-1/id419805412?mt=8