Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons: Keen Must Die!
released on Dec 18, 1990
An episode of Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons
Commander Keen's very first adventure, and the debut of id's groundbreaking side-scrolling technology. In the game you play the role of Commander Keen: the alter-ego of an eight year-old genius by the name of Billy Blaze. When Billy learns that the Earth is in danger, he dons his brother's football helmet and his homemade interstellar spaceship to become Commander Keen -- Defender of the Earth!
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The weakest of the trilogy, in my opinion. Instead of the world map being straight forward so you can progress at you own pace, it is instead a teleporter maze, making it very difficult to keep track of where you are and where you are going. The blaster pickups in this are even more confusing, because it uses the same sprites as the wall blasters, so you never know if it's an ammo pickup or a trap. Worst of all, it has the worst maze level of the entire trilogy. The other two games had mazes, sure, but they were small and contained to not overwhelm the player. This maze just goes all over the place, and has dead-ends that have just small enough of an opening that Keen can't get through. That's just bad level design to me. The boss fight with Mortimer McMire was fun enough, but the game surrounding it is just infuriating.
I gotta admit I lost my patience with this one. I was already using save states but towards the end of this pretty annoying adventure, I switched over to using God Mode cheats just to see all the levels.
The suburban setting for a lot of these maps is charming at first before the game reuses the house designs a lot. Some levels had decent design and a captivating use of assets, but a lot of them bland and repetitive. Enemies are tamer than the second episode but they are also spammed around a lot more. In fact, the game's use of enemies and obstacles are more annoying than both other episodes combined.
There's a regression of creativity compared to the second game too. There weren't many clever tricks although the final boss is pretty good and works with Keen's moveset.
Even though replaying this Commander Keen trilogy was disappointing, I'm glad I can close the book on these games. Impressive for their time, better things were ahead for the franchise and PC platformers in general.
The suburban setting for a lot of these maps is charming at first before the game reuses the house designs a lot. Some levels had decent design and a captivating use of assets, but a lot of them bland and repetitive. Enemies are tamer than the second episode but they are also spammed around a lot more. In fact, the game's use of enemies and obstacles are more annoying than both other episodes combined.
There's a regression of creativity compared to the second game too. There weren't many clever tricks although the final boss is pretty good and works with Keen's moveset.
Even though replaying this Commander Keen trilogy was disappointing, I'm glad I can close the book on these games. Impressive for their time, better things were ahead for the franchise and PC platformers in general.
A brilliant climax to a brilliant trilogy.
After facing them on Mars and on their own ship, Keen journeys to the Vorticons' home world in Keen Must Die! Keen had discovered at the end of the second game that the Vorticons were merely slaves, mind-controlled by something (or someone) called The Grand Intellect. He sets off through their planet to free the Vorticons from this mysterious menace.
Once again, this game improves on what came before. The levels are vast and beautifully laid-out. New powerups and pickups add new dimensions to the gameplay. The aesthetic of the Vorticon homeworld is charming and fleshed out, feeling very different from the first two games (you're actually OUTSIDE), and the new enemy types are some of the most challenging yet. This is definitely the hardest of the trilogy, but it lets you choose your own difficulty in some of the harder levels. You'll encounter a few labyrinths full of power-ups that have an exit right near the beginning, the equivalent of those exits in roller coaster lines for anyone who wants to check out. The only issue here is that you can't replay levels to check out whatever you skipped, but it's a pretty cool inclusion for 1990.
This is the finale for this trilogy, and the scale of the ending, while a bit quaint now, was the coolest thing I'd ever seen when I was 8. The villain reveal is a bit out of nowhere, but it's a perfect fit for the minimalist story this trilogy has had.
The "Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons" Trilogy remains a true masterpiece of the MS-DOS era. Keen 7 getting announced is one of my most desperate gaming wishes.
After facing them on Mars and on their own ship, Keen journeys to the Vorticons' home world in Keen Must Die! Keen had discovered at the end of the second game that the Vorticons were merely slaves, mind-controlled by something (or someone) called The Grand Intellect. He sets off through their planet to free the Vorticons from this mysterious menace.
Once again, this game improves on what came before. The levels are vast and beautifully laid-out. New powerups and pickups add new dimensions to the gameplay. The aesthetic of the Vorticon homeworld is charming and fleshed out, feeling very different from the first two games (you're actually OUTSIDE), and the new enemy types are some of the most challenging yet. This is definitely the hardest of the trilogy, but it lets you choose your own difficulty in some of the harder levels. You'll encounter a few labyrinths full of power-ups that have an exit right near the beginning, the equivalent of those exits in roller coaster lines for anyone who wants to check out. The only issue here is that you can't replay levels to check out whatever you skipped, but it's a pretty cool inclusion for 1990.
This is the finale for this trilogy, and the scale of the ending, while a bit quaint now, was the coolest thing I'd ever seen when I was 8. The villain reveal is a bit out of nowhere, but it's a perfect fit for the minimalist story this trilogy has had.
The "Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons" Trilogy remains a true masterpiece of the MS-DOS era. Keen 7 getting announced is one of my most desperate gaming wishes.
id, meu amor, salas com caralhocentos de inimigos até funcionam em FPS, mas não é lá uma boa forma de concluir um platformer.
Incredibly, this game ends the first Keen trilogy by having you invade the homeworld of the alien enemies from previous games, where you proceed to lay waste to their entire civilization. You literally conduct a candy-colored one-kid genocide against this race of puppy-dog looking aliens (who you have been told are actually peaceful and merely being mind controlled!!), blasting your way through apartment buildings, cutting down whole families, shooting up a schoolhouse (kids, schoolmarm and all) with "KILL KEEN" translated into their language on the blackboard, and eventually progress to their military installations and the secret base of their mysterious controller. The idea that you're doling out this pint-sized holocaust against goofy aliens as Billy the precocious pre-teen is extremely funny and the scenario actually makes for many interesting new level designs, given that each area is roughly based on an everyday location (or the alien equivalent thereof). Some of the levels are a little too cute to be much fun, and the difficulty has been ratcheted up again. But the final boss is cool, and the whole idea is too fresh for the series and amusingly disturbing to be denied. They really went for it with this one!