Commander Keen 4: Secret of the Oracle

The Good
Secret of the Oracle is the first episode of Commander Keen’s “Goodbye, Galaxy!” trilogy (episode four overall) and is a major step-up from both Keens 1-3 and Keen Dreams. I am glad that id didn’t sign a publishing deal with Softdisk which restricts companies to create games on a single 360K disk. If they had, there would not be any new features.

After restoring peace and order to the Vorticons and their home planet, and realizing that eating vegetables is not such a bad thing, Billy Blaze creates a device known as the Photachyon Transceiver, which is capable of homing in on radio signals. He accidentally intercepts a strange message, and even though it is full of static, it is enough for Billy to find out that an evil alien race, known as the Shikadi, is planning to destroy the galaxy. He transforms once again into Commander Keen and flies off to the Shadowlands, a region of Gnosticus IV. There, he is told that the Keepers of the Oracle were kidnapped to stop them interfering with their plans to blow up the galaxy.

From watching the game’s attract mode, I could tell that the folks at id were fans of the Terminator and Star Wars movies, and these are sandwiched between the demo of the game and the high scores. There are some beautiful artwork in this game, and the first one of these is the title screen after the opening credits. The artwork behind the scrolling text is a bit horrifying; I found out that Keen is cruel to his pet Yorp all of a sudden by tying him to a tree.

I like how id got creative with the main menu. The options are presented on a small computer display on what seems to be Keen’s wrist (id calls this the “ComputerWrist”). It is also here that you can access the on-line help: screens and screens of useful information, beautifully interspersed with images. It also goes into a lot of detail into everything, including the ComputerWrist itself. I suggest you take the time to read it.

Upon starting a new game, a map of the Shadowlands appears. This time you can launch into Keen’s Bean-with-Bacon Megarocket and see how spectacular it looks from the outside, or enter the many structures that Keen can reach by foot. The region consists of forest, desert, and icy areas. There is also a watery area that you can’t get to without a wetsuit. If you enter one of the structures, you see a great animation of Keen giving you the thumbs up while the level loads.

This is where the game switches to a side-view. The object here is to find the exit while collecting items and extra ammo. The backdrops may be nice to look at, but don’t let these distract you from the many enemies that try to kill Keen upon contact. Some of these include poison slugs (their pools of acid is deadly to the touch), blue birds (follows Keen wherever he goes, even if it has to fly to the platforms he is on), and Lick (they bounce toward Keen, then try to flame him).

if Keen loses one of his lives, you are given the option to go back to the start of the level or return to the world map. Some of the passages in the level are blocked by doors that have a gem holder nearby, and you need to find the gem that corresponds to their color. Some of the levels have Council members that need to be rescued.

At any point during the game, you no longer have to press Space to find out your score, the number of lives you have, and how much ammo; those are listed in the scoreboard in the top-left of the screen (which can be turned off in the options). You can now press Enter to find out other information such as how many gems you have collected, how many Council members you rescued, and whether you are carrying a wetsuit. You can also save your game at any point, not just on the world map. This is useful if you have trouble with jumping onto very narrow platforms; you just get to the point where you fall off and do a couple of saves.

If you have enough Keen for a while, then why not play “Paddle Pong”, a version of Pong built into the ComputerWrist? You are presented with two small green paddles, in which one is the computer. The object is to score 21 points before it does. It’s very basic, but then so was Pong. At least the sound is more than just beeps.

Background music is present throughout the whole game, and it is beautifully composed by Robert Prince. Each of the soundtracks blend in with whatever level you are on. The most notable one of these is called Vegetables, which sound have been the music from Keen Dreams.

The Bad
Like the first three episodes, Keen cannot enter stages that he has already completed. To re-enter stages, you have to access the built-in cheat keys, if you know what they are.

Also, there is a bug where any keycards that you obtain will be lost if you save your current game then load it.

The Bottom Line
Secret of the Oracle is a major step-up in the Commander Keen series. The game has detailed graphics and nice backgrounds. There are more stages in the game, and in those stages, Keen has to deal with enemies that have more tricks up their sleeves, but Keen may have the last laugh since he can do more than just jumping and shooting. The opening credits, introduction, and extended ending are a pleasure to watch.

The Good
This was the first 'modern' Commander Keen game, and is fondly remembered by people of a certain age. Whilst the first three games had tiny sprites and decent, but uninspired gameplay, this and the follow-ups were excellent and are still fun today (certainly the most fun you can have on a PC with just 700k). The mixture of Mario-esque gameplay, a pogo stick, some utterly cheesy Adlib music, and an engaging amateurishness fits together perfectly. The difficulty level is pitched perfectly, too - it gets progressively harder, but deceptively so, and although you can save and load as often as you like, you tend not to as it all seems initially simple.

The Bad
For what it is, this game is perfect - Nintendo-style platform games are extremely rare on the PC, and the cute graphics and bouncy music haven't really dated (compared to something like 'Puzzle Bobble' they're positively advanced).

The Bottom Line
A fun, nostalgic early-90's PC-based shareware platformer by soon-to-be-Doomsters.

The Good
Having completed the ¨Invasion of the Vorticons¨ saga and proving that platformers could exist on the PC, id moved things up a little with Keen 4, and provided a whole new look and feel thanks to a way more advanced graphics engine and improved computing power.

The new engine handles much more resolution and detail, not to mention much faster scrolling and animations. This allows the perspective to get much closer to Keen and his world, and even goes as far as to faking a little perspective and giving an almost isometric look to the levels, which makes them much more attractive and are by-the way fully populated with weird and quirky aliens each lovingly animated and out to get Keen one way or another. Keen himself looks much more realistically proportioned and detailed (complete with idle animations and much more facial detail) but neither he nor his world lose that cartoony look that makes the game so enjoyable.

Gameplay-wise one would expect things to get much more cramped up with the smaller view area, but the layout of the levels adjust to the new engine perfectly, and there is still plenty of room to jump around and collect items in classic Keen fashion, only now there are more invisible platforms and similar secrets as well as other gravity defying trinkets. Keen himself holds his old arsenal of moves from the original trilogy (which weren´t that much to be honest) and adds some new feats like the skill to look up and down to show you more of the levels, and the kickass ability to hang on to ledges when jumping, as well as climbing poles and such, feats that do nothing but improve the already solid gameplay.

Soundwise things go up another notch, with full adlib music support as well as the usual amount of quirky and cutesy sfxs, and the game now sports a much more polished interface that simulates Keen´s wrist-watch computer, complete with a fully functional pong game to pass the time!!

The Bad
Nothing much, except it´s "same old, same old"... the new look and polish definetively makes it feel like a new game, but there´s no denying that things are starting to feel slightly too familiar by now.

The Bottom Line
Looking back I think the best way one can sum up this new chapter in the keen series is that things now really take a turn for the professional. While the gameplay and all had always been solid, the previous games just couldn´t shake that feeling of amateur shareware-ness evident in the production values and misc. elements such as the interface. From Keen 4 on we are on to the next stage of evolution into commercially-viable, fully professional entertainment. Begginers to CK should probably start here.

The Good
The fourth game in the series was the first to use the new graphics engine. Very slick, and much more controllable. Now if you just missed a jump, Keen could grab onto the edge and pull himself up. Very nice.

This game is a classic - the pyramids, the tar-pits, the secret passages, the slugs - and the inch worms were great. Good story and good puzzles - an all time classic.

The Bad
I didn't much like the underwater bit.

The Bottom Line
A classic - if you're old enough to appreciate it.

The Good
What isn't there to like? Huge levels, imaginative enemies, fanastic graphics, and a whole bunch of fun. The game still can prove challenging even to this day, and still strikes as one of the defining moments of my childhood, just plugging (and defeating) this wonderful game. The ending is treasurable as well.

The Bad
It was a little hefty for computers back in the day-- but this isn't a problem any more with much faster computers.

The Bottom Line
An amazing platformer reinforced with great ingenuity. Highly recommended.

The Good
The graphics! The first trilogy "Invasion of the Vorticons" had simple graphics that just did the job. From part 4 however, an all new graphics engine is used. This new engine vastly increases the graphics. Instead of the simple graphics seen before, this game has beautiful comic-style graphics that are much better than most of Apogee's platform games of that age. The story continues as eight-year old genius Billy Blaze picks up a help sign from outer space. Once again he transforms into Commander Keen to go on another mission. His mission leads him to the Shadowlands, a diverse landscape on the planet of Gnosticus IV. This diversity makes it my favorite Keen. While most games in the series have more or less similar worlds this game has levels ranging from desert castles and Aztec-like pyramids to forests and caves. There is even a diving level where you meet the legendary Dopefish, one of gaming,s most beloved enemies. This brings me to another strong point of the game: enemies. You will meet many dangerous creatures such as the Poison Slugs, Skypests, Inchworms and many more. Also there are some friendly characters that could be useful such as Princess Lindsay, Bounder and the old and wise men you need to rescue at some levels. Another vastly improved point is gameplay. While the first trilogy had smooth gameplay for it's time, in this one it's even better. Jumping is much smoother now and thank goodness they fixed the annoying CONTROL+ALT shooting method (it's still optional, but what loser wants it anyway?). New gameplay twists include shooting in different directions, climbable poles and clinging to ceilings. Also included are some fun twists such as a secret level, a method to make Keen "moon" you and a pong-like mini-game which are nice. Another new feature that I missed in the first trilogy was sound card support. There's music now!

The Bad
It's a bit too hard at certain points, even when in easy-mode, mostly because you can take only one hit and you'll die. This isn't necessarily a bad thing for some people, though .

The Bottom Line
This has been improved so much from before that even those people who didn't like the first trilogy mat still love this (the same counts for part 4 and 5, since they use the same engine). Of all classic Apogee platform games this is probably the best one. You'll love it, it's brilliant! (This is not a surprise if you know that the same guys made such great 3D-shooters such as Wolfenstein 3D, Quake and, off course, Doom.)

The Good
Is an game like another, with an excellent gameplay and a lot of extra levels

The Bad
some about music and support to joysticks

The Bottom Line
Excellent, Joyful