Ahh, another Commander Keen game; I can remember playing this series when I was seven. When we last left our intrepid pogo sticking hero in the previous installment of this long-running series, he’d just blasted off towards the omegamatic. He now needs your help to find rocket ship parts and return back to earth.
You play as Commander Keen, a short kid in a yellow and green helmet and a purple shirt. Armed with your trusty blaster and pogo stick you must fight your way through different parts of the omegamatic to find the rocket parts.
The controls for this game are the same for all the other Commander Keen games: arrow keys to move, space to shoot, alt to pogo and control to jump. If you press control while using your pogo you do a sort of boosted jump, which is handy for reaching high places that you can’t get to with a regular jump or pogo. Collect junk food... every child’s dream... to earn points. Different foods are worth different amounts, example: gum is 100 while a chocolate popsicle is 500. The green potion bottles are vitafin. If you collect 100 of them, you can earn an extra Keen. Also you get an extra Keen every 1000 points, making finding the rare junk food
a must.
Some flaws I think I should point out. First this game teaches kids that they can be like a super hero if they eat lots of candy and junk - wrong. Secondly when Keen dies, he puts out his arms; if he hits another enemy or trap on the way down to the bottom of the screen, his arms fold in and it looks like he’s grabbing his gonads. It is comical, but maybe not child friendly. Thirdly what kind of message are we sending when we say "ok kids go around and shoot guns at things?" Ahh harmless arcade violence. Truly, those are very minor gripes and the game is good. It just isn't perfect and you have to say something negative in a review, right?
This game has way cool graphics for its time... no more eight bit Keen. No, now we're in full VGA color mode. There are lots of new enemies including some that are invisible and others that sneak up on you and slide down poles. And then there’s Big Red. Big Red is the name I gave to that robot that’s on the title card. You can’t shoot him so what can you do? Hope to hell that you don’t get in his way cause if you do you’re dust. And what does Big Red after you’re space dust, he laughs. What a way to add insult to injury. All in all this game is great! I give it 20 out of 20 for game play, graphics, sound, story as well as many other factors. Pity they didn't make more than 7 Keen games, because I would have played them.
