Bungie’s ‘Marathon’ Being Ported to iPad

If you never got around to playing Bungie’s classic 1994 sci-fi first-person shooter Marathon or if nostalgia’s got you itching to play it all over again, you’ll soon be able to do just that. If you have an iPad, that is.

Indie developer Daniel Blezek will be porting the Mac shooter over to the iPad with some brand new control options to compensate for the lack of a mouse and keyboard.

“There are still a lot of controls. For now, there is a left thumb virtual joystick for moving, the “action” button is tucked under,” Blezek explained in an interview with Bungie. “On the right thumb, you have primary and secondary fire buttons; the weapon switch buttons are at the bottom. There are a few hidden buttons as well. Touching the HUD motion sensor brings up the auto map. The left and right sides of the ammo display switch weapons and the center toggles between the ammo and inventory displays.”

Blezek used the game’s source code, which Bungie released back in 1999, to create the port. He admitted that getting the port to run properly on the iOS was “a huge effort,” but he was able to get it running at a steady 30 frames per second.

There’s no word on just when the port is coming out or how much it’ll cost as of now, but it is coming. Eventually.

via Joystiq