Kommendant Keen

Got a blast from the past coming at you! (And coincidentally, when you think about it, what really is a blast from the past? A time traveling explosion?  Sounds dangerous, but that’s beside the point). What I got for you today is Commander Keen!

That is a terrible robot design

Developed by id Software and originally released in 1990, the Commander Keen games are side scrolling plat formers with cartoony art and a comedic style to them. What plot there is something similarly simple and silly like “find the parts that were stolen from your spaceship!” or “Save all of the Earth’s major landmarks from aliens!”

Neat looking spaceship

The Commander Keen series has been joked about or referenced in numerous other video games, probably because some of the people who played it when they were kids are developers themselves now. The most notable of which is the “Dopefish”, a enemy from one of the Keen games that has been spotted in numerous other video games over the years, from Quake, to Max Payne, to Hitman, to Warcraft 3, that fish is everywhere.

So now you know where this damn fish comes from

The Commander Keen games were made in a series of trilogies, and in an attempt to get more people to buy the games, the first part of the trilogies were made shareware so people would spread those episodes around and people would get interested in the other episodes, the ones they would have to pay for. If you like platformers, cartoony graphics, or you’re nostalgic for old games, then Commander Keen might be for you.

Star date 36X206, Captains log...

You can get two seperate episodes of Commander Keen here
And you can get some music from the game here