Developer: id Software
Platform: PC
Release Year: 1990
Stephen's Rating: 6/10
This is the first set of games in the Commander Keen series. This series is comprised of three games which tell one continuous story; Marooned on Mars, The Earth Explodes, and Keen Must Die!
Basic Plot
You play the role of 8 year old Billy Blaze on his adventures through space and time where he assumes the role of Commander Keen.
The story involves Keen travelling to Mars where an evil alien race called the Vorticons steal parts to his ship which he has to retrieve. In The Earth Explodes he returns to Earth but the Vortican mothership is there waiting for him. Keen has to find and deactivate a series of Vorticon cannons which are aimed at some of Earth's most important landmarks. In Keen Must Die! he travels to the Vorticon homeworld to confront the Grand Intellect who is directing the Vorticons to attack Earth.
Shooting the ray gun.
Gameplay
Commander Keen was a side scrolling platform game common of the era. Interaction involves moving left and right, jumping, and a big part of the first game is obtaining a pogo stick which is used for higher jumps and is kept for the remainder of the series.
Keen can obtain ray guns to attack enemies. He loses a life if he touches an enemy. In the second and third games moving platforms, switches, and powerups are added to the game features.
The game has two main views. When you are playing a level it is a 2D platform scrolling view. When traveling between levels there is a top down map-orientated view.
Using the pogo stick.
Positives
This series was one of the first to bring the look and feel of the Nintendo Entertainment System to the DOS PC. The 2D side scrolling game engine was popular at the time.
It is a well polished game and has a surprisngly solid story considering.
Negatives
This game didn't create anything new, it only provided to DOS gamers what those that had Nintendo units already had.
Memorable Moments
I played this entire series WELL after it came out when I was at university.
This game was a child fav of mine. I remember thinking he's bloody lucky to be wearing a helmet because of the amount of times I smashed his head into a ceiling with the pogo stick. Firing the laser gun was also pretty cool because it really fried the aliens and then they just sat there like creepy dark corpses.
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