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    Who remembers Commander Keen?

    Discussion in 'Gaming (Software and Graphics Cards)' started by Lord Grishnakh, Oct 21, 2009.

  1. Lord Grishnakh

    Lord Grishnakh Notebook Guru

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    ...and Duke Nukem (2D side-scroller)? That is how I used to push my old IBM with a 40Mhz (no, there are no zeros missing) proc.
     
  2. Althernai

    Althernai Notebook Virtuoso

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    I remember. And Duke was actually called Duke Nukum in those days -- they changed it to "Nukem" later.
     
  3. Lord Grishnakh

    Lord Grishnakh Notebook Guru

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    True. Did anybody ever figure out what those bouncing udder things were supposed to be?
     
  4. crazycanuk

    crazycanuk Notebook Virtuoso

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    Got the entire commander Keen series here and my girls LOVE playing it.... graphics arent so great by todays standard but the gameplay is still great

    Glad im not the only OLD one here

    and nope never did figure out what the udder things were, I didnt play the old DN enough back then
     
  5. Lord Grishnakh

    Lord Grishnakh Notebook Guru

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    Back in the Windows 3.11 for Workgroups days (I always had to have the highest-end stuff availible) the graphics were great. I always ran it off the floppy though because I didn't want it taking up space on my HDD (128Mb).
     
  6. crazycanuk

    crazycanuk Notebook Virtuoso

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    LOL, I remember that all too well, I had an 80 GB on an old 386sx25 with wfw 3.11 and went all out and got the origional gravis gamepad with a soundblaster card ... the OLD 8 bit one ... I didnt think the adlib card was cutting it anymore
     
  7. Lord Grishnakh

    Lord Grishnakh Notebook Guru

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    8-bit soundblaster was where it was at. Not that it made much difference because I didnt have enough hdd space for wav files of any length and mp3 hadnt taken hold yet.
     
  8. BrandonSi

    BrandonSi Notebook Savant

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    Duke Nukem was great.. "Get Some!!"

    I loved Star Control II as well.. Couldn't get enough.

    Don't even get me started on the Wing Commander series..
     
  9. surfasb

    surfasb Titles Shmm-itles

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    Commander Keen was so much fun. I actually discovered it well after its release, around the time Starcraft was released.
     
  10. HTWingNut

    HTWingNut Potato

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    Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! I hate these nostalgia threads. Makes me long for those days that games actually had content and developers cared, and had to care about the consumer because they either made a good game or they went bankrupt.

    I do love all those old games though. Star Control 2. Oh yes the memories. Ur'Quan FTW!
     
  11. crazycanuk

    crazycanuk Notebook Virtuoso

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    HT we need MORE nostalgia threads these!!!! the under 25's dont know what their missing with antique games with 100's of hours of playability. I have a huge collection of old games the family likes more then the current failbox/PS3 and even most of the new pc games. Commander Keen, Wing Commander, Redneck Rampage, the origional X-wing vs Tie fighter, Star Control/2, Oregon trail, Mechwarrior on EGA graphics.

    yep much more content then reload and shoot crap
     
  12. HTWingNut

    HTWingNut Potato

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    Maybe they can start a gaming forum sub-section called "old fart gaming" or something. Seems there's enough of us around here. I have an old Shuttle PC all set up and ready to go when I get a chance to load a bunch of Win98 games. I was going to use it for my kids, but by the time they're old enough, I'll probably just use my Vostro 1500 and hook it up to a keyboard and monitor. It'll be more powerful, and even more compact.

    Yeah, those were the days. There's still a few gems from time to time like Half-Life 2, Sins of a Solar Empire, Modern Warfare, etc. But so much less likely than 15-20 years ago. You're talking about under 25's, I'm thinking more along the line of under 30's. :)
     
  13. surfasb

    surfasb Titles Shmm-itles

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    You have died of Dysentery!
     
  14. Hep!

    Hep! sees beauty in everything

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    No I didn't.
    And I caulked the wagon and floated it. Luckily no one drowned.
     
  15. crazycanuk

    crazycanuk Notebook Virtuoso

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    Yep, I have a DOS machine for the REALLY old games and Emulators, and an old 98 box for the rest of the old stuff hooked to a KVM for the girls to play on
     
  16. Lord Grishnakh

    Lord Grishnakh Notebook Guru

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    Oregon trail was the best game ever. 99 boxes of bullets and hope mary doesnt die of cholera. I remember playing that on my old Apple IIe

    And for both of you, I'm 23.
     
  17. surfasb

    surfasb Titles Shmm-itles

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    I still play that junk NOW on my Palm Treo. I hope someone ports that onto the Pre.
     
  18. crazycanuk

    crazycanuk Notebook Virtuoso

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    the one for the palm treo has graphics now, the origional some of us remember were green screen, ASCII graphics and TEXT only ..... YIKES
    but its nice to see it aint just us old farts and their kids playing thoe old games anymore
     
  19. surfasb

    surfasb Titles Shmm-itles

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    Ughh, I can't believe we are missing a picture. I think alzheimer's is hitting us.

    [​IMG]
     
  20. Lord Grishnakh

    Lord Grishnakh Notebook Guru

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    wow that picture just made me so excited.
     
  21. crazycanuk

    crazycanuk Notebook Virtuoso

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    you and me both, thats sad, guess its time to see how hard it is to get running on win 7
     
  22. Lord Grishnakh

    Lord Grishnakh Notebook Guru

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    [​IMG]

    This one was my fav.
     
  23. crazycanuk

    crazycanuk Notebook Virtuoso

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    invasion of the vorticons and good by galaxy were my favorites ... I think

    now where did I hide my LONG vga cable to play DOS games on a 55" LCD TV???????
     
  24. surfasb

    surfasb Titles Shmm-itles

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    OMG, EGA Graphics on 55" FTW.
     
  25. Lord Grishnakh

    Lord Grishnakh Notebook Guru

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    cmon, you gotta have a 13" CRT to play it right.
     
  26. surfasb

    surfasb Titles Shmm-itles

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    Sike. Pixelation is so HOT right now.

    [​IMG]
     
  27. crazycanuk

    crazycanuk Notebook Virtuoso

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    But the smallest I have is a 19" NEC CRT :eek:
     
  28. BrandonSi

    BrandonSi Notebook Savant

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    [​IMG]

    Anyone? Or did I just totally date myself.
     
  29. crazycanuk

    crazycanuk Notebook Virtuoso

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    LOL, yep, but come on some of those games were FUN !!!!!
     
  30. Lord Grishnakh

    Lord Grishnakh Notebook Guru

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    Text based games....great fun. Required you to use your mind more than yourr eyeballs. Even so, most of the ones I played at least had a still-frame to accompany the text.

    @surfasb: where did you find that awesome picture that needs to be my desktop?
     
  31. surfasb

    surfasb Titles Shmm-itles

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    I used Google images. Punch in Commander Keen and it should be in the first few pages.
     
  32. luffytubby

    luffytubby Notebook Deity

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    If I recall right the first three games were just called Keen 1, Keen 2 and Keen 3.

    I think the fourth one was just called "Commander Keen".


    4, and 5 were my favorites.





    Also... Does anybody remember Jack JazzRabbit? Made by the guy who also made Gears of War!
    Could you Imagine Jazz Rabbit with Unreal Engine 3? :eek: Could be a really fan ultra fast hardcore sonic style game^_^

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]





    Another one I loved was one of the best Blizzard games ever made, Lost Vikings! They so, need to do a new game in that series.

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
  33. Lord Grishnakh

    Lord Grishnakh Notebook Guru

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    I smell a connection here:

    Spaz ate the dopefish.
     
  34. Hep!

    Hep! sees beauty in everything

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    How about some Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure, Jill of the Jungle, and Crystal Cave in here?
     
  35. crazycanuk

    crazycanuk Notebook Virtuoso

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    I have Jill of the jungle ... crap im going to be playing alot of old games again
    ... I just finished building a new HTPC for the family. .. time to get dosbox running in win 7 I Guess


    hey lets add Dig Dug to the list of classics
     
  36. Lord Grishnakh

    Lord Grishnakh Notebook Guru

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    Good one. I was all about the Wolfenstein 3D when I got that game. It was pretty much the best game I could play on my 386. I was so jealous of my buddy because he had a 486 and could play Myst and had AOL 4.0 where as the highest I could go was 3.0. It was a good rig though, taught me qBasic before there was a Visual Basic.
     
  37. Lord Grishnakh

    Lord Grishnakh Notebook Guru

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    id and Appogee were on top of the game in those days.
     
  38. crazycanuk

    crazycanuk Notebook Virtuoso

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    yep, Wolfenstein 3D, and the origional Doom on both 386 and 486 for me. I never got into Myst at first but tried it a few YEARS later and liked it ..... no AOL for me but I did have a local ISP giving decent internet access at 14.4 back in early 94 !!!!!
     
  39. surfasb

    surfasb Titles Shmm-itles

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    Doom was my first online game!!

    Rocking my 14.4 modem, my parents were pissed that I racked up all those long distance charges calling into BBBs.
     
  40. crazycanuk

    crazycanuk Notebook Virtuoso

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    mine were even MORE pissed when I setup my own BBS off moms business line, and the main line

    good old 386sx25, 4 meg of ram, 80 gb hdd and Wolf BBS software
    1 14.4 modem on com1, and a 9600 on com 2

    it was fun for a weekend till they noticed :D

    I was lucky enough to have a 486DX2-66 when Doom came out and I spent days setting up lan parties for it with Lantastic
     
  41. Alexrose1uk

    Alexrose1uk Music, Media, Game

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    Hey none of that. Im under 25 and I still have incredibly fond memories of Tie Fighter, the game was awesome (especially compared to Rebel Assault lol), and along with X-Wing Alliance, probably the best Star Wars game ever made.

    Also, what about Magic Carpet...Syndicate...Theme Park...Settlers :D
     
  42. surfasb

    surfasb Titles Shmm-itles

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    My ping was so bad my avatar slid around the level. And that was how I got the nickname "Surf."

    And I discovered Internet Gifs!! Downloaded a couple with a few SI Swimsuit models. LOL.

    Wow. I feel like such a nerd.

    edit:

    Yes!!! That game WAS addicting. Then Quake showed up on my radar. And the Original Team Fortress Mod!!
     
  43. crazycanuk

    crazycanuk Notebook Virtuoso

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    OK I guess I owe you an appology :) MOST under 25 have never tried the old EGA and early VGA games. and I agree rebel assault ... SUCKED

    Surf if your a nerd im an outright freak !!!!
     
  44. surfasb

    surfasb Titles Shmm-itles

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    You remind me of the guys on the show "Big Bang Theory."
     
  45. crazycanuk

    crazycanuk Notebook Virtuoso

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    LOL, well im not quite THAT old ... still squeaking in under 40
     
  46. surfasb

    surfasb Titles Shmm-itles

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    What are you talking about. Those guys are quite young. I hope we are talking about the same show. "Big Bang Theory" on CBS, I think. The only actor I know on the show is Kaley Cuoco, who is smoking hot.
     
  47. @nthony

    @nthony Notebook Evangelist

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    Oh yes! I remember the "AIR" label on the Air tank being too pixelated to read - it took me a few to realize why shooting it would cause your head to randomly explode! Cosmo actually chugged my old 486 in some parts, too many on-screen sprites at one time.

    BioMenace, WhackyWheels, Hugo's House of Horrors, Morraff's World, Prince of Persia... the names are still fresh because we had to type them verbose at DOS prompt!
    While we're tossing up titles, anyone dabbled in the Space Quest series?
     
  48. Lord Grishnakh

    Lord Grishnakh Notebook Guru

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    Nope. How about old-school MSDOS Leisure Suit Larry? So pixelated it was a waste of time but I was too young to be playing it ;) so I enjoyed it nonetheless!
     
  49. Alexrose1uk

    Alexrose1uk Music, Media, Game

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    Oh I forgot Earthsiege, those were awesome too, even if I never got on with starsiege.
    Me thinks part of the reason games were potentially so good back then was it was so much cheaper to make them, so more teams gave it a shot, and there was less focus on money.
     
  50. HTWingNut

    HTWingNut Potato

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    Well that's it exactly. So many one or two man dev teams. Every game was Indie for the most part. I even made a couple basic games that I sold to a place that included 12 games on a floppy for those cheap generic games. One was called "Dr. Phred" I was quite proud of it. It was an ASCII dungeon adventure... oh those were the days.

    Now you need millions of dollars to even compete and hope you get noticed so that a bigger publisher will buy the rights from you and ruin it.
     
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