Marooned on Mars: Commander Keen

(Intelli Gaming: Game Series Review)

Marooned on Mars is how it began. However, in the end, the Vorticons were just puppets being turned against humanity against their will. That sums up the story arc from Episode 1 to 6 which nearly saw the destruction of the Earth, and then the destruction of the Milky Way itself. But here, I want to review this game series and tell you more about the story and what it looked like. It serves as a remind to myself how much fun I had with those titles. The games were developed in 1990-1991 by Id Software and published by Apogee Software and FormGen.

As usual, here is a quick Pro / Cons for the entire series:

PROS

• Controls

• Originality (6 games so it includes many things like swimming underwater, keys, secret levels, pogo jumping, etc.)

• Secrets

• Funny story-line (an 8 year old genius saves the world!)

• Mini-Games (from episode 4+)

• Sounds and Music in the later episodes 4-6

CONS

• 30 years+ for episode one and the age shows. Today's offerings are better.

• Low variety of enemies in episode 1 but it gets better through the series

Commander Keen refers to a young 8 year old genius who was exploring Mars. He built his own spaceship with various household items. Then an alien race called the Vorticons showed up and stole parts of his ship. So Commander Keen 1: Marooned on Mars is where he has to find all the missing parts of his ship. He quickly finds a Pogo stick and a blaster.

I was a bit older than Keen when I played this game and it provided a suitable alternative to Mario Bros because I did not have a Nintendo. But the similarities were undeniable and the levels were filled with secret locations which made the game more challenging. After retrieving the missing parts, Keen came back to Earth only to discover that the Vorticons had sent their mothership above the planet! Keen had to stop the aliens from exploding Earth. This is the basis for Commander Keen 2: The Earth Explodes. Aboard the mothership, Keen learns of the location by using a suspicious translation, printed by ACME. But the mothership is not the source of aggression as that comes from the Grand Intellet, a mysterious being on the planet Vorticon VI...

I had much fun playing the initial trilogy, which concluded in Commander Keen 3: Keen Must Die! Finding luck in a snowstorm, Keen has no school that day. So he takes the opportunity to go pay a visit to the Vorticons on their home-world: Vorticon VI.

Finally, it turns out that the Vorticons were fooled to fight Keen because they were controlled by Mortimer McMire - Keen's nemesis and also probably an 8 year old kid.

Fast forward a few months and Keen again learns of trouble brewing... Now the Shikadi, and alien race, wants to destroy the Milky Way in the name of the mysterious Gannalech. Keen will need to rescue the council of the Oracle to seek knowledge about the Shikadi. This leads us to Commander Keen 4: Secret of the Oracle.

This title was very refreshing. The graphics were updated and the controls were even better than before. Also, this title is the first instance that I know of where a game has a mini-game in the menu. In this case it was called Paddle War - a Pong copy in 2 colours. But also, the game had much more variety, better secrets, and very imaginative ideas. Notice his Wrist Computer!

Having learned of the evil plan, Keen sets off for the distant Korath III starsystem, where he has to fight the Omegamatic, a robotic entity defending the Shikadi. Again, as to add to the mystery, ACME is providing the translation of the galactic language. In Commander Keen 5: The Armageddon Machine, our young commander must fight hordes of robots to reach his final goal.

I really liked the visuals of this episode. They felt futuristic and much different from episode 4. In the end, Keen foils the plans of the evil empire to end the Milky Way and all life inside. Keen goes back home to his parents until...

Commander Keen 6: Aliens Ate My Baby Sitter! In this last episode, Keen must rescue his baby sitter, Molly McMire from the hunger-driven aliens from Fribbulus Xax!

I will let the readers check online to see more content but still, here are a few images to show the scope of the games:

Above is when you get the Pogo stick! It is on top of the pyramid, like a cross!

Above is Episode 4, while underwater.

This shows a part of the story as it unfolds. Gannalech is mentioned.

Above we see part of Episode 5 when the giant red robot or another hasard has managed to kill Keen.

More graphics from Episode 5 are seen above.

As can be seen above, in Episode 6, there is a map where you could go from one level to another.

The famed ship, here seen in Episode 6, which he built himself, "borrowing" the vacuum cleaner from his mom to use it is a ionic retropropulsor.

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Thanks for reading!