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.