Commander Keen 1: Marooned on Mars

The Good
The one good thing about Commander Keen (and its myriad sequels) was that it broke the mold for PC games- I feel it's somewhat responsible for the explosion of PC gaming. It introduced console-style action games (and, more importantly, the scrolling platform game) to PC users.

The Bad
Commander Keen, looked at in the context of late-80s platformer games, as opposed to compared to other PC games, is a very poor game. The graphics are bland, the gameplay is boring... and it demonstrates how ill-suited the PC was for action games... a trend that continues to this day, with the PC dominating strategy games, and consoles dominating action games.

The Bottom Line
Commander Keen was a huge success, and was a very heavily hyped side-scrolling game in the vein of Super Mario Bros. At the time of its release, it was considered the successor to Captain Comic and one could not avoid mention of the game in PD/SW software catalogues and BBSes. It was designed for mid-to-high spec machines of the time, and was considered something of a wonder.

CK, in my opinion, plays like one of the many boring SMB clones that came out on the NES. The game physics are tolerable, the gameplay is repetitive and somewhat on the slow side. The graphics are average- poor in comparison to any game on any other platform of the time, but for the PC it was decent.

At the time of its release, I was a big Commodore 64/128 user- the Great Giana Sisters and Creatures were 2 hugely popular platformers from the same era, and I played them incessantly. Perhaps the C64's colorful graphics and suitability for action games jaded my eye, because I couldn't believe how utterly lame CK was. After all the hype, the $2000 PC was playing a game technologically inferior to a game played on a $99 C64, let alone the $99 NES and SMS, whose games were responsible for CK.

In the long run, of course, the PC platform has proven itself. Games like CK are responsible- the games necessitated the upgrading and outfitting of PC systems in order to play them properly, lifting the PC market out of the CGA 4.77 mHz rut it'd been in since 1983. Historically the game is important, and I keep a copy on my HD... but it isn't really on a par with any of the other platform games from the same era, and was very quickly superseded in quality and gameplay by other PC games.

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
The first game in the opening trilogy. You got this game free, and then had to buy the next two. Let's just say that this was good enough to make me splash out on parts 2 & 3. It was a natural succesor to Captain Comic, but a much better game.

The graphics were good - very clear and easy on the eyes. The PC speaker sounds were cute and very well done for the time. The story was invloving and the puzzles were tricky without being frustrating.

The Bad
The control system was poor. Your Jump and Pogo buttons were CTRL and ALT. Your fire was CTRL+ALT. This made running, jumping and pogoing a hit a miss affair as you charged down the corridor only to find yourself wasting ammo rather than jumping the tricky ravine.

The Bottom Line
In every way a classic. Obviously it was vastly inferior to the later CK games with the new engine (CK4 onwards), but for a long time it captivated me like few other games have managed.