Commander Keen 4: Secret of the Oracle (MS-DOS)

The poor kid looks like he's been dropped on his head a few too many times. To be honest I was expecting Commander Keen to be somewhere between Duke Nukem and Buck Rogers, not a pale guy in a crash helmet and magenta t-shirt.

Whoa, it's a top down action adventure game? I always assumed these were platformers.

I really hate that 'leaning sideways' 3d style in games, it looks completely unnatural. It's especially bad here because only Keen is leaning, everything else is perpendicular to the ground.

Oh I see, it goes into platformer mode when you enter a level, and... holy FUCK what is up with those trees? They are creeping me out and I don't want to be here any more.

Wait... does he have a vacuum cleaner sticking out the back of his spaceship? And alcohol for fuel? Is it supposed to be something he made himself, if so why does it look almost entirely like a regular professionally designed production line starfighter?

Okay, the spaceship level was a waste of time, so I moved on to stage two. There are tear drops floating in the air, I'm being harassed by a cheerful red ball, the music is driving me insane, and I'm on a forest level. On the plus side, I have a gun!

Collecting the tear drops apparently does nothing. Shooting the red ball just knocked it senseless, and further gunfire was ineffective.

But hey, I have a pogo stick! It's useful for super jumps, and possibly other things too.

Nope, just super jumps. I tried shooting him first before fatally pogoing off his head, and found out that I'd already wasted all my ammo! You only start with like 5 shots.

I got past that level on my second try, and ended up here. A blind jump, fantastic.

Turned out to be pretty safe, actually. I've found a locked door with a red pedestal in front of it though.

Huh, it turns out that red balls are totally harmless. Or maybe I just broke the game. Either way, getting this shiny blue gem isn't much trouble. Plus it means there was absolutely no point at all in wasting all my ammo on the red ball in the last level.

A red gem over on a the left... a red pedestal in front of that locked door... maybe there's a connection! I really hope so, because I'm getting bored wandering around these caves.

I was right! The red pedestal door led to this switch, but what it does I have no idea. I don't remember seeing any other locked doors around.

I bet this little blue asshole is going to make a run at me the second I've jumped over his head. Fortunately I can grab one of those pink poles and leap across them to the ledge.

At least, that's my plan.

Hey, he can pull himself up ledges. Maybe this game's not so bad after all. Even the music has switched to something tolerable.

I hate this game! I'm done with it, I'm through. Finished.

Then again... look at all those names. I can't just give up on a game made by the Doom developers without giving it a fair shot. It's just not right.

Hey, you can go inside the doors of the house on the Border Village level at the start of the game. That's nice.

I don't wanna go inside the doors of the houses on the Border Village level anymore. Suddenly those trees don't seem so bad.

Well he doesn't want to go swimming. I guess I'm going back to that level with the gems and the mysterious switch.

Stage compete! I win an old guy. I guess I have to collect them all to finish the game.

It seems that I'm free to walk around the landscape and choose my next level now. I'll go to the ice world because it's closest.

This probably isn't good for my eyes. I've collected 35 shots, so I could just shoot that guy... but I'm paranoid about wasting my ammo so I'll leave him alone. He's only one dude, that's not much a threat.

Jumping killer mushrooms, stalker blobs and alien worms that shit out green acid I can deal with, but flying enemies are too much. That's it, screw Commander Keen 4, I'm playing something else.

I'm playing PADDLE WAR.

Damn, I hate you Paddle War!


Next game.