Pure of Heart, Brown of Trousers 1.0

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


The Story So Far...

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 fight to the death -- UESC 'pacification' squads were sent in. You are the UESC's top Pacification Officer, stationed on board the starship UESC Imbroglio.

What's It All About?

Why did you have to hack that Pfhor terminal? There you are, doing a routine survey of an abandoned desalination facility, taking it easy when you find a hidden room containing a Pfhor computer terminal. And, fool that you are, rather than call up the Fleet AI, Maelgwn, to probe its databanks, you try it yourself. No surprise, then, that you're beamed off the desalination plant to Wotan knows where armed only with your wits and a handgun. You mission is clear: find a teleport station and get home. Oh, you'll probably have to locate some circuitry and smash it, too.

You should have no problems -- assuming, of course, the Pfhor don't know you're here...

What's The Second Level All About?

Level Two is there solely to give you somewhere to beam out to when you've finished Pure of Heart, Brown of Trousers. 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.

I Love This Map! You Doing Any More?

Probably. Already available are Rescue Bob! and Dad, Get Me Out of This.

Bugger Me, This Map's Tough

Good. That's the whole point. Pure of Heart, Brown of Trousers 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 Pure of Heart, Brown of Trousers?

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

Installation

Just drop the file called Pure of Heart... 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 Pure of Heart... in the Map drop-down menu. Click on OK, and select New Game from the menu screen.

System

Pure of Heart, Brown of Trousers was written on a Power Mac running Pfhorte 2.0a10. 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 Pure of Heart, Brown of Trousers. If you don't, you may just get a Type -4 error. Don't ask me why -- it just is. Ignore Zero Divides' Read Me reveals all.

The only real solution is to buy a Power Mac, or do what I did and win one by beating Apple UK at network Marathon.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Randall Shaw, whose excellent Pfhorte2.0a9 Map Maker's Guide helped me finally suss out how Marathon 2's lighting effects system works. All that's laft to sort out are those wretched terminals...

Legal Stuff

Marathon is  Bungie Software. Pfhorte is  Steve Israelson. Pure of Heart, Brown of Trousers 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 Pure of Heart, Brown of Trousers 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. Pure of Heart, Brown of Trousers may not be used as the basis of any other new level.