Commander Keen 1: Marooned on Mars

The Good
Commander Keen was so well-programmed that my jaw dropped the first time I saw it. (This has always been a trend with Carmack & Romero games--the same happened when I saw Wolfenstein 3D, then Doom, then Quake.) Commander Keen uses hardware scrolling and virtual screen tricks to provide very smooth scrolling platform gameplay on any 286 or faster with an ega card. That, coupled with the cute, early kid comic-book-style graphics, makes it just as good (if not better) than most console platformers on Nintendo 8-bit platforms.

The PC speaker sound effects are better than average.

The Bad
The gameplay gets pretty repetitive after a while (which is dangerous, since repetition == boredom).

The Bottom Line
A classic game that should be played by anyone who enjoys console platform games. And for extra punch, play it on a real 286 with EGA as a testament to how well it's programmed.

The Good
First of all, it was (and still is) absolutely free ! Because the game was shareware, this first episode was kindly given to you, in hope that you would buy episode 2 and 3 (you still can!).
Second, if my memory serves me weel, it was one of the first scrolling platform games on the PC.
The gameplay was correct, with several nice features not so commonly seen : the pogo, allowing you to make giant jumps, but which can be controlled in a more difficult way (this is intended, not a control bug !). And also, some ennemies would just push you, sometimes into deadly traps, instead of killing you on contact.
Graphics were more than decent, with funny ennemies and some pieces of nice animation.

The Bad
While most of the graphics were decent, there is no real background to speak of, but this was addressed in the following episodes.
While the gameplay was generally good, it also introduces the "find the yellow key to open the yellow door" trick that would faithfully appear in just about every apogee platform game. While this is not really a commander keen's problem, this is the start of a habit that gets nasty after ten games.
The lastability of the game is abysmal as it can be completed in 2 hours. This, though, is a problem you can easily forgive, as this first episode is kind of a free teaser for the following games in the serie. However, I have no idea if further episodes suffer from the same shortness.

The Bottom Line
Commander Keen is certainly a game to be admired : it was one of the first (and still rare) successful shareware game. It also was a technical achievement, with its scrolling platform action. But, as far as pure gameplay pleasure is concerned, Commander Keen is slightly more than average. A game to be respected for sure. Knowing wether it has to be worshipped is open to debate.

The Good
Commander Keen is arguably a legend by now, one of the first really stellar games published by Apogee and famed developers id. The concept is super-simple and fits perfectly for these games: Billy Blaze, eight years old genius, builds himself a functioning spaceship and after donning his brother's football helmet and calling himself "Commander Keen" the biggest badass in space, decides to explore the stars looking for adventure. His adventures would eventually take him on 7 sequels and around some of the weirdest planets in the universe, but seeing as how this was the first shareware release, Keen just decided to take a trip to Mars. What he finds there goes beyond that stupid face, and he encounters the evil Vorticons, which have stolen key parts off his spaceship. Mission? Get the parts back and leave Mars before mom finds out you are gone!

The gameplay of Keen is that of a standard platform game in which you jump around a lot grabbing items, avoiding enemies and clearing insanely twisting levels filled with all sorts of platforms, columns, blocks, etc... You also have a lot of key-card collecting and some levels require more thought that just "getting all the way to the right-side of the level" but that's as far as it goes. While this alone would have meant a "Dear god, not ANOTHER Mario Clone!" from almost anyone, two key factors saved it from that abyss: first the undeniable charm present in the game with it's wacky yet cuddly story, cute colorful graphics, and inventive levels. The other saving factor was that it was for the pc. Yes, FOR THE PC!!! Holy Shit! You mean PCs can handle smooth scrolling and all that jumping-shooting action and not explode?? Yup. Goodbye Nes, I won't miss you... well maybe a little but just until they find a way to emulate Metroid and Zelda...

The Bad
Well, while most of my memories are laced with the sweet smell of nostalgia, I still consider that there were very few flaws in the Keen series overall and practically none in this first release. The backgrounds needed some work for this first CK, and the mixing of the jump, pogo and fire controls was kinda awkward, but overall this is an absolutely solid game whose only other flaws are those defined by its genre.

The Bottom Line
Anyway, very entertaining levels, great graphics, silky-smooth scrolling and no peyote-eating plumbers in sight!! That spells golden for me!

Really, I can trace this game to many childhood memories of my past. Clearly being amongst the kickass games that definetively grounded me into PC-gaming first and foremost since it was one of those games that proved that consoles just weren't any magic boxes and anything they did the pc could do better. :)) Ya!...but even if I am one rambling idiot and consoles are king of the hill, the fact remains that CK is a very very good platformer game.