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Commander Keen: 13 Years Later
16977 writes "I just noticed that Id Software is now selling downloadable versions of its classic titles Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons and Goodbye Galaxy. Although the game is over 10 years old by now, there is still a thriving community of Keen fans out there whose interest has not waned. We now have level editors for both Keen Vorticons and Goodbye Galaxy, unofficial Keen fan software, and of course the infamous Dopefish, which has by now made cameo appearances in well over a dozen computer games. However, we have yet to see Commander Keen: The Universe is Toast, the sequel to the previous Keen game that was planned but never made. With the original developers pursuing their own independent projects, it doesn't look like it will happen anytime soon. But in the meantime, die-hard Keen fans have been getting by, not unlike Farscape fans after their show was cancelled."
For someone to release updated versions of Master of Magic and another sequel to the Bard's Tale Series...Is that too much to ask?
Shouldn't he be promoted by now?
Man...I used to suck at Commander Keen so bad. That was back when my dad put a pirated copy of Windows for Workgroups 3.11 on our computer. I used to run stuff from some DOS shell...I remember playing Night Raid, Commander Keed, and Rescue Rover. Those were the days. Back when I used to dial into the library BBS and reserve tons of books. I had no idea what I was doing. You can't imagine the fear that fills a 7 year-old when he tries to dial into the library and hears his mom talking on the phone. I thought I had broken the computer. So. That was irrelevant.
The Human Cow - bringing you scrumtrelescence since 1995
God, I hated that Dopefish. Probably the single most terrible creature in the Commander Keen universe, bar none. Not even the Vorticons had anything on this green aquatic moron. My very dreams were haunted by that fish as I paddled in vain to keep ahead of that buck-toothed mouth. I lost more lives on that damn overgrown fscking tuna than anywhere else in the game. *Shudder*.
In other news, over 10.000 geeks were spotted comitting suicide as their favourite nerdnewssite went down. About 20.000 others were found protesting outside their homes carrying portables with the words "/. come back".
Bystanders were heard commenting: "Makes you wonder what would happen if google ever went down".
BTW, I think you should annoy more Farscape fans, by creating a poll: "What will you do after farscape?"
so you DON'T like the dopefish?
YOU SUCK BALLS!
Remember this was 12 or 13 years ago. At that point, that 386 was the proverbial dog's bollocks - sort of the equivalent of my current 2GHz Pentium machine. And it was reasonable for its day when running DesqView as a multitasker.
:-]
I did ultimately end up running Linux on that machine (in summer 1992) and even then, it was fairly painful (partly due to the nature of Linux back then, but mostly due to the crappyness of the machine, it was an *early* 386 and the chip had bugs. I couldn't do kernel compiles on it (the compiler would segfault on any big files), but I could do enough compiling to learn C on that machine).
In 1993, I upgraded that machine to a 486 with 16MB of RAM...and...a SOUNDCARD! That was enough to run X with olvwm very well. I always used to show off about how it didn't need to swap during kernel compiles. Heaven
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
"Please be aware the game you are purchasing will be delivered to you via electronic download. There WILL NOT be a hard copy of the game sent to you. Because of this, we STRONGLY recommend backing up the file after you download it.
NOTICE: Technical support is not available for this title.
"
So, they overcharge for software, don't provide any version upgrades, and no technical support unless you pay. Sounds like buying software from Microsoft.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I went through about 5 gravis gamepads on Goodbye Galaxy. The little screw on joystick was a terible idea. "No, no, left! *snap* Damnit!"
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
I'm sure tons of people here have seen the cult classic Better off Dead. The first time i saw it a few years back and heard the line "My little brother is building a space shuttle out of old vaccum cleaners" I immediatly had to go home and play Commander Keen. Anyone else notice this or want to speculate about all this? Is Badger Myer Commander Keen?
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
I'm getting old. And I'm only 18...
You're not old - you still feel the need to tell people your age. Young people always do.
Except Commander Keen didn't have the @#%#%$!! code lookup copy protection in the middle of the game. That's right, the middle, not the beginning. So you'd be playing through, having a great time, then get asked for a code, and....
"We finally caught you, F.O.E. spy! The real Captain Goodnight would have had the secret decoder ring!" AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!
I didn't submit this, as suspicious as the coincidence may be. I remember when I was a kid I started a bbs (Fly By Night 1:3651/6) and wrote Mr. Sweeney asking him to be an official distributor of said software. Imagine my excitement when I got a letter back and 4 (?) floppies. Boy, with my TAG bbs, 200MB of harddrive space and every phrack to date I was the shiat. Well, that and I got to bear witness to the first 1 GIGABYTE SCSI harddrive ever installed in my local net. Holy crap, we had to get the local DuPont guy to install it. It sounded like a jet engine firing up.... Of course, it was promptly filled with a gig of porn. Yes, we called it porn back then kids.
Ahh, good times. Good times.