/vr/ - Retro Games

PC Master Race

>>7913962
You're just too young to understand. At the time, not every game was trying to be a rip-off of Super Mario Bros. They had their own game mechanics, and we accepted that the difficult controls were part of the puzzle element of playing the games.

>>7913962
Understand that the audience for a console and the audience for a home computer were very different at that time. SMB3 and Alex Kidd were premium products on premium consoles, and Keen was a premium product on the home computer. The bars were not set at the same heights.

That said, I didn't play Commander Keen until 2015 and it was absolutely better mechanically than the majority of PC platformers.

>>7913994
>At the time, not every game was trying to be a rip-off of Super Mario Bros.
That's funny that you should say that. Commander Keen was born out of a ripoff of Super Mario Bros. The guys who founded id (and who later went on to make games like doom) wanted to port Super Mario Bros. 3 to the PC, but Nintendo shot them down after seeing their demo. So instead they reworked what they already made into Commander Keen in like a few weeks

>>7913962
>plays stiffly
Compared to Mario 3 and Bonk, yes. But not as bad as Alex Kidd.
Anyway, if you had a PC but not a console, Keen was fun. Actually I had an SMS, NES, and Genesis, and I still had fun playing Keen.

keen honestly didn't get good until 4.

>>7913962
We didn't get a console until like 1999 when we got a N64. So DOS was all we had. Commander Keen, Cosmo's Adventure, and watching my dad play DOOM when my mom wasn't around.
I'll argue though that Keen Dreams holds up today. It's charming and bizarre and the platforming feels good.

>>7913962
I played it, and dropped it once an enemy that I could not see killed me in a tunnel. Fuck this game.

>>7913962
It's mostly nostalgia. PC gamers back then didn't usually have consoles, and vice versa. Commander Keen was simply the best platformer they could get their hands on at the time, because people just didn't know how to properly program jump-and-run games for the PC back then, and considering PCs of the era couldn't do such games efficiently anyway (until adaptive tile refresh became a thing). It's therefore not surprising that a lot of these old PC gamers have a soft spot for it.

even the ZX Spectrum had better platformers than PCs

>>7913962
>Honestly, it's the type of thing you'd expect from high schoolers working out of their mom's basement.
You're not far off. Carmack, Romero and Hall were a bunch of 20 year olds working out of their garage when they developed games like Dangerous Dave and Commander Keen.

>>7913992
>PC Master Race

Commander Keen specs:

CPU: Intel 80286
Video: EGA (16 colours)
RAM: 640KB
Audio: PC Speaker

Retail market targeted high specs. Shareware went for the most basic IBM-DOS specs. It targeted a 286 in 1990. For a shareware game, from that time. This one had "smooth" scrolling that runs at 15fps. To be honest, there wasn't anything else really like it for DOS-Shareware either.

>>7913962
don't even try to criticize any game when you're this retarded and don't even realize what specs keen were actually made for. you just come across as looking like a knuckle dragging baboon.

>>7913962
PC Games didn't have nice scrolling until this time. So it was technically impressive.

8-bit consoles had background scrolling and sprites built into the hardware, but PC hardware was more general purpose, so these things had to be implemented mostly in software.

Commander was a ubiquitous game that most people who had a PC at that time would recognise. It was free to copy episode one. I don't know if anyone really loved the game but it was decent for what it was.

>>7914294

you look at that Jungle Jane box and the specs says anywhere between EGA and VGA, and soundblaster+ compatible. But then again, the game was 1992. Though, in later Commander Keen episodes, like Goodbye Galaxy from 1991, adlib, and sound blaster and compatible was added, and the graphics were bumped up to EGA and still supported CGA. Shareware was a different model from retail. Scrolling graphics could be attained on a PC in 1990. But it required a VGA card to do it. Jazz jackrabbit required VGA for 60fps scrolling. But many shareware devs would aim below that spec just to get the largest market possible on the PC.

https://youtu.be/DXO3kqMJNkU

>>7913962
Yeah these games suck, Id wasn't good until they made FPS their specialty

I'm more of a Monster Bash guy

I give you that Keen 1-3 were grossly outdated from day 1, having NES tier graphics, sound and gameplay, despite being released at a time when 4th gen consoles were already around. But Keen 4-6 are huge improvements, comparable with standard SNES/Genesis fare.

>>7914705
Earliest 70fps platformer (with fast enough hardware) I'm aware of.

>>7914705

posting more old platformers... god I miss my childhood

>>7914846

>>7914813
It's weird. I really hate seeing that filter in screenshots and videos but when I'm actually playing a game I tend not to mind as much, especially for late 80s, early-90s PC games that tended to have shit graphics.

Boulder Dash, BC's Quest For Tires, and Spy Hunter had acceptable PC scrolling in like 1984.

PC hardware was trash and hard to develop for back then.

I’d much rather play Keen than Plok or any other Eurojank platformer. At least the former was made by an actual team of developers and not some random college student in a rundown flat

>>7914213
so were Europlatformers yet they ended up worse somehow

Commander Keen was the first PC game capable of smooth scrolling- at the time a holy grail for PCs. ID Software (who made Keen) actually ported SMB3 to PC and tried to convince Nintendo to publish it. Obviously Nintendo didn't go for it. After that failure, they set to work on Commander Keen. So it doesn't hold up as a game that well- but as a technological gaming breakthrough, it's certainly impressive.

Plus... nostalgia.

As someone who played both growing up, Commander Keen was something different and felt a bit more unique.

>>7915486
>Nintendo rejects that
>they were completely ok with that shit SMB "port" for the PC-88

>>7913962
You have to remember that at the time, PCs were not designed for gaming as they were seen as office machines. So the fact that CK could achieve what they did with limited hardware was pretty damn impressive.

>>7915486
>Commander Keen was the first PC game capable of smooth scrolling- at the time a holy grail for PCs. ID Software (who made Keen) actually ported SMB3 to PC and tried to convince Nintendo to publish it. Obviously Nintendo didn't go for it. After that failure, they set to work on Commander Keen. So it doesn't hold up as a game that well- but as a technological gaming breakthrough, it's certainly impressive.
>Plus... nostalgia

Commander Keen wasn't the first platformer game on DOS. Nor was it the first to scroll. I don;t know if there were any games that predate Keen that use VGA. Most of the platformers that were in the shareware market were the "flip screen" variety, like Dangerous Dave (made by John Romero), where the game just loads each screen when the player reaches the end of the current one. Because the target platform was bare-bones basic IBM-compatible. Commander Keen uses some cleaver programming to achieve at least 15fps scrolling, which looked better than nothing on minimal hardware. Keen was designed by Tom Hall. It was the fasting selling Shareware games for 1990, at least. I think it sold like 200K in a short period of time.

one of the big issues was lack of good x86 coders in those times and many games being written on crap-tier 80s C compilers while games on consoles and 8-bit computers written in assembly language.

>>7915657
>one of the big issues was lack of good x86 coders in those times and many games being written on crap-tier 80s C compilers while games on consoles and 8-bit computers written in assembly language.


Yup. Apogee leaned heavily on ID Tech. They used the Keen level editor for Duke Nukem I, and all of their other 2D platformer games. Duke Nukem II was the first time that I noticed when they started using VGA in their 2D games. The Wolf 3D engine games used VGA.

https://youtu.be/_JQpxpR7XCk?list=PLZOK8A4t81FMbNQfFDzmE9gMaDxemeLbY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1GUopX-ABk&list=PLZOK8A4t81FMbNQfFDzmE9gMaDxemeLbY&index=2

and this one came out in 1994. But it didn't use VGA accelerated graphics for scrolling. This game still scrolls at 15fps because it uses ID's 2D scrolling engine. Jazz Jackrabbit came out in 1994 by Epic (Mega) Games and used VGA scrolling for 60fps and 640x480.

>>7913962
Those games you all compared it to were on the consoles. PCs weren't thought to be able to even play games like these, but Commander Keen proved this wrong.
Is it kind of plain and nothing special? Yeah, but it was something which was like a proper videogame, and better yet the first 10 levels were free.

>>7914205
Ridiculously delusional cope.

>>7913962
>the type of thing you'd expect from high schoolers working out of their mom's basement
That's like a perfect description of Id Software circa 1990 though. Commander Keen, Wolfenstein, and Doom were indie games that blew up in a major way.

>>7915657
Indeed. Epic Pinball was written in pure x86 assembly language, and it plays like a dream.

>>7915748
>Jazz Jackrabbit came out in 1994 by Epic (Mega) Games and used VGA scrolling for 60fps and 640x480.

https://youtu.be/BQFtSfloEn0?t=151

And the developers hid a cheat code in the game where you would type "Apogee" and the game would run in 16 colour mode with 15fps or something like this.

It led to some fanboy rage on between 3DR and Epic Mega Games.

https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action/c/OmOG-_3xdXg

>As far as the Jazz codes go, it was simply immature of them to do that, but it
shows you how the company is run. We won't sink to that level either and
retaliate. We'd rather focus on making better games, than bashing someone
else's company.
>George Broussard
Apogee

> That's a great plan, so why is George Broussard bashing Epic MegaGames right
here in his very own message? :-)
>-Tim

Code was later changed to "Apology" mode.

>>7915657
>>7916175
Compilers had always been common since the beginning of the IBM PC but got more common due to the need to support multiple video/sound standards. In of itself it might not have been an issue if the graphics routines were written in assembly and HLL functions were just used for algorithms, score, etc but this wasn't always the case. You can always tell a game like Double Dragon or Arkanoid that used proper inline asm/code optimization versus something like Robocop that just uses C functions for everything and is slow and choppy as all fuck.

>>7915657
>one of the big issues was lack of good x86 coders in those times and

there's also the issue that each iteration of x86 CPU had internal changes to it so code optimization tricks that work on an 8086 might not necessarily work on a 386. it wasn't like a C64 or ZX Spectrum where you had one hardware configuration and could meticulously tune your code for maximum performance.

>>7914886
Early games like these from the CGA era were usually straight asm and they didn't have to worry about different CPUs and graphics standards yet. although even there the programming is often questionable due to the lack of accomplished x86 coders at the time. Sierra were among the few devs who could do it well.

Invasion of the Vorticons trilogy is quaint in its own way. Not really a Mario clone. Had shooting elements and other unique things to it. Kind of reminds me of the Star Wars game on the NES. Goodbye Galaxy! Trilogy is better in many ways.

>>7916217
More context:
>"Oh man I had forgotten about so much of this. "Apology mode." LOL we were such asses to Apogee." --Cliffy B.
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/jazz-jackrabbit-history-and-review.446543/#post-31315864

>Nelson,
>The fact is, Tim Sweeney of Epic said that he didn't mean to have the Apology mode in Jazz [Jackrabbit]. It was only there for the amusement of the beta testers. He said when he found that it was in the released version he requested it removed.
>Apogee did not cry foul! Frankly, I couldn't care if he left the mode in there!
>Maybe on our next game, we'll include a joke about Epic, then take it out in version 1.1. That way everyone like you will think Epic is a cry baby.
>Crazy logic, huh? Sad but true, though!
>Scott [Miller]
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action/OmOG-_3xdXg/a3kfog9v-asJ

Has anyone ever played the GBC game? This is like, the only time Commander Keen was made for a console/ handheld (outside of the upcoming mobile game).

>>7916415

Old fansite from 2000 called it Apogee mode:
https://www.angelfire.com/games3/classicgames/cheats/jazz/index.html
>APOGEE - 16 color version, runs at half speed

It was called Apogee, before they changed the name to Apology in later patches. Amusing bit from the past.

>>7916441
AFAIK it was always called Apology Mode, but you had to type APOGEE.
https://youtu.be/oi3yBkZ9Wss?t=1065
http://www.lixgame.com/jazz/versions.html

>>7916454
>AFAIK it was always called Apology Mode, but you had to type APOGEE.

Oh OK. Makes sense.

Commander Keen = Mario with raygun
Jazz Jackrabbit = Sonic with guns

I wish both series were more successful. I know Tom Hall wanted to make a Keen 3D ala Mario 64. I think Cliffy talked about a 3D Jazz as well. But was wrapped up in Ulreal/ UT.

>>7913962
as a pc mustard race player i agree.
I've loved almost everything apogee has made. crystal caves was my favourite but i just hate keen, keen dreams is the worst
the backgrounds are so empty and depressing
the graphics suck and people say it's coded si well- I just hate the engine. i can almost ignore the awful graphics (i actually like the baked trees in ...which game is it??) but his jumps control like shit. jumping is key - that's why we call the genre
>jump and run
in my language and not platformer but jumping sucks so hard
really fuck keen but if you dare to say that people will stone you
I've got a friend who met his wife through a commander keen forum

>>7916498
Yeah you're better off sticking with the Amiga.

>>7916536
>Yeah you're better off sticking with the Amiga.

Didn't get a PC until Windows 98se. Missed the DOS party. But I had a sweet machine for 2000. I did play DOS games like Tomb Raider, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, Carmageddon, and others. The only think I knew about system requirements was when people would call their PC a 286, 386, or 486. And these different systems were better/ worse based on numbers. I kinda got that when a game like Commander Keen would say "286" it was for the oldest model PC's. I could still not wrap my head around why a $200 8-bit console could display nicer graphic's than a $2000 PC (that period, PC's were $2000.00cnd here). Everyone had Commander Keen, Crystal Caves, that game with the wizard, Wacky Wheels, or Skunny Karts, Epic Pinball, Jazz JackRabbit, Wolf 3D, Doom shareware disks/ shareware discs. Well, everyone I knew with an IBO-DOS PC compatible PC, that is.

>>7914705
Too bad Episodes 2 and 3 were trash. All the good levels are literally in the first episode.

>>7916536
>Yeah you're better off sticking with the Amiga.

Didn't get a PC until Windows 98se. Missed the DOS party. But I had a sweet machine for 2000. I did play DOS games like Tomb Raider, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, Carmageddon, and others. When I was a kid, the only thing I knew about system requirements were the general 286-386-486 distinction. And these different systems were better/ newer or worse/older based on numbers. Commander Keen would say "286" it was for the older model PC's. I could still not wrap my head around why a $200 8-bit console could display nicer graphic's than a $2000 PC (that period, PC's were $2000.00cnd here). Everyone had Commander Keen, Crystal Caves, that game with the wizard, Wacky Wheels, or Skunny Karts, Epic Pinball, Jazz JackRabbit, Wolf 3D, Doom shareware disks/ shareware discs. Well, everyone I knew with an IBM-DOS PC compatible PC, that is.

>>7913962
The only major problem with Keen 1 - 3 jumping is janky making it fucking hard to hit Mortimer. It's fine for the first two episodes, but it's a major pain near the end of 2, and a bitch in 3.

In 4-6, the lack of health for Keen makes anything above easy or normal a bitch to play. Even Mario could take at least a single hit provided you gave him a fucking mushroom.

>>7916701
>Skunny Karts

>>7913962
It's 4. People like 4. No one gives a shit about 1-3. You're right, though, it's also a relative though. Platformers of this type weren't common or competently done on PC, and this one was at least some big steps in that direction. You know this, though. You're just being a console faggot. Consoles were not without their weaknesses too. That was actually some of the magic of retro hardware, the strengths and weaknesses, and unique capabilities between platforms.

>>7916756
*relative thing, fuck it, don't wanna delete my post.

>>7916756
>Consoles were not without their weaknesses too

*cough*SNES Doom*cough*

>>7913962
>Alex Kidd
You best be jesting.

>>7916761
Doom til 6th gen, more like. They were all compromised and not even real ports til then.

Consoles were generally better at scrolling a tile map around but cut a poor figure when keyboard input or a large amount of rewritable memory was needed. Even some very simple early 80s computer games like Agent USA and Castle Wolfenstein were ill-suited to consoles.

>>7916768
>Doom til 6th gen, more like. They were all compromised and not even real ports til then.

SNES Doom was an interesting experiment with the SuperFX chip. before that, there was Wolfenstein 3D SNES, which was coded by Carmack himself using no additional chips. This version has redesigned levels, and heavy censorship. 3DO and Jaguar were starting to get closer to PC specs.

>>7916772
the only period where computers arguably fell behind was 1986-92 and only because they weren't as good as consoles at side scrollers. by the time VESA arrived PCs had caught up and could simply rely on brute CPU power.

>>7916782
Yes. As I said, Doom wouldn't be properly ported and handled on console til 6th gen. Everything before it was 'interesting' to "okay I guess"

>>7916782
Doom64 is based, though. Ugly sprites aside.

The Amiga for example was more comparable performance-wise to a Master System despite sharing its CPU with the Mega Drive.

>>7916809
it's intermediate between a MD and Master System. the memory and CPU power is greater than the Master System but its audiovisual capabilities are more limiting and a lot more convoluted than the MD's are. the MD gives you a nice simple tile map with eighty 16x16 sprites and its port-mapped video memory doesn't steal CPU cycles.

1 > 4 > 5 > 2 > 6 > dreams > 3

"but muh graphics" don't care, 1 had the best level design and most interesting aesthetics. I never finished 6 because it got so janky I couldn't stand to play it anymore, 3 is a fucking abomination and it's a wonder that game on it's own didn't obliterate the shareware model by showing that developers didn't give a fuck once you gave them money. dreams was just really boring.

Wacky Wheels (Apogee/ Beavis Software -1994 - DOS- Shareware )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vVIiKp6xMs
Skunny Kart (Copysoft - 1993 - DOS- Shareware)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0JzpjINeE0

Super Mario Kart (Nintendo - 1992 -SNES)
https://youtu.be/JFpvn1-RAq0?t=38

I love Wacky Wheels, and its soundtrack. Skunny Kart, not so much. But those games did run at 15fps compared to the 60fps SMK.

the PC port of Garfield: Caught in the Act had fully proven that PCs had caught up and could do side scrollers

>>7916756
>That was actually some of the magic of retro hardware, the strengths and weaknesses, and unique capabilities between platforms
I like the way you put this.

>>7916761
That's more a wonder of "I can't believe you managed to recreate what's basically Doom on this weak machine!" but runs like crap.
It had online multiplayer support, which makes it ridiculously ahead of its time for a console game.

>>7916804
Playstation Doom was pretty good for what it is. Doom 64 was kind of an all new game, but it's still Doom, and a fun Doom.

>>7913994
that art is dangerously based

Now compare the dark days of the past when the PC couldn't even do a platformer as smoothly as the ZX Spectrum.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT5sZxc0R3s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckqNSDALHqc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-Tzarz8NyU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTP0_tlDkI4

>>7913962
I had a NES with Super Mario Bros. 3, and I had a PC with Keen 1 & 4, Duke Nukem 1, and Crystal Caves. What I liked about the PC platformers is that they had more of an exploration and puzzle-solving aspect. The playable area of a Keen stage, for example, was often a giant square. SMB3 has vertical scrolling but you don't explore stages in that same way.

>>7916882
8-bit platformers generally have short, linear levels due to memory limitations. On the 16-bit consoles you had the room to do big, maze-like levels with more exploration.

>>7916891
yeah it's like...meh, I guess the NES is a little better if you like hardcore arcade action but the 16-bit consoles win in depth, level size, and amount of content

>>7916217
tim was always a douchebag lmao

>>7915486
A lot of euro atari st ports to dos had smoother scrolling than keen but for some reason keen gets all the credit.
Games with pretty smooth scrolling on dos include, xenon, gods, batman. Beverly hills cop for dos even looks like it uses pixel scrolling in 1990.

Dangerous dave 2 has much smoother scrolling but still runs fine on a 286 so maybe they wanted keen to run on an 8086 which is a computer from 1984. It would have really competed with the nes releasing it in 1984.

>>7916838
Jazz jackrabbit had a 3d bonus section that ran at 60 fps.

>>7917016
Keen gets the credit mainly thanks to American gamers who wouldn't have been familiar with Atari ST platformers.

>>7916864
Spectrum games were coded by mad lad Z80 assembly language wizards and there was only one basic hardware spec which was not the case with PCs.

>>7917016
>Jazz jackrabbit had a 3d bonus section that ran at 60 fps.
https://youtu.be/W1MfQ5h2gaA?t=256

Sonic CD (Sega CD):
https://youtu.be/qsAp5gb0clo?t=43

Sonic CD runs at 20fps. For the time Jazz Jackrabbit was going with full hardware acceleration through VGA, so it has smooth 60fps scrolling and 3D segments. Wacky Wheels was still EGA at its lowest, but supported VGA colours. There wis also a Sonic CD port for the PC from 1996. I think the 3D bonus stages are capped at 20fps like the Sega CD game was.

The Keen games were clearly targeted at early 90s PCs, this being in the era of VGA and 386s but the graphics still ran in EGA for performance reasons.

>>7917052
Largely for the better.

>>7917059
That first one is pretty cool.

>>7916843
>1995 game
>1996 port after several other PC games had done smooth and competent sidescrolling prior
Weird example, my dude.

>>7916843
>>7917169
Didn't we already have like fucking Keen 6, Duke Nukem 2, and Jazz Jackrabbit by that point?

>>7916864
>MY trash was better than YOUR trash
Cool. PC grew out of trash status, though.

>>7917171
Long since, but honestly, I think Duke 2 kinda smells. It's claustrophobically zoomed in and scrolls jerkily.

>>7917176
Yes, but it's not some fucking Garfield shovelware.

>>7917189
That game was a small but significant part of my childhood, thank you very much.

>>7917201
I pity you.

The Goldeneye of platformers

>>7917627
You want me to put shaving cream on your balls?

>>7917075
In around 1994-95 pc hardware was capable of snes and genesis graphics on steroids at 60 fps but it was too soon that pc developers were stuck on badly copying ps1 3d graphics.
Amiga with AGA was also capable of spectacular 2D graphics but only about a years worth of games came out.

Some amazing 2d graphics on pc running at 60 fps with smooth scrolling are
alien rampage
rayman
baryon
psycho pinball and micro machines 2 - noticeably enhanced from sega megadrive
turrican - enhanced amiga port
worms 2
mortal kombat 3

https://youtu.be/XqdHwqyjS0w?t=96
https://youtu.be/j2Y9ZPVtTpY?t=61

>>7916975
>tim was always a douchebag lmao

Those exchanges were from 1994. They were both young,. It's like the pot calling a kettle black. The Apogee mode was a funny low-blow. Games like Duke Nukem II were supporting EGA, While Jazz JackRabbit went with VGA hardware acceleration. These are shareware games. Retail box games in 1994 were supporting VGA as the standard.

>>7916975
Cliffy tried to warn you.

>>7918403
>Cliffy tried to warn you.

Cliffy was right. Epic did rule over everything in the end.

>>7918403
if only someone had warned Cliffy about the dangers of soi consumption

>>7918403
>Cliff is co-
What?

>>7918403
NES demake when?

>>7919846
Already exists.

>>7917189
>Yes, but it's not some fucking Garfield shovelware.

Garfield was released in 1996 for Windows 9x, and required a minimum 486 @ 66MHz, 8MB RAM, SVGA, and a sound card.

>>7919927
>Garfield was released in 1996 for Windows 9x,
It's a Windows 3.x game, I used to play it on a 486 with WfW 3.11. So unfortunately it won't run on modern Windows.

>>7919931
>It's a Windows 3.x game, I used to play it on a 486 with WfW 3.11. So unfortunately it won't run on modern Windows.

Oh yeah, it was. It even says so. My mistake. In 1996, shareware games were still being released. Duke Nukem 3D and Quake are two of the biggest shareware games of all time. But these do support higher specs, and both games crossed over to retail outlets. Back in the day, the Apogee brand was for the lowest end of PC owners (still supporting 16bit 286). While the 3DRealms brand was meant for higher end games (386 up). Shareware was like the PC indie space. While a game like Garfield was aimed for retail and is aimed at the 'average' 1996 PC spec.

For all the game's issues it still plays leagues better than any other platformer on a personal computer in the 80s (except maybe Giana Sisters, which nobody at the time got to play).

Played this as a kid when it was new it did not impress me at all and I dropped it after less than an hour.

>>7919846
You mean Super NES? Game was trying to be Sonic with guns and puzzle.

>>7916829
I remember liking Keen Dreams a lot as a kid, but I only had 1 and 4, so it wasn't the most informed opinion. But Iiked the goofy vegetable theme and stage/enemy ideas. Or maybe I just like bunny slippers and lots of pole climbing.

>>7919927
When is someone making a Genesis hack of this that includes the PC-exclusive levels?

>>7918437
Oh.... SHUUUT THE [BLEEP] UP!

>>7919931
>It's a Windows 3.x game, I used to play it on a 486 with WfW 3.11. So unfortunately it won't run on modern Windows.


I had Earthworm Jim 1 & 2: The Whole Can O' Worms for the PC. It was basically the first two Earthworm Jim games ported to DOS. I think EWJ1 only ran at 30fps, but was 'OK' for DOS standards. Though not as good as the SNES game. Earthworm Jim 2 for DOS is better overall, but missing a couple levels, but not bad. I would play them on Windows 98se. These ones are on GOG. I remember the CD Jewel case saying 486DX-Pentium required. 256 colour SVGA. There was a great port of Earthworm Jim Special Edition for Windows 95, that is really close to the Sega CD game.

>>7913962
I played Keen 1-3 a couple years ago for the heck of it. Is it inferior to contemporary console platformers in the aspects you mentioned? Sure. But for me Keen's appeal was that it's a different kind of platformer - one where certain jumps were puzzles and where ray gun ammo had to be conserved or grinded. I even enjoyed decoding the galactic alphabet messages in the backgrounds. I also think the pogo stick is an undeniably fun mechanic and mastering its physics is rewarding. Finally, Keen is a better pick up and play game than those others because of its save system and more intricate, self-contained levels.

OP, did you ever try Jill of the Jungle? If so, do you feel similarly about it as you do Keen?

>>7917176
Once you can adapt to the small screen size and fast camera pan (other great games have risen above this issue) Duke 2 kicks all sorts of ass.

>>7913962
That's the first one, marooned on mars. I played it a lot as a 6 year old. Also the sequels.
It was a PC game, simple as. Like the original Duke Nukem, same concept... and this was all before the DOOM engine revolutionized everything. So shit like, ice being slippery (hard to control) were new concepts in PC gaming. The limits of 2d gameplay were maxed out.
NES games had their own place, different system. If CC was on NES i woulda gotten it for that, too. If you weren't alive then, you simply cannot understand. Consider this....
>no cell phones
>no internet to speak of
Once you can fathom such a world, then maybe you could understand. We had A LOT more free time back then without being preoccupied with so much horseshit.

>>7921276
>I played Keen 1-3 a couple years ago for the heck of it. Is it inferior to contemporary console platformers in the aspects you mentioned? Sure. But for me Keen's appeal was that it's a different kind of platformer - one where certain jumps were puzzles and where ray gun ammo had to be conserved or grinded. I even enjoyed decoding the galactic alphabet messages in the backgrounds. I also think the pogo stick is an undeniably fun mechanic and mastering its physics is rewarding. Finally, Keen is a better pick up and play game than those others because of its save system and more intricate, self-contained levels.

The game that reminds me of the original Commander Keen the most is Star Wars for the NES. The Lucas Arts made Star Wars game:

https://youtu.be/WL755MO_8BY?t=187

The overworld, and level structure are like Commander Keen. So is searching random areas just to find single items. Though the Star Wars game does have multiple playable characters and first person and 2D shoot 'em up stages. But Keen has a few ideas of it's own.

>>7921301
I think the similarities you point out are apt, but I would rebut that the core gameplay looks too fast and actiony to really be a good parallel to Keen. Caveat that I haven't actually played SW on NES.

>>7921301
Interesting game, but some of those platforming later on with spike walls looks way tougher than anything in Keen which was more kid-complete-able.

>>7921617
If I recall right, they're a lot easier if you play as Leia. It's not an eay game, but it's not some ball-bustingly tough one either. The first person shooting sequences are the hardest bits.

>>7921321
>I think the similarities you point out are apt, but I would rebut that the core gameplay looks too fast and actiony to really be a good parallel to Keen

I'm not saying its the exact same game. But Keen really isn't much of a Mario clone, even though Keen started out as Mario 3. Here's the original Mario 3 demo that ID Software made for Nintendo:
https://youtu.be/1YWD6Y9FUuw

But I think the original Keen Vorticons episodes (1,2 and 3) took a bit of inspiration from the first Star Wars (non-Japanese) NES game. Episodes 4-6 are more cartoony and platform-like.

>>7921696
>Here's the original Mario 3 demo that ID Software made for Nintendo:
>https://youtu.be/1YWD6Y9FUuw [Embed]


Before this Mario 3 demo existed, John Carmack and Tom Hall made this:
https://youtu.be/cj4HJkeQSg0?t=9

Dangerous Dave is John Romero's character. They made this in secret without telling John Romero, and left it as a surprised for Romero to find. Romero was blown away that he was playing Dangerous Dave with scrolling graphics on a 286 with CGA. The Dangerous Dave games from 1990 looked like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUfYd8xGVng

Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement was turned into the Mario 3 demo, and that was pitched to Nintendo and turned down.

Just for the sake of comparison, what were the capabilities of Japanese PC systems of the time periods talked about in this thread?

I know the MSX systems could do smooth scrolling with some add-ins or later revisions.

>>7921906
Nip X68000 owners were playing this two years before Commander Keen was a thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgtkTvWOrIo

>>7921906
The MSX1 had no hardware scrolling, the MSX2 did but only vertical scrolling.

>>7921906
Nip X68000 owners were playing this two years before Commander Keen was a thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPEbU-Peabw

>>7921930
>the MSX2 did but only vertical scrolling.
Just program your game to run in 3:4 and have players turn their TV on its side.

Maybe this is an obscure reference. But did anyone ever notice the Super Dave reference when Keen dies?

>>7921939
Only insane hobbyists owned those

>>7913962
commander keen 33 and 1/3: cro-magnon keen in the stoned age.

>>7922242
That's what has always been said about that system but I'd rather see some numbers. They don't seem to be particularly rare to find for sale so there must have been a fair number sold.