Crazy Awesome Games: Commander Keen!

It was the early 1990s. I get off work from my crap of a job (that paid the bills), ate dinner, watched a bit of TV before getting down to the main event of the evening: COMMANDER KEEN! I would stay up until 2 or 3 AM to conquer a Keen level, even though I had to go to work the next day.

My family was big on games, especially PC games back then. My mom was interested in PCs, so she got the kids one back in the 1970s. We’re talking about the old clunkers with basic DOS that hooked up to a cassette player for storage and used your TV as the monitor. My brother Ben and I got real good at writing DOS back in those days.

Fast Forward to the 1990s after trying out many PC games, I ran across one called Commander Keen, Goodbye Galaxy. Keep in mind, back then, games were on Floppy Disks. So I had the entire Commander Keen Goodbye Galaxy Floppy Disk collection for the Goodbye Galaxy Series. Subsequent series (The Universe is Toast and Keen Dreams) would be Shareware downloads, links provided below.

Commander Keen was an ADDICTION! I had to finish each level! Even though I was a “grown-ass woman” I had to conquer each level of Commander Keen Goodbye Galaxy. And that was a major challenge, especially before I found out about CHEAT CODES!

The best part about playing Keen was:
1. THE MUSIC SOUNDTRACK
2. SECRET LEVELS

The Music Score by Bobby Prince is the BOMB! To paraphrase, “The Ba-Ba-Boomps got you” whump, whump, whump!

Skip to the Keen Midi Music downloads and you will see why.

I used to play Keen back on Windows 2000, back in pre-historic 1991, but the DosBox plays Commander Keen well in XP, Vista and Windows 7. Take a chance and download Keen for yourself. YOU WONT’ BE SORRY!

THE BEST OF KEEN:
The Secret of the Oracle (AKA Keen #4 on list below)

THE WORST OF KEEN:
Marooned on Mars (AKA Keen #1 on list below)

HONORABLE MENTION:
The Fan Remake of Keen 1 (Marooned on Mars, give Episode 1 a reason to revisit)

LIST OF KEEN GAMES I HAVE PLAYED:
1. Marooned on Mars
2. The Earth Explodes
3. Keen Must Die
4. Secret of the Oracle
5. The Armageddon Machine
6. Aliens Ate my Baby Sitter
6b. Keen Dreams
7. The Keys of Krodacia
8. Dead in the Desert
9. Battle of the Brains
10. Keen Gameboy
11. Marooned on Mars – Galaxy Style, remake of Keen 1

FAN KEENS GAMES WORTH CHECKING OUT:
Commander Keen – Marooned on Mars (Galaxy Style) is a fan game made in Game Maker. It is a remake of Keen 1.
http://www.shikadi.net/keenwiki/Commander_Keen_-_Marooned_on_Mars_%28Galaxy_Style%29