Commander Keen
I love this game but wasn’t planning to review it. However, after seeing the E3 Trailer it inspired me to sit down and write a review about what makes the series great. Now other reviewers have pointed out that this is missing two games from the series; namely Keen Dreams and Aliens Ate my Babysitter. These are missing because the rights to these two games are owned by other companies not interested in selling them; but the games you do get are amazing.
Keen 1; Marooned on Mars was my first platformer. It starts off simple but gradually ramps up the difficulty. My four year old son loves this game; and he can complete most parts (still needs dad’s help for the big jumps and for killing the Vorticons (Kangaroos he calls them). As far as level design it has the most thought put into it and has many little tips and tricks.
– Real player with 152.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Platformer Classic Games.
NOTE: This is not the “complete” CK collection. It’s missing CK 6, and from what I understand, it’s because ID software lost the rights to publish it. Also the games run very slow on full screen and while they run fine when windowed, it’s far to small then. This seems to be the case since steam uses an out dated dosbox(0.70 I think). You can update the dosbox but you need to go to the community guides. I didn’t like the hassle, so I played these games outside of steam. All these things are a very resonable deal breaker. However, my review will be on the games themselves.
– Real player with 24.9 hrs in game
Monster Bash
A surprisingly interesting platformer… kind of a weird compromise between methodical, precision platformers like Oddworld and the versatile and ruthless ‘run and shoot’ Megaman style. Like both those games, it is hhaarddd and frustrating, slow and unintuitive. You’ll learn what kills you through trial and error and be loading saves a bunch. But on the plus side, the sensibilities remind me a lot of Doom 2, where it prioritizes level design over uniformity, making the levels memorable.
Reccomended ONLY if you’re a snooty retro precision-platforming connoisseur and you know what you’re in for, Otherwise you might hate it. The second level is ughhh such a hassle. Maybe try the shareware demo if that’s still a thing?
– Real player with 11.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Platformer Classic Games.
8/10
One more platformer from Apogee, Monster Bash does platforming very well. The game is very fun while also being very challenging, with lots of different powerups to use and levels that greatly vary from each other, both on design and on challenge level. It’s also curious that for a game that looks cute and where you’re supposed to save cats and dogs, it can be a quite gory game as enemies will explode into gory bits when they die.
The biggest downside to this game is that the boss fights are very lackluster, the final boss in the game in special.
– Real player with 8.1 hrs in game
Time Loader
A wonderful little game
Not many hours are needed for completion, but the replay value is immense
You control a little robot, sent back in time to save your creator from a debilitating accident
You need to try and remove that which causes the accident to happen
On the way you will need to gather more capabilities
Tighten or remove screws with a screwdriver, or fix electronics with a soldering iron
Also, scattered throughout the game are glyphs, which you will need to collect to unlock the secret ending
– Real player with 9.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Platformer Relaxing Games.
Short but very lovingly designed puzzle platformer with a well-told story. The short duration of the game is not particularly bad, as it is worth playing through the game several times to reach the different endings. The puzzles are clever and playful, but will hardly overwhelm anyone. Some jumps need a bit of timing, but there are hardly any frustrating parts. The controls and the extensions that are gradually being added work flawlessly. Only the grappling hook is a little inaccurate.
– Real player with 9.8 hrs in game
Cavern Commandos
Inspired by classic platformers like Rick Dangerous, Cavern Commandos offers a challenging gaming experience with numerous weapons, hundreds of foes, and dozens of labyrinthine caverns.
Cosmo’s Cosmic Adventure
I’ve beaten this game three times (as an adult, playing via DOSBox) now and it is till one of my favourites of all time. I grew up playing it on an old MS DOS rig then, as technology moved on, forgot about it for about a decade until I decided to try to play through games I had played a lot as a kid. It is a little clunky, but it is true to how brutal these old MS DOS platformers could be, especially when you get further along in the game. I have had no problem playing it on my XBox controller, but I usually use the keyboard to keep true to how I played it as a kid.
– Real player with 96.0 hrs in game
Cosmo’s Cosmic Adventure came out when I was but a toddler. My dad had the game, and when I got old enough I played it all the time, along with Commander Keen.
I’ll try not to spoil it, but Cosmo ends with a cliff hanger. On and off over the years, I’ve searched for the second game to find out what happened next. It’s been two decades, but I finally found it here. This game comes with all three episodes! It’s a childhood dream come true!
Haven’t played more than a couple levels of the second episode so far, but it made me so happy to find out what happened after the end of the first episode. Also, the first episode was definitely worth the nostalgia trip!
– Real player with 15.7 hrs in game
Math Rescue
It’s a very fun MS-DOS Childhood game of mine for Kids & Adults alike to play. The Gruzzles are up to no good again. This time around, they’re stealing all the world’s numbers leaving Street Signs, Checkbooks & other Number Resources Blank! Benny Butterfly needs your help once more to slime the Gruzzles & reclaim all the world’s stolen numbers.
Both Word Rescue & Math Rescue are excellent choices for younger children… though us older kids will still find them entertaining. They are difficult to keep playing.
– Real player with 85.8 hrs in game
Math Rescue is an ancient family friendly Apogee shareware 2D platformer/educational word quiz game. Jump around a charming undersea environment (somehow without drowning), collecting various objects for points, triggering occasional arithmetic and word problems to solve, to make learning fun!
While the effort to make an educational platformer is noble, this game is simply far too dated to be recommendable for that purpose, or for the purpose of fun, either, the DosBOX platforming is clunky and laggy. The real problem here is that we all know this is abandonware, the publisher has no intention to patch or modernise the game, but they’re gouging a rather hefty price ($7.50!) for it anyway. It’s pure greed.
– Real player with 3.0 hrs in game
Mussoumano: Ataque dos Haters
Very good, but why don’t you have Chinese? As the largest market in the world, if there is Chinese, more people will play it.
There are some difficulties in the game. If it can be saved, it will be better if it can be revived from the place of death rather than from the beginning
– Real player with 1.6 hrs in game
Excelente jogo!
– Real player with 1.0 hrs in game
Sonic 3 & Knuckles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlJwEF7hsbU
Enter The Echinada
One of the better Sonic games out there, as many would consider perhaps the best (of the retro era). Compared to previous two sonic games on steam this one has much more playability since it has more stages than first two games that can be completed in 3-5h easily, this one has pretty good stage design while maybe not best OST out of the three first sonic games.
– Real player with 1.5 hrs in game
According to the official story, Sonic 3 was meant to include the “& Knuckles” content from the beginning, but it was cut due to time constraints. Sonic 3 was pushed out as the “vanilla” package, with the “& Knuckles” expansion pack (lock-on cartridge) coming out eight months later. I personally think the “& Knuckles” content ends up detracting from the core Sonic 3 experience, and would have been fine if it never saw the light of day. “& Knuckles” added the Mushroom Hill zones onwards, this is where the game starts to drag the most and see quality loss in level design in my opinion. If they really needed to have the “& Knuckles” content added to complete the package, it would have been a better experience start-to-finish if they had removed the Sandolopis zone, which is the lowest quality zone of the “& Knuckles” campaign.
– Real player with 0.4 hrs in game
Orange Adventure
I expected NOTHING from this game & got EVERYTHING. It controls fairly well, has nice backgrounds & is never unfair. Don’t let the 2 ( soon to be 3 ) user reviews scare you…
– Real player with 6.3 hrs in game
Very Good Game :D he cool :D
– Real player with 3.1 hrs in game
Realms of Chaos
9/10
I’m not entirely sure, but I think this might be Apogee’s best platforming game - and definitely one of their best games overall. The game feels great and works great in everything. It looks good, the soundtrack is good, controls work very well, combat is very fun and the game is quite challenging. The five difficulties grant the game a highly variable challenge level - they don’t just change how much health the characters have or how many gems you get, but they also slightly change the layout for some levels. The last difficulty level even adds auto screen scrolling to some levels that normally don’t have it, forcing players to be on their toes even on some levels where they’d normally be able to take their time with.
– Real player with 3.9 hrs in game
This is an arcade-style fantasy action platformer. It lacks the polish and tightness of controls that arcade and console greats of the time had, such as Astyanax or Ghouls & Ghosts. But its difficulty is achievable, and a very PC oriented ‘save anywhere’ system makes it so that it’s actually beatable. There are a lot of obnoxious deathtraps, and Castlevania-style enemy-knocking-you-into-a-pit style traps, but with saving and loading this becomes beatable. I finished it in under 4 hours.
The boss battles are challenging and difficult to master, for the most part, and the character-switching mechanic reminds me a bit of Lost Vikings, though without any of the fun puzzle solving. The levels kinda drone on and often have some trial-and-error nonsense. Combat is sluggish and platforming is imprecise.
– Real player with 3.7 hrs in game