September 2007 Archives

A truly entertaining, original and challenging game, Commander Keen is a platformer in the vein of Duke Nukem (1 or 2) or the former installations of Super Mario Bros. The game, in fact, plays a lot like the original Duke Nukem with less shooting.

Early game, incidentally, there is little reason to shoot. They don't provide you with any ammo at the beginning, and you acquire very little throughout. Yet, shooting is a skill you have to master, because it's necessary in order to beat the game. I use the term "skill" because you have to hit the ctrl key and alt key at the same time to produce a blast. This is my one disappointment. They really should have made it easier to fire your weapon, especially since your weapon gets used more frequently in the two sequels that follow. I'll have more on that later.

One of the fun aspects of the game is the exploration. In each level, you need to proceed to the exit to "finish" it, but sometimes getting to the exit is a difficult task. In some cases, the challenge lies in finding the exit, and other times getting to the exit. Each level is filled with various items (for points), charges for your blaster, and menacing foes. If you get too caught up in trying to get all the items in a level, you'll find yourself dead before you can reach the finish.

Overall, however, the challenge added to the game. It wouldn't be quite as fun if it were easy to beat.

Commander Keen The Earth Explodes

This is everything a game sequel should be. New collectibles, new enemies, and a new weapon (well, its function is the same but it looks different). This time the setting for the game is the Vorticon ship. One bad move results in the detonation of Earth. Same fun game-play, more challenge.

Commander Keen Must Die

Another Commander Keen sequel? Great! Only this one isn't quite as good as its predecessors. They decided to change up the enemies and items again, but this time they didn't really receive a full makeover. Each level feels a bit too much like the last, and only gets progressively harder. More often than not, you find yourself looking for the quickest way out instead of exploring or dawdling. The charges you can obtain for your weapon are superfluous at times, and insufficient at other. The extra Keens you can get are unbalanced as well; too many early game, not enough late game. The game-play, of course, is basically the same as the last but there's a lot more shooting in this one.

In all honesty, though, there's only so much bad I can say about the Commander Keen trilogy. After all, it's Commander Keen; it's a classic DOS game. It isn't just some sort of "kid's game", it's a game that's challenging and fun, even for a seasoned gamer like me.

This article was originally published on September 24, 2007.

Recently I achieved a feat I was never able to accomplish before: I built a Megalopolis in SimCity. My map of choice? - No. 61 - a map highly recommended for building large cities in one of the three guidebooks I purchased in Japan. Map selection is actually quite crucial to the development of your city and it's best to plan accordingly.

After completing all of the scenarios (damn you Detroit and Las Vegas), and building a Metropolis in practice mode, I decided it was time to try my hand at a real city. While I still lived in Japan, I managed to create a sizable city of 480,000 people, but I was never able to reach the Megalopolis status (population 500,000). Part of the problem was the SNES cartridges. They're supposed to be able to store saved games, but more often than not you'd insert the game into the console after a few weeks of negligence, only to find that your saves were utterly wiped (this wasn't a problem exclusive to SimCity, mind you). This time around I played using an emulator (yes, I bought and still own the game).

In any case, using my fairly comprehensive knowledge of the game, I was easily able to build a Metropolis (population 100,000). This is where it really started to get interesting, as I had previously never been able to create a city beyond that size without using cheats. This time around, however, things were going smoothly.

Part of the secret of creating a city that grows consistently is to avoid overbuilding. It's important to monitor the progress of your recently built residential, commercial and industrial zones before moving on and building more.

It was surprising to me how well I remembered the game, and how addicting it still was. I'm practically a walking SimCity dictionary, and yet, I had never achieved a Megalopolis before, and that was the one thing standing in the way between me and complete mastery.

Well, I'm happy to say that I was finally able to build a Megalopolis. Not only that, my city still has plenty of room for development. Technically, the game doesn't really "end" until you create a city with a population of 600,000. Suffice to say, I think it may be possible considering the amount of undeveloped land still available to me. Since I made it this far, I may as well give it a go.

As a side note, one of the things that kept the game interesting was the music. Each time your city reaches a new stage (your city starts as a Village, then grows into Town, City, Capital, Metropolis, and Megalopolis respectively) there is a new musical theme. Of course, most of these themes are very familiar to me by now. The Town and City theme aren't quite as recognizable (most people can make it as far as Capital without too much difficulty) but the Capital and Metropolis theme (which is quite fitting I might add) become very familiar to a seasoned player like me. After all, it takes a great deal of effort to build a city beyond a Metropolis. Part of the excitement and drive of reaching Megalopolis for me was to hear the elusive theme accompanying it. When I finally got to hear the bizarre fast-paced music, I suddenly realized I was no longer treading familiar territory. The theme hasn't really solidified in my mind yet, but I'm sure it will become familiar as I continue to play.

I know most of you teens out there say this game "sux", and "it's so old", and "the interface is awful" but I will defend it to the end (this isn't to say that I don't play more modern games either). SimCity is a fabulous game and you really have no idea how much strategy and depth is involved until you investigate it for yourself.

This article was originally published on September 22, 2007.