Rescue Bob! 1.0

A Map For Marathon 2 By Tony Smith (bone@luna.co.uk)


What's It All About?

As the combined forces of the UESC and the S'pht'kr began their final assault on the Pfhor homeworld, the task of subduing the slavers' many colony worlds could commence in earnest. Planet after planet was surveyed for signs of Pfhor habitation or industrial installations. Where they were found, the surrender of the colony's garrison was demanded. If that was not obtained - and since most Pfhor forces had by then received and obeyed their High Council's final order to resist all such operations - UESC 'pacification' squads were sent in.

After detecting a ruined polar plasma collection facility, a team of Bobs was sent down to survey the installation. It seemed clean, so you decided to pop down yourself to stretch your legs, waste some ammo, drink a few beers. But no sooner than you hit planetside than you realise something's up. The survey team has vanished. A recce reveals the plant is indeed free of Pfhor. So what's happened to Bob?

Then your sub-ether hyper-band radio crackles into life. There's a burst of static and then a voice breaks through: "Is anyone receiving this? We need help. We found a hidden section in the plant - it contains a teleport. We were all beamed through to another station on some other part of the planet - and it's not uninhabited! We tried to fight, but they were too strong. Some of us were killed, the rest of us have been taken prisoner in the installation's lava power generation section. Help!" The radio goes dead, and all your attempts to hail the Bobs end in failure.

Your task is clear: find the teleport, beam through and rescue Bob! The first part's simple - you were mere metres away from the hidden beam-out point when you got the message, and your VuMasterª handscanner had already pinpointed it. With the fleet on the far side of the planet, there isn't time to wait, beam up and get some serious alien-ass-kicking kit. So, pulling out your Magnum, you step into the teleport. Hopefully, you'll retrieve the weaponry you need from any dead Bobs you encounter.

Here goes...

What's The Third Level All About?

Level Three is there solely to give you somewhere to beam out to when you've finished Rescue Bob!. It's required because you can't end the game by beaming out of a level without setting up a game computer terminal to do so, and currently, Pforte doesn't allow you to do so.

Why Isn't There Any Gee-Whizz Lighting FX?

Simple - I'm damned if I can get the lighting system to work. I copy the numbers from the original Marathon 2 levels, but they never seem to work in mine. Perhaps this is a bug in Pfhorte; maybe my system's on the blink. Either way, I don't know. If anyone thinks they can explain it to me, please feel free to try.

I Love This Map! You Doing Any More?

Yes.

Bugger Me, This Map's Tough

Good. That's the whole point. Rescue Bob! was designed to be difficult on the Normal setting. I normally play Marathon 2 on Total Carnage, and can vouch that it's do-able on that setting. As the guys at Bungie say, if you keep getting zapped, practice, practice and practice again.

Any Advice On How To Finish Rescue Bob!?

Just the usual: dive into the melee; wield superior firepower; endure.

Installation

Just drop the file called Rescue Bob into your Marathon 2 folder. Fire up Marathon and click on the Preferences button when you see the menu screen. Select Environment from the drop-down menu, and select Rescue Bob in the Map drop-down menu. Click on OK, and select New Game from the menu screen.

System

Rescue Bob! was written on a Power Mac running Pfhorte 2.0a9. If you're running Marathon on a 680x0-based machine, you'll need a copy of Ignore Zero Divides. This application must be run on your Mac before you try to play Rescue Bob!. If you don't, you'll just get a Type -4 error. Don't ask me why - it just is. Ignore Zero Divides' Read Me reveals all.

Bear in mind too, that it's a big map, not so much in terms of the number of elements, but the sheer size of the second second section and the number of nasties running about. This may cause performance problems on low-power Macs. The only solution is to buy a Power Mac, or do what I did and win one by beating Apple UK at network Marathon.

Legal Stuff

Marathon is © Bungie Software. Pfhorte is © Steve Israelson. Rescue Bob! is © 1996 Tony Smith. Please feel free to pass it on to friends, relations, enemies, whoever. However, it must be distributed with this read me file. Inclusion of Rescue Bob! on any commercial and/or cover-mount CD-ROM and/or floppy disk(s) without the written permission of the author is expressly forbidden. If you plan to ask on behalf of MacFormat magazine, don't bother - I don't intend to give permission. Rescue Bob! may not be used as the basis of any other new level.