Raptor: Call of the Shadows

Originally written on 3/27/2011

The Best Game Never Played

Introducing the Genre

I don’t have too much experience with the top down, auto scrolling arcade style shooter. I suppose the first example was Space Invaders. Then came the likes of Gradius, Solar Striker, or 1942. The latest entry is a mini-game The Lost Viking, an easter egg in Starcraft II.

Introducing the Game

Another entry from the Shareware era. This is a top down shooter with one fighter aircraft against a few million. That’s all you really need to know about Raptor: Call of the Shadows.

Gameplay

Fire, fire, fire! The game automatically scrolls forward and wave after wave of enemies come at you. Shoot them all. It’s a classic formula at its best. I’m not even a big shooter fan, but I enjoyed this one.

After each mission, you get a chance to upgrade your ship with all sorts of weapons, using all the cash you earned from blowing up everything in the level before. The choice of how to upgrade looks like there are options, but really the top tier are all you’ll need.

It’s simple to learn, and challenging enough to be satisfying.

Story

There might be a story, I’m not so sure. Games where you shoot anything that moves don’t usually need much of a story.

Graphics

For the era, the graphics were top notch. The graphics for this kind of game need only be so good. Monitors at the time were higher resolution than most televisions. So, graphics on a computer based shooter were superior to anything on a console.

Music

There is music, but other than the main menu theme, I can’t recall much of it. It’s present, but not exceptional. It may even be absent and it would not affect the gameplay much.

Sound

There’s the gunfire and explosions that you’d expect. And it’s solid enough. Like the music, it’s not exceptional. It would take more away from the game if you turned off the sound more than if you turned off the music, but that’s not saying much.

Controls

Hold down fire, never let up! Unlike Space Invaders, besides left and right, you can move up and down around the screen. The most difficult aspect of the control scheme is collecting so many weapons, swapping through them can take some time, enough time that by the time you find the one you need, you most likely won’t need it anymore. But that’s easily solved by selling all the weapons you don’t need and only keeping the strongest and functionally unique.

Multiplayer

There’s no official multiplayer. You can always compete for high scores, though.

Depth/Replayability

It appears to have slightly more depth than it would at first appear. There are a dozen or so different weapons, but you’ll end up using only the top tier. Once you get as strong as possible, there’s not much else to shoot for other than finishing all the levels.

You can save your game, which is a feature not usually seen in this kind of shooter. So you can pick up and play, or drop it within moments, making it easier to pick up than most. Normally when you pick up a shooter, if you intend to finish it, it could take about an hour. I’d sooner pick up this shooter than most others for that reason.

Personal

One of my favorite shooters, including Space Invaders Extreme and The Lost Viking.

As simple as this game is, I’m surprised I like it so much. It has some real staying power. I normally don’t even like those type of shooters.

Boiling it Down

Solid shooter for anyone.

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Commander Keen

Originally written on 3/27/2011

The Best Game Never Played

Introducing the Genre

I’m an old school platformer junkie. There was a time where I couldn’t get enough. I would download any Shareware platformer I could find, Cosmo’s Cosmic Adventure, Duke Nukem 1 & 2, Crystal Caves, Secret Agent, Clyde’s Adventure, Jazz Jackrabbit, Elf Land, Iron Blood, Monster Bash, Jill of the Jungle, and Prince of Persia. And that’s just the PC market. On consoles, I was just as obsessed, Megaman, Sonic, Mario, Joe & Mac, X-Men, Castlevania, Donkey Kong Country, Earthworm Jim, Metroid, Adventure Island, the Super Star Wars series, even Zelda 2.

Introducing the Game

This game has an interesting history. It could be said that Mario is the bastard father of this game. The founders of ID software, before Doom skyrocketed them to infamy, are responsible for creating this game. Their original intent was to recreate Super Mario Bros for the PC. They showed their recreation to Nintendo, but were rejected. Nintendo wasn’t interested in expanding to the home PC market. Rather than let all their work go to waste, ID swapped some sprites and created a new hero, Commander Keen!

The character of Commander Keen has had 7 full games under his belt. At that time, that was more than any other side scrolling series, including Mario and Megaman. How or why the character hasn’t persisted is a mystery to me.

Gameplay

Since Mario was the illegitimate father of this game, there’s bound to be more than a few similarities. Running, jumping, collecting items, reach the exit. It doesn’t have anything you haven’t seen before somewhere else by now. But for the time, on the PC, it was revolutionary. For the platformer junkie looking for something new(since there’s a distinct lack of platformers anymore), this is a classic.

Story

Kid-genius Billy Blaze invents a rocket ship, goes to Mars, crashes, has to find replacement parts. He dons a football helmet and becomes his alter-ego, Commander Keen! On Mars, he finds a race of aliens intent on blowing up the Earth. That’s the story for the first three episodes. Episodes 4 and 5 are a new series that remains very faithful to the original. Commandeer Keen explores another planet, discovers a threat to the galaxy, and must stop it. Commander Keen 6: Aliens Ate My Babysitter has Keen rescuing his babysitter… from aliens. And Keen Dreams is all about Keen saving a dream world, like Super Mario Bros 2.

With storylines like saving a babysitter or saving a dream world, the game doesn’t take itself too seriously. The lightheartedness of the story matches the lightheartedness of the graphics. It has all the dramatic tension of a Saturday morning cartoon.

Graphics

Even though Super Mario Bros was the inspiration, the graphics are a generation and a half ahead of the NES. It would have looked normal on the SNES or Genesis. As each game was released, the graphics improved. They still hold up well as one of the better sprite based games in the 90s for the PC.

I imagine a revival would be 3d models on a 2d plane. I don’t know how well it would work in a 3d platforming environment like Mario 64. But I wouldn’t shun it.

Music

Cheerful and chipper the whole way through. A few of the tunes will get in your head. Not enough to add to my ipod for running or working out, but it’ll definitely get you in a good mood.

Sound

The game came out in the early 1990s. You have the option of using the PC speaker, or a sound card. The sounds, PC speaker and sound card sound similar enough. So don’t expect too much. It sounds like an early platformer should. The later versions all keep a similar soundfont, with slight improvements, just like Mario. Even though technology advanced, that “sproing” noise was always present in one form or another when Mario jumps.

Controls

Jump, shoot, walk. Mario originally carried a gun and shot bullets, but that idea was eventually dropped before the final release. So for Keen to pick it up, it’s like a tribute.

Multiplayer

None, unless you hand the keyboard back and forth each life or level.

Depth/Replayability

There’s no real depth to the game. One run through will be the same as the next. But it’s as replayable as long as platformers are fun. Even though I’ve beaten it 100 times, Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World are still fun. So is Keen. Classics never go out of style.

Personal

The one-eyed aliens with eyestalks are cute.

ID and Epic Megagames are to platformer games like Sierra and Lucas Arts are to point and click adventure games.

There was a time when I was much younger, that I could play the first few levels blindfolded, literally.

Commander Keen episode 4 is the first instance of an ID mascot, the Dopefish. It’s the dumbest creature in the universe, its thoughts are limited to swim, swim, eat, swim, swim. It’s a big bloated green slick skinned fish with googily eyes and buck teeth. The Dopefish has a cameo appears in some other ID titles like Quake and Quake 3. There’s even a site dedicated to Dopefish merchandise like mugs, mousepads, and I think a plushie. There’s a screenshot gallery of glimpses of Dopefish in the wild, and Dopefish graffiti. The weird creature has quite a following!

Commander Keen makes a cameo appearance in Doom 2.

Boiling it Down

The PC’s revolutionary entry into the side scrolling platformer genre. An entry that platformer fans should not be without.