Strontium Dog - The Killing (1984)

Name:Strontium Dog - The Killing
Number:237
Year:1984
Publisher:Quicksilva
Developer:Channel 8 Software
Genre:Top-down Shooter
Difficulty:5/5
Time:1 hour
Won:No (104W/75L)

Put another point for the '80s being the era of weird licensed titles. Strontium Dog is a series by the creators of Judge Dredd about a mutant named Johnny Alpha, who is a bounty hunter with the ability to see through objects and read brainwaves/telepathy. It's not weird that this is adapted, since frankly guy with gun who commits violence is the perfect form of media to adapt, rather that it seems to me to be a blip on the radar in terms of popularity.

The Killing is one of two Strontium Dog licensed games that Quicksilva made in 1984, and was released only on the ZX Spectrum. The game has a bit of story, which is just that Johnny has made it to some contest where the galaxy's most vicious murderers are in a contest to the death. Kill people, get money. Surprisingly, there's quite the epic introduction. Let me show you what I mean.

With the man on the slab, it looks less like an organized competition and more like a cult.

This is animated, and shows three figures crossing before the king here states that the killing has begun. Now, this would just be a cool, short little screen before the game proper were it not for one thing, this is an awful lot like the opening screen of Zelda II. It's amazing what coincidences you find sometimes.
 

Controls are the usual Spectrum nonsense. QA go up and down, OP move left and right. M shoots, one bullet on-screen. I must be getting used to the crap factor here, because it seems better than usual. You stop on a dime and move quickly, and shooting is fast. So much that it took me a while to notice it was one on-screen at a time. Johnny dies in one hit and has no real sign that he has any abilities beyond good with gun. I imagine if I read the story beforehand I would be ticked off. It's always disappointing whenever you play a game based off some superhuman comic character and you might as well be playing as a random guy.

Note the multi-colored electrical field, it shifts quite rapidly.

The oddity of the game continues when you reach your first opponents. You've got to kill 93 murderers, and it's not just simple slaughter. It's puzzley slaughter! I'm not saying I dislike the idea, but I'm pretty sure these guys were going for Robotron 2084 and were severely hamstrung by the ZX Spectrum not being built for that. On this first screen, which becomes a reoccurring room design, there are two guys who pass by behind the electrical fields. They shoot shots which go diagonally, bounce off walls and just sort of hang around in an ever tightening circle. So you can't just camp out hoping to hit one. 

Nothing says the future like a short Elvis impersonator.

The other common type of enemy room is a series of doors. Like ye olde light gun games from around this time, but in a way that I don't think anyone really finds fun. Enemies pop out, sometimes they shoot down, sometimes diagonally and you just have to get lucky. This, along with just moving through a series of corridors, seems to consists of 90% of the gameplay. 

Now of course, these corridors aren't always free of trouble. Often the walls kill you on touch, but just the glowing ones. Then there's this rainbow barrier. It's just sort of there, it's not tricky to avoid. As I've said, I haven't read the comics, but I know that British comics tended to have gritty, black and white illustrations. This feels like the exact opposite of it. Really, this is one of the reasons why games tended to suffer until the Amiga/VGA-era. Because if you're limited in the colors you can use, but not to the degree that it's pure black and white, you tend to overcompensate rather than just drawing better.

He certainly looks like he needs medical attention.

The big thing breaking up this are the Medi-Centres. Here, you throw a flare in with X, lest you get shot and die. Throwing a flare in causes a bunch of shots to ring out inside, and then a two-headed creature pops up and just shoots in a triangle pattern. Constantly. Your bullets don't take out other bullets, so you just have to get lucky. Did I mention you only have three lives and no saving and loading? I really can't imagine getting too far in this without save states.

That is likely where most, if not all players gave up. The Medi-Centres are chokepoints in progressing through the game, and you aren't getting much higher than 10 kills if you don't go through there. But afterwards, it's more of the same. Kind of. At first there's a sign that it's getting more difficult, more enemies, but then it just sort of eases up. Enemies shoot slower, and more and more rooms are just empty. I think, because enemy appearances are random, sometimes quickly popping up, sometimes taking forever to appear.

The second Medi-Centre is no different to the first. It's appearance does not mark anything positive. I know the number of kills I must make and the number of Medi-Centres I must go through, three, yet the two don't seem anywhere close to what they should be. Is the game just really backended? Or is it just really slow on some screens?

This is actually quite the annoying screen, when it has enemies on it.

Eventually I find some new stuff. There's another door shootout area, this time the doors are not flat but sort of criss-crossing. The first two don't have enemies to engage with, but I might have killed one the second it appeared because my kill count went up on one of these screens. Although later I discover another phantom increase, so maybe someone else is killing others?

I didn't know Strontium Dog had a tarot motif!

Then there's the hanged man. At first, you might think, oh, forboding, and mindlessly walk across it. Yep, it's another trap. He's hung himself or something. Just get lucky when you shoot him. The manual actually mentions him, just saying you need to shoot him. Which, to be fair, if it didn't say so, I would have genuinely assumed it was impossible. Now, you might think this is some sort of thing blocking off further progress. Yes and no, since there's a Medi-Centre not long after this. And the area opens up after this. Which considering the maze structure of the game isn't nice.

At around this point I just lose interest in going any further. It's no longer a case of just going to the side roads then returning to the main path, no, it crosses off in a large way, two massive areas past a crossroads. Then enemy groups start getting massive. Like 5 at a time. I applaud the game for having that many on-screen in a Spectrum game, but it's just another stark reminder that this game has limited lives, you have no way of getting any more, and you had to complete the whole thing in one sitting.

Weapons:
Basic blaster, one shot on-screen. 1/10

Enemies:
There seems to be a dozen different types of enemies but I can't tell if there's much difference. 2/10

Non-Enemies:
None.

Levels:
Make a map of a seemingly endless number of the same room which display no regard for geography or logic. The more puzzle-inspired levels that the manual implied are a blip in comparison to just dodging enemy shots. 1/10

Player Agency:
It's solid. You need a light touch to move small distances, which you kind of don't need but is somewhat annoying when you do. But, this at least comes with the boon that it's very smooth to play. 5/10

Interactivity:
None.

Atmosphere:
The game certainly makes an entrance, but quickly loses it thanks to constant padding. 1/10

Graphics:
On one hand, I can tell they tried. On the other, they ended up with a very garish looking game. Animation is surprisingly nice though, which is something that's struck me as beyond the capability of the machine. 3/10

Story:
I don't think "kill everyone" can be said to be a story. 0/10

Sound/Music:
Typical blips and bloops. 1/10

That's 14, seemingly quite in the middle for the year.

This is an odd game. It's not good, but it shows that it had potential as an idea. I would not be adverse to this if the game was just not as strict as it was. It shows that the Spectrum can be made workable as far as action games go and isn't just the cheap computer that barely functions. It isn't the game that shows that it will work, but it shows that it's possible. And that, despite a quite lackluster design and performance, is what strikes me as interesting about it. There just needed to be someone with a better idea of how it should be balanced rather than just throwing more crap at the player.

I know I said I was going to do The Dam Busters, a WWII flight sim but I could not figure out how the game operated even with a manual. I mean, I could go around, shooting stuff, but in a game where you have to drop a bomb on a dam in a specific way, not knowing how to drop it is a pretty big problem. Which, if you haven't seen the movie, involves lowering the plane to a certain height. In the movie, one person looks down while the pilot lowers the height. This is a game that you take all the roles at once, which presents a problem.

Next time, I think it's time I finally bite the bullet and get on with Ashes of Empire.

Ray-Thunder (1991)

When you press start, the guy gives a thumbs up.

Name:Ray-Thunder
Number:236
Year:1991
Publisher:Nihon Bussan
Developer:Nihon Bussan
Genre:FPS
Difficulty:3/5
Time:1 hour
Won:No (104W/74L)

Said by some to be a FPS, I must admit I felt unconvinced going in, but felt like I could use something a little bit simpler to ease myself into the nightmare that is undoubtedly going to be Ashes of Empire. A Japanese FPS on the Game Boy is a combination that makes me think this will be quite easy to tackle.

The reason why I was unconvinced is pretty obvious, the game constantly shoves planes in your face. I know that technically there's nothing saying that a flight combat sim isn't a FPS, but it feels wrong to me. In a FPS, you can occasionally be in a plane, but mostly, you're on the ground shooting other people. How can a game where you chose one of three planes, and are in that plane all the time be a FPS? Because you never go off the ground.

Nothing gets me more excited for a FPS than picking out a plane.

This is such a weird game on the face of it. You're in a plane, just driving along shooting things. Underground. It's such a counter intuitive set of ideas that I feel like I'm not actually grasping it. It's an action that happens not because you're in an incredible situation in a game that has both planes and ground combat, not a game where you're always in a plane. Shouldn't they just be tanks?

You're given a choice of three planes, with varying power and speed. One with more power than speed, one with balanced stats and one with more speed than power. I went with the balanced one after trying out the more powerful one and the faster one. Oddly, the more powerful one feels more crippling to use, but perhaps this is just my usual abilities shining through. I think these are supposed to be power and special, since later on you get special attacks, but then that doesn't explain why the more powerful one moves slower.

An enemy in the distance, looking like it's a comic book character teleporting in.

Gameplay is your typical Dungeon Master-style FPS, except the developers felt like they needed to make it more fancy. So instead of turning around instantly or swiftly enough, you slowly watch your view rotate as you are helpless to defend yourself. It's a nice effect, but I would prefer just turning. I don't understand first-person Game Boy games feeling the need to overcomplicate your ability to view the game. It gets worse because pressing down does nothing but cause your view to mysteriously bob down and up. This is bad, but at least I'm doing this on a keyboard, the Game Boy had a D-pad which was easy to accidentally press two directions at once, so this would be unplayable there. I suspect this may be related to how I have to constantly fight with the game to get actions to work sometimes.

A shoots, you get unlimited ammo as far as I can tell. You only get one shot on-screen, but it's a short enough distance that it doesn't matter. B shoots your special attack, which presumably does more damage. There are multiple special attacks, I'm not sure there's a difference. Start might pause, because I remember it working, once. Select opens a map. The game isn't paused when the map is open, because that would be easy. This game does not want to give you any advantages whatsoever. Select closes it, whenever it feels like it should be closed. Speaking of which, the game has a soft time limit, moving uses fuel. There are pick-ups, in addition to repair items, which restore it. Being a bit conscious of it, I never ran out.

The map screen, showing everything important about a given level.

Your objective on each level is to kill all enemies and gather all parts. Dunno why we need the latter, but I'm sure it's very important to the backstory. It does something for the gameplay. I'm not sure if it's good that this isn't just mindless shooting. There are also various wall opening and teleport objects, which are seem to be invisible on the map, but you have a fairly decent amount of visibility, 3 tiles. Nothing really holds over between levels, it's all passwords, so it's not like you need to hold off on advancing levels to recharge.

A mine enemy, which you have to kill if you want to win.

The strategy boils down to, am I facing an enemy? If I am not, he hurts me. If I am, there is nothing he can do but run. Shots can be shot, and you have a faster firing rate than the AI, so enemies quickly fall down. It's just a matter of positioning yourself so that enemies can't sneak up behind you, which is entirely what level design is about. Enemies have some distinct behaviors, but it all falls down to simply putting yourself in a situation where you won't get snuck up on. Don't run into them either, because that hurts you quite a bit. You can use that as a strategy, but it's not reliable.

This guy is more intelligent than some of the other enemies, but in this situation there's little he can do to harm me.

On stage 4, I figure out how the levels themselves are designed. They're randomly generated, probably based off a few templates. I don't ever see a level that's impossible to win, but I can't be sure I didn't just have good luck. Power-ups are certainly randomized, but level design is too, because this level is primarily based around just going down a series of cross hallways shooting enemies as they pop up. This, oddly, seems to break the shooting mechanics, as I can't consistently get off shots.

Parts, needed on most levels they appear.

The game is trying to do dungeon crawler design, but does so in a bizarre way. There are traps, which are manageable, but then most of the things that would be objects or reusable are powerups. Things like walls opening or teleports are one-use. Level design means that these are often one-way to areas which contain parts and enemies. It seems like sometimes teleports are one use, sometimes not, just one of those things that comes off as odd about the game. I guess it isn't too bad in theory owing to the shortness of the game and easily starting over, but man, way to hit on every single possible bad design choice you could.

To nail home this point, there's a set of levels (Stage 6/7 if memory serves) that I found used these mechanics in ways that would be ridiculous to play in any other game. First, a level full of mines you have to navigate around, featuring the usual enemies you can't see. You can shoot them beyond visible distance too, but good luck hitting them. Then, a level using teleportation, not one-time use, to prevent you from going down a hallway. So the objective is to find the one gap in these teleporters so you can reach the other side.

Shooting something or another.

I skipped ahead to the end, Stage 21, to see if there was anything new or special there. Well, to start with, you get a series of blocked off blocks which gradually open up thanks to various wall openers. I like it, it's mostly just hampered by the game itself. Then it opens up to these enemies which look like corrupted sprites. Not sure if that's intentional or not. They're tough, and actually move around somewhat intelligently, but assuming you know what you're doing, they're easy enough to take out. It's a longer level, but feels good, not like memorable, just the kind of filler level I don't mind in other games. Here, it seems like the highlight.
 

It's a flying tank, I guess.

And that's the game. There are the credits, odd considering they were before the title and you see your ship flying over a city, which I presume I was defending, but will never really know. In the end, you're usually defending some city or another, even if the game never says it.

To not completely crap on the game, while I think the game is trying too much to polish a turd, I think it's easy to fall in the trap of throwing good development time after bad, especially when it's your meal ticket and it probably came off as incredible just for the sheer novelty factor at the time. This would have been the only game of it's kind during development, so why does it matter if one of the levels is some annoying minefield?

Weapons:
It's weird being in a first-person game with shot limitations, and the special weapons feel like they're just there to take out tougher enemies quicker. 1/10

Enemies:
There's a surprising variety, some more intelligent and some simpler. But because you're often shooting at the limit of your weapon range, which is longer than your sight range, you can frequently end up not having an idea about what it is you're shooting until it's dead. 3/10

Non-Enemies:
None.

Levels:
On one hand, they really tried. On the other, this was so unbelievably boring I couldn't bother to finish most of them despite how easy they were. Still, those randomized elements got on my nerves and the game doesn't really have anything to make up for it. 1/10

Player Agency:
I never thought that an emulated game would remind me of how frustrating it can be to use an actual Game Boy, which is an accomplishment. That said, it was usable enough that I had no trouble going through the levels I did, and likely would have no trouble through the rest. 3/10

Interactivity:
None.

Atmosphere:
Clashing design choices and a lack of interesting...well, much of anything. 1/10

Graphics:
The developers could clearly draw a nice, shiny big screen picture, because the enemy sprites look nice. It's just that you see the title screen, your fancy ship, and then maybe a full enemy sprite once every few minutes. The rest is bland walls and objects chosen because the artist could draw them. 2/10

Story:
None.

Sound/Music:
In addition to the usual bloops and blips, there's this odd ambient walking sound going on. It's not distracting, but it does feel a bit odd. 2/10

That's 13. Feels fitting. It's bad, but not offensively so. A big factor in this, is that while it is bad, it's never a struggle to play. Even when I was fighting against the controls I was generally winning. It's just a novelty that's been surpassed by other games on the system. Of course, today, considering you can play the biggest games of today on your phone, the novelty is considerably...less.

Next time, we see a psuedo-adaptation of the film The Dam Busters.

ZTT's Revenge: Mystery Manor (Lost)

The game is not quite what this title screen suggests it will be.

Mystery Manor, huh? That's probably a reference to Mystery House, because on the first screen, literally just a plain corridor with a sign, I'm told my goal is get the deed to the house. Also to bring along a pencil and paper, and remember to explore everything. The only thing we're missing is "save often." But since the game just gives me 200 health, some assumptions can be made. 

Imagine playing a more realistic game and there's just some massive lake full of sharks like this.

North of the starting area is a crossroads and a locked red door, inside there is ammo, a centipede and a green key, guess I'll be coming back later. East of that is this. The water is just freaking saturated with sharks. The woman, however, is the woman of the lake, tells me that if I can find her the staff of the serpents, uncapitalized, she'll help me to pass. She then gives me the red key. Huh, the golden key there must open that door here. 

Getting the stuff from the last crossroads, we get another crossroads. Only this time, it's full of bears. Not as difficult as it seems, since you simply just alternate shooting up and down until you have enough breathing room to just take them as they come. North is a hermit's house, requires another red key to enter, so further west it is. Here there's a white door, a couple of tigers and a man who offers me a medikit. For 50 gems, which I don't have, and the second I stop talking to him, he disappears. One more west is...I'll get back to that, there's a blue door there and a yellow key, which it turns out is what the hermit's house needs.

I guess they already dealt with Goldilocks.

More bears, quite easily dispatched, and a centipede with not much reason to fight. The ruffians are more tricky. Bad luck when you grab the ammo blocking them in can really hurt you, but if you're quick on the draw you can stop them in their tracks. North requires two green keys it seems, hopefully I'm just mistaking green for cyan. So, east it is.

I don't know what it is about ZZT, but compared to a lot of other games, there's a big tendency for levels to have text telling you things you should already know.

Don't get caught, huh? There's a premade save where the player is stuck in a wall here, for some reason. The walls move around and bullets appear out of thin air. And by thin air, from places it obviously shoots out of. So once you get the pattern, it's just waiting for the walls to slide just right. East is a charming scene, where you have to stop slime masquerading as a toilet overflowing so you can enter the door inside it.

Why is there ammo inside a toilet? Well, let's just say that for a while the human body was a key component in the gunpowder process.

The inside of the toilet is a dark room. I like how this game was pretending to be all mysterious and adventure-esque, now I'm fighting centipedes inside a toilet. Slowly going around because of the distance you get with a torch, I eventually find the key on the upper right. Okay, where's the other one then? Let's back up to the first room inside the hermit's house. We have three labeled objects, one of which has nothing, another of which can't go anywhere and another suspiciously close to the edge. That's right, there's a fake wall in the fireplace. Cliche, but because you have to check every time, oh, so annoying. Inside is another room with a centipede, a cyan key and more ammo. Man, if I run out now I'm going to be so annoyed with myself.

Do people actually say that? I always thought it was high-pitched screaming or grim resolve.

And the following screen is worth it, because it's one of the most tense ZZT screens outside of one where you're getting chased by cannibals in a dark cave. Instead, you're being chased by spiders in a dark cave. Though they do die in one shot and blindly chase after you, but somehow it's better than most encounters. Unfortunately there's not much here, just some gems in that thing in the middle of the area. And there's nothing else I can really do. I look around the areas I've so far reached without darkness enabled and don't really see what else I can do. Checking a walkthrough, it doesn't have much to say about where I'm at, since apparently the path into the manor isn't supposed to be as difficult as I've made it look.

I didn't even consider that this would even happen, let alone that you could be around to object!

It turns out that I was just foolish, because in order to advance I simply had to walk out the door. South, because you can actually walk up and get stuck at this point, because the hermit appears and locks the way back into the cabin. He's upset because I took the gems in the pipe, and will only allow me to take them if I can bring him the Shield of the Underworld, which is in the manor. So he gives me the key.

I guess the previous owner accidentally dropped all his green keys here.

Now it's finally time to explore the mansion. I wasn't expecting so much time spent outside. That scroll there warns me that I need to find some hidden torches or I have no chance of getting the secrets of Mystery Manor. The door opens, lets me in, then turns into a purple door. I only took a look in the bottom right before, but man, there are a lot of green keys here. A lot. At this point, the game opens up a lot. So let's go over this roughly in the order I went through them.

Looks more like I inherited an industrial factory rather than a big mansion.

What I presume is the entrance into the mansion is left of the gate. Let me tell you, I am loathing these tigers. Fighting them at such short distance, such as that entrance, I just don't have the reflexes to take them out consistently. Especially since I'm having to go back and forth to get keys to advance more. This is basically one big 3x3 tile with this being in the center.

"You want to get HOW many sharks?"

South of the mansion is this place. Gaze at the number of bears and sigh. So much for effectively infinite ammo. Also, sharks in the water, because there's nothing more fun that unavoidable, immortal enemies. Go get the keys in order and do the surgical movement of dashing in then dashing out and hoping you don't get too hurt. You'd think by now I would have mastered this.

If I get the mansion, I don't have to keep all the spinning guns, right?

Lower right. Same old, same old, now with spinning guns. The actual blue key is easy enough to get too, it's just that it needs a red key, which is of course, guarded by spinning guns. The intro very specifically talked about how you get points for each gem, but spinning guns don't shoot gems for some reason. Perfect excuse to block it off, allowing some quick in and out for the key.

After all the green keys and two blue keys, entering the central room causes my guy to stop appearing on-screen and lock the game. I think I caused it by using the ZAP cheat at the edge of the screen. (I didn't want to walk all the way around, clearly my impatience has cost me something) Most of the blue key rooms are basically just things we've seen in previous parts, nothing special.

Can't let these tigers get out, they might join up with the other tigers and start a revolution.

This one was a bit odd. There are four things that look like saplings, guarded by spinning guns. The answer is probably elsewhere, but you have to grab one of them to open up a seemingly shootable wall in the middle of the screen to get the key. By coincidence, guess what? The guns aren't really that troublesome compared to the tigers. Those guys are getting on my nerves. Now I need a purple key to finally enter the manor.

Surprised they just let the dead lie.

To get it, I need to head to the upper left, then north, where there's a crypt. The guy in the center there will allow me in if I can answer a riddle. "What did Frankenstein say to his bride?" It seems I need to figure that out, as touching him just has him demanding the answer again. The guy running around gives me ammo in exchange for 50 gems, which I take him up on for obvious reasons.

So the answer to the riddle is "I finally met the ghoul of my dreams." You get this correct by running around and touching tombstones in the correct order. Some of them are just your usual graveyard puns. This takes a bit, and makes sense as to why the intro told me to bring a pencil and paper along. There's also a perfectly functioning save system.

Inside is a puzzle room, starting with a block puzzle. It just takes a few tries to decipher. Move the block under the key, then the blocks above, move the key down, then left and slowly get the rest of the blocks out of the way. The next room is less complex than it seems, wall moves towards you, so grab key and rush through in order to not get crushed. You won't actually die, just lose health, because this was done kind of badly. This leads to the colored number section. Which requires you to move the blocks out of the way using the buttons. They only go in one direction, so you have to do it without the whole thing breaking. The black room is an invisible wall maze, not like it usually is, they're black walls, not ones you can see after touching them. That would be too easy.

More riddles, the guy tells me I have to get 10 questions right in order to get health, If I don't I lose gems. It's a series of "guess the next number" puzzles. I won't bore you with the details. It's not that I can't do them, it's just not something I find fun. This leads to a multi-colored shifting wall trap where you get past spinning guns. It's fast enough that it can be tricky to do right. The place with centipedes is weirder than it seems, I can't shoot in this section and you have to guess at which wall contains another key. Secret wall maze and then another block puzzle. At least I finally have the purple key.

Inside is another set of mini-rooms. The door opens and I have to find another purple key to get out. Because of course I do. Those are red doors, not yellow, so the yellow keys are just more busywork.

West is whatever this is. Don't be fooled by the red coin objects in front of the centipedes, they aren't centipedes. They're blocking them from entering the main room, touching them causes the coins to disappear, then you can kill the centipedes. At first, it isn't clear how you get into the key room, it's locked, but nothing seems to open it. I assumed I just had to get lucky with the coins until pushing the sides of the end of one tunnel caused of the doors to open. This is starting to be less annoying puzzle game and more the memetastically bad adventure game I keep insisting is a rare phenomena.

Further west is a mess of enemies, so I return to the entrance and head north. I take one glance at it, save and then quit. I return, sometime later. It can't be as bad as I thought right? No, it's worse.  I thought it was four red keys, and then back and forth bringing green keys here to go further. No, it's twelve red keys. I clear out the nearest one, just to start bringing back the keys. No, it's four red keys and a bunch of tigers. I'll just take this back to the entrance and...hang on, what am I even getting out of this room but keys? So I open the door and realize what the other rooms are for. The firing rate of the spinning guns is such that you need cover, and there are blocks in the other room. That's right, I need to bring those blocks into there. Through the oddly designed room, because things apparently weren't difficult enough!

Going for the next green key, I decide that I've had enough of ZZT's Revenge, they got it. I'm getting quite tired of ZZT and the way that every time I think something unabashedly fun is about to happen I end up only getting busywork. We'll call it 5 out of 10. I know I still have another board left on the game, but I simply haven't the desire to play any more ZZT for a while. Which is unfortunate, because even if I skip Best of ZZT, there's still Super ZZT to go through. But hopefully being more officially minded, those will be less tedious to go through.

This Session: 3 hours 00 minutes

Total Time: 14 hours 20 minutes

Commander Keen 6 (1991)

Name:Commander Keen in Aliens Ate my Babysitter!
Number:235
Year:1991
Publisher:FormGen
Developer:Id Software
Genre:Side-Scroller
Difficulty:4/5
Time:3 hours 50 minutes
Won:Yes (104W/73L)

Hey, wait a minute, this wasn't released in December 1992, you might ask, having just come off Keen 5. It wasn't. It isn't even about Mortimer...it's about his sister, who babysits Keen. Isn't he a bit too old to be babysat? Naturally, Mortimer's sister had been kidnapped by aliens with a taste for the flesh of children. Ah, the things we accept in children's media without battling an eyelash even if it'd be grotesque anyway else. 

Keen decides to park before the river crossing.

This time around, Commander Genius has issues with playing the game, so instead I'll be playing it in regular DOS. The game is surprisingly spartan in its set-up, no F1 menu in the version I played, in stark contrast to previous entries. Just straight to the overworld then. Which has a lot of teleports, like the first trilogy. As this was intended to be the third part of the Goodbye Galaxy set, there are seemingly no real changes between the two control-wise. So I'll refrain from repeating them, and point out you can see what I've said of past Keen titles with the labels at the bottom. Though it did take a bit to refamiliarize myself with the game's controls. Apparently it was longer than I thought. The first level, despite being the typical opener, gave me some trouble.

One observation about enemies is that they seem to be alert to the player's presence a lot more than usual. Whether this is just me being more on point or if the game's AI is noticeably improved is the question. Regardless, we get these enemies:

Adorable little Blooglets.

• Blooglet, at this point, your typical "doesn't actually hurt Keen, but instead pushes him around" type of enemy. It's very fast and surprisingly hard to dodge, so taking them out is a better strategy than it would be in previous games. This is actually a very important strategy, because guess what? Sometimes they have keys.

Blooguard, trying to protect a Bloog from vicious galactic threat Keen.

• Bloog, the basic run around and kill Keen by touch enemy. Pretty big, pretty slow. Has a deceptively large hitbox, I suspect there may be some issues with that. As in, the hitbox is the whole sprite when there should be considerable transparency there.
• Blooguards, like the Bloogs, these guys kill Keen and are dumb and big. Unlike the regular kind, they take three shots to knock out and they have a club capable of stunning Keen for a moment, which they use randomly.

A Babobba, not pooping, but instead sleeping with his blankey.

• Babobba, small and lethal. Well, in theory. If you don't try to jump over it, it's easy to take out. They drop little...uh...radioactive turds which Keen shouldn't touch. Frequently, fall asleep, which makes it even easier to take them out.

A Gik, sinister or cute and cuddly? You decide!

• Gik, my first encounter with this resulted in my death. It's like those rock enemies from 4, except they chase after you and jump without delay. It's less of a jumping arc and more of a lunge, very little vertical air, more horizontal, turning into a slide.

Flect, just wandering around below me, smarter enemies do that.

• Flect, it has a mirror which reflects your shots back at you. They're unstunnable and push you, so this is the real trouble they provide.

Nospike, such a depressed looking creature...until it attacks you anyway.

• Nospike, it has a spike on its head and it charges after you. Takes a few shots, but not actually as deadly as it seems. Earlier Keen games had more deadly charging enemies.

Also visible here, this game's one-up, the Queen Vita.

• Ceilick, hides in the ceiling as a small tongue, shoots out when Keen gets within a certain distance, then pops out so you can shoot it. Not actually as tricky as it could be on their own, but with other hazards or enemies can frequently get you.

 

Very intimidating, unfortunately he can't touch me anymore than a random Bloog can.

• Fleex, very intimidating looking, but sadly not very difficult to fight. They're basically the Blooguards without the advantage of the stun attack. They even have a little move where they stop for a moment to look around.

 

Sometimes the most unassuming of foes are the most deadly.

• Orbatrix, very annoying little buggers. They're floating orbs, can't be killed, and turn into hypersonic balls if you get close. The only strategy seems to be to shoot and pray that it won't start bouncing around.

 

The Blorbs are even see-through!

• Blorb, your shots go through them and they kill Keen on touch. Not that bad, because they're slow and dumb, bouncing off walls in a consistent diagonal pattern. Less enemies and more a moving hazard.
• Bipship, little guys piloting flying saucers that shoot at you. They don't actually fly over things, they're more like your basic enemy that shoots at you. Which in Keen terms actually makes them quite mundane. They do explode spectacularly and drop little guys that you can cruelly stomp on. And here I thought Keen didn't like killing aliens...

There were also two more that the Keen wiki describes as monsters. A Grabbiter, which is actually what you need the later mentioned sandwich for to get past it on the overworld. Then Bobba, a bigger, immortal version of the Babobba. Which is only around on hard, I played medium.

And here are the notable to me levels:

• Guard Post One, the first level you can reach after the opener. If you go up, there's a Bloog and two Blooguards, and I don't have the ammo for them. Down is a large maze. It's a stark reminder of just how tricky these guys can be to avoid. Oddly, in comparison to the Goodbye Galaxy games, it's not the environment that's being trick, it's the enemies. The Babobbas are basically just there, but the combo of Blooglets and Bloogs is tripping me up. I'm burning through more shots than I normally would, but I'm still coming out ahead.

The walls have eyes.

• Second Dome of Darkness, where I get killed right away by a Gik, and I see no way to avoid it by going through the door. Much like a level of SWAT, just going through the front door will get me killed, so I just climb upwards. All the way to the top is a Bloog I have no way of shooting, but there's a passage above another...which leads down to a spike pit. Ouch, guess I have to get past the Gik. They're not that tricky to get past. Once inside, it's quite the maze of dodging Bloogs. It's actually a bit inspired beyond that.
• First Dome of Darkness, these can be tackled in any other. The real challenge here is going through a massive treasure room full of so many lovely traps. The real goal is to get to the top, where a grappling hook is, allowing you to go back and take a path you couldn't previously go through.

Welcome to the Machine, Keen.

• Bloogfoods Inc, you know, I don't think I've covered a commercial title with a food factory before, despite how seemingly common it is. (Obviously there was Keen Meets the Meats, but not commercial) It's a maze of industry traps and manages some cleverness in the layout I haven't seen before. Unfortunately, the music track really reminds me of Isle of the Dead. But this level has a lot of key hunting, and sometimes the keys are not behind places I enjoy having to get them from. Like a series of these flame jets which requires close to pixel perfect timing. The path to the final key is full of situations you just have no chance of avoiding and have to get lucky on to win. This still leaves a big room with a good half dozen switches you have no idea what they do until you need them flipped. All for a giant sandwich.
• Bloogdome, which the game implies is a bad idea to enter. There's even a giant stop sign there. Outside of the first appearance of the Nospike, there's nothing too concerning going on here. It's a lot less difficult to pass and more just, aha, you had no idea going this way would result in your death or loss of progress. It's not actually that tricky beside that, it's all in optional areas.

Sometimes it seems like Romero's rules only came about because he realized how bad it could be when he broke them.

• Bloogton Manufacturing, oh, nice, Blooguard right away. It's one of those levels. I can't help but feel like ID is running out of ideas. "Okay, have them go under the Ceilick, over the floating mines and the acid puddle to get the key." This isn't actually what you have to do, instead, you have to get another key, slowly go up the whole level, using that key to unlock a door, then pulling a whole bunch of switches, finding out that the key you ignored is the key you need, and then eventually discover that a switch activates a floating platform. All the way up, all the way down, then up again. There is at least, a one up for your trouble, if you're willing to risk death again.

 

It's a long way to the top and not that far down.

• Bloogton Tower, what is with these enemies at the start? This one starts off with two keys to the left of the start, the trick is that Keen can't reach one of them just yet. On this level, I discover that the Blooglets can have keys. It's not a very good level besides, since the first half consists of a lot of going back and forth on elevators. And we can't forget the second half, which is going back down to get the keys you missed, assuming you didn't miss any switches up above.
• Bloogville, hey this one looks deceptively easy, just some nice shiny side points. There are a lot of Celicks and Giks on this level. This isn't like other levels where you can just dodge the suckers, no, you have to proactively deal with a lot of them. Despite this, there is some cleverness in it all. I found the using a switch to get to a ledge a neat trick, feels like something that would be in a mod rather than a mainline game.

Keen, experiencing true terror.

• Bloog Aeronautics and Space Administration, well, that's amusing. The level itself feels like a pun on this, because the Giks are constantly getting in your way. Less annoying than Bloogville, but still a constant presence. What was more annoying is that to win, you need to go through a massive tunnel on a floating platform, going straight through it just leads to Keen's death. This isn't even halfway. What I'd describe as pure cruelty is that the game expects you to shoot a Fleex in a space it barely has enough room to not kill you straight off.

If you squint, maybe you can see Marvin the Martian.

• Bloogbase Management District, very Looney Tunes space feel to this one. I dig it. The music also has shades of Doom, probably unintentionally. This level has a lot of wall turrets. Energy dart guns? Despite some oddities, it's not too special, because at this point shooting the regular Bloogs is very old hat.
• Blooglab Space Station, the secret level, reached by going behind the Bloog Control Center. It feels like the fun kind of secret level, though this is slightly ruined by how the level puts Flects in places that are strategically designed to trip you up. It's mostly about dodging Blorbs, who sometimes slow up the game and sometimes not.
• Bloogbae Recreational District, ah, how an unfortunate typo can make things sound weirder in retrospect. (Not that anyone seems to use bae anymore, but this would have been hilarious a few years ago) Very good level, Bipships appear a lot here. They're a very fun enemy to fight and the level gets a lot of use out of them here. I also like the idea the last part has of pulling switches near dangerous enemies to slowly raise bridges to get higher. Feel very second-to-last level.

Just an ordinary day climbing over eyeballs.

• Bloog Control Center, black background, yep, this is a proper last level. There's a switch next to you, with mines below. A platform approaches...and it's time for Let's Make a Deal, pick a door, Commander! After you realize that the Blooglet above you has a key and travel over the acid puddles to reach him. Oh, and there's an identical room with a yellow Blooglet and key. Oh, and the blue key is below the door to this set of doors. The red key, thankfully, is just in a Blooglet on your way to the end of the level. Otherwise, it's fairly straightforward with only one last annoying bit to go. And there's Molly, behind four doors.

I have some questions about Mortimer's home life...

Molly, then tells Keen that it was her brother, Mortimer, who sold her off to the Bloogs and then told them where to find the Sandwich I gave the Grabbiter. Apparently, he plans on blowing up the universe, which is of no consequence to her, because she's more concerned that Keen gets back before his folks get home. Next time, Keen and Mortimer battle for the universe!

Weapons:
The same as last time. 1/10

Enemies:
There's some good ideas here, like the Blorb, but a lot of it just feels like shoot the big guy, or thing you can't deal with, run away. The usage makes up for a slightly samey enemy selection though. 6/10

Non-Enemies:
None.

Levels:
I have mixed feelings here, some were very good, but others felt like they had a lot of padding added. Which is a valid concern in a commercial product and in a game that even with them, felt like I just sped past it. But checking that isn't that unusual, but still the feeling remains. 7/10

Player Agency:
Same as the last time, except now he doesn't seem to surf on moving platforms. Oh, well. 7/10

Interactivity:
A few bits and bobs here and there. 1/10

Atmosphere:
We've gone from reaching out to an unknown world in the first trilogy, to the mysticism of Keen 4, the machine of 5, to an entirely alien planet here. It's nice, but I feel it's lacking in truly establishing itself as an alien world. 6/10

Graphics:
Still very much in the category of I can't believe it's not VGA. Environments are still stunning, but enemy design seems...slightly missing in some respects. Like they weren't quite fleshed out in time. 7/10

Story:
Mortimer is proving more resilient than Wolverine. 1/10

Sound/Music:
Sound is still solid, but there's still only 6 minutes of music. It's fine, it's varied, but it's 6 minutes of music. A few tracks are very nice, but some are just sort of there. 3/10

That's 39, one below Keen 5 and the same as Keen 4. That feels fitting, much like Keen 4 a few things kept nagging at me. In either event, neither score is too shabby.

This is, for most people, the end of the Keen series. However, while the conclusion never happened officially, there are two attempts at having the conclusive battle between Keen and Mortimer. The lesser known Game Boy Color game and the unofficial The Universe is Toast trilogy, which attempt to finish what the boys at ID never got to do. While neither is going to do what ID likely would have done, since they were moving into VGA at the time, I'm sure there'll be a pretty good attempt at making it work.

Next up from ID, of course, is Wolfenstein 3D, which I'll go through again despite not entirely wanting to. Much like more Keen, that's in the future. For now, expect another forgotten FPS, this time from the handheld king of FPS titles, the Game Boy, or more ZZT.