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What's your favourite old-school DOS platformer?

K

Kasper

Member
While being a blatant rip-off of Mario I still loved The Great Giana Sisters as a kid. I played it on my C64, but I think there also existed a DOS port?
 
D

DekuLink

Member
Melkezadek said:
chipsc13.jpg


All day.
Click to expand...

This so very very much.
 
R

rjc571

Banned
Rodney McKay said:
I agree with the OP that Monster Bash was pretty incredible. Never beat it (got as far as the level that starts with the sleeping dragon), but me and my brother had so much fun taking turns playing it.

I also have a soft spot for Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure. Another that I never got far in, but I love the sound effects. They're so loud and harsh these days, but very memorable.


I must not have played the Keen games past 4 because I don't remember this one at all. Also, it looks TERRIBLE graphically. :/
Click to expand...

Looks great to me! The game takes place entirely on a spaceship so they ditched the typical platform game tropes found in Keen 4 for a pure sci-fi motif. The enemy designs are insanely cool. It was hard for my 6(?) year old self not to be impressed by the Robo Reds and the various Shikadi monsters, amongst others.
 
Silvawuff

Silvawuff

Member
Commander Keen, all of it. Jazz Jackrabbit for sure. Also Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure. Halloween Harry/Alien Carnage.

Lemmings counts, that's on a platform, right?!
 
N

Nishastra

Banned
There were a lot of great ones and I probably spent more time with the Commander Keen series than anything, but for some reason I always come back to Jill of the Jungle.
 
R

Raitaro

Member
krae_man said:
Does Alley Cat count? I pick that regardless.

NebIDzz.gif
Click to expand...

Ohhh, that brings back memories. Good pick! This must have been one of the first DOS games I ever played on my uncle's PC.

Bit of a side note but I've been thinking that Toby Fox of Undertale fame could make a cool follow-up or re-imagining of this game if he wanted to, as some of Undertale's atmosphere, use of color, humor and even the variety of gameplay mechanics seem to be somewhat similar (in my mind at least) to Alley Cat. Maybe he was even inspired by this game?

The Keen series would have been my pick though I've not played all of them. I do know that I've long wished for id to use this IP again in some capacity, even in the form of a smaller download game to celebrate the past games or something (
especially now that there is a
Keen easter egg in
their new Doom
). A shame to see this icon of PC platforming disappear without a trace.

Jazz Jackrabbit and Zool also struck my fancy as a child but nowadays I think they move a bit too quickly for me in relation to their camera's and the visible playing field. Still cool games in terms of overall look, sound and feel though, Jazz especially.

I've also put quite some time in some kind of promotional platforming game where you jumped or possibly even pogo-d around collecting something...soda bottles maybe? I can't think of the name of the game or the product that was advertised in it unfortunatley but I do remember spending quite some time on it during a summer holiday.
 
E

Eradicate

Member
Sakwoff said:
There were a bunch:

- Save our Pizzas - Platformer set in ancient rome. I remember that one being the best of the bunch.
- Forest - Platformer set in, duh, a forest which had speed/momentum mechanics (that didn't work great)
- Wild West - Platformer set in Wild West with a dash of cultural insensitivity towards Native Americans
- Desert Raid - Sidescrolling shooter in the middle east. With planes and stuff. You fight a guy named Sadman Insane. Yup.
- Some game set in space. You control some sort of moon rover. I remember this being barely playable.

Then there was also a later game just called Skunny, which was kind of a blatant ripoff of Donkey Kong Country, with digitized graphics, barrel cannons and all that. I remember that one being kind of decent.

Oh, and Skunny Kart. Which is a Super Mario Kart ripoff. I think Wacky Wheels was better.
Click to expand...

Oh geez, Desert Raid is the other one I played! That game was ridiculous! I really didn't know there was so many other ones, haha, I thought just maybe one or two.

Skunny Kart looks like a huge Super Mario Kart ripoff!

Raitaro said:
Jazz Jackrabbit and Zool also struck my fancy as a child but nowadays I think they move a bit too quickly for me in relation to their camera's and the visible playing field. Still cool games in terms of overall look, sound and feel though, Jazz especially.

I've also put quite some time in some kind of promotional platforming game where you jumped or possibly even pogo-d around collecting something...soda bottles maybe? I can't think of the name of the game or the product that was advertised in it unfortunatley but I do remember spending quite some time on it during a summer holiday.
Click to expand...

There definitely were quite a few where the playing field got somewhat messed up! Some of these characters were pretty fast! Then it just became a big guessing game about what's in front of you!

Hmm...I'm also trying to think of the promotional game you're thinking of, but I'm drawing a blank. Yo-Noid? Trolls? Boy, it could be about anything! Commander Keen is the only one I can think of that had a pogo, but I'm sure there are others that tried to imitate it! Maybe Pepsi ripped the code and had him collecting their products? (Stranger things are out there!)
 
G

Grim Patron

Member
Anyone play Skunny games?

I remember playing wild west and kart.

wildwest2.gif



EDIT: Damn I shouldve read the posts above before posting this lmao.
 
F

Forsaken82

Member
DownGrader said:
Jazz Jackrabbit was fun and nice-looking but had some notable flaws. They were fixed in Jazz Jackrabbit 2 for Windows, which is an overall better game, but I wasn't a fan of how things looked really small and faraway in that game.
Click to expand...

I loved how Jazz 2 looked with the camera back. everything was just Sharper because everything was higher res.
 
R

Raitaro

Member
Eradicate said:
Hmm...I'm also trying to think of the promotional game you're thinking of, but I'm drawing a blank. Yo-Noid? Trolls? Boy, it could be about anything! Commander Keen is the only one I can think of that had a pogo, but I'm sure there are others that tried to imitate it! Maybe Pepsi ripped the code and had him collecting their products? (Stranger things are out there!)
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've tried looking for it online in the mean time but with no results unfortunately. If only I could remember the product it came with. It might have been a European or even Dutch thing now that I think about...hmm...

Anyway, it was probably more of a game that was cool because it was free than an actual classic though.
 
K

KittenMaster

Member
Like others said, Crystal Caves. Crystal Caves was my jam and a lot of the level gimmicks were really cool.

I also really liked Bio Menace as a kid, strangely. We had a program manager back in the day with a list of games that had it and Halloween Harry on it and while Halloween Harry was kind of the "cool" game on that list, I preferred Bio Menace I guess because it played better (games with that engine or engines similar to it like Duke Nukem or Commander Keen tended to have very responsive gameplay).
 
G

General Lee

Member
For me, I'd say Keen 4 and Prehistorik 2 were most memorable. DuckTales: The Quest for Gold was also one of the earliest I games I played, though it's not purely a platformer.
 
T

teepo

Member
commander keen 4 is most likely my favorite dos platformer

something about that game spoke to me more so than any of the other keens. the world felt more fully fleshed out? i don't remember exactly

jazz jackrabbit and loderunner are a close 2nd

edit: totally forgot about prince of persia!
 
Gamespawn

Gamespawn

Member
BTails said:
Commander Keen series, especially 4 - 6 (Secret of the Oracle, Armageddon Machine, Aliens Ate my Babysitter). Absolute classic games that get forgotten about all the time now (Though I hear there's an easter egg in a recent id shooter...)
Click to expand...
I still remember the first time I got the pogo stick... DOSe were the days.
 
J

JamesJoyce1882

Member
Surprised that Rick Dangerous 2 hasn't been mentioned yet.

beGv7fC.jpg


Great game! Otherwise I agree with Commander Keen, Duke Nukem and PoP being the best.
 
Baleoce

Baleoce

Member
The game I had in one of my primary schools was Crystal Caves. So I love that. But in my first primary school we had Mad Professor on the Amiga. Awesome game.
 
P

PaulloDEC

Member
Seeing an awful lot of my childhood in this thread. While the other kids were talking about Sega and Nintendo, I was talking about id, Epic and Apogee.

For me, Duke Nukem, Duke Nukem 2, Commander Keen, Xargon and the various Super Solver games took up most of my time. If I had to pick one, it'd probably be one of the Duke games.
 
S

Shadow Hog

Member
Gonna echo Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure. That game was a pretty big part of my early childhood. So much creativity in the design of... well, everything. Coming back to it as an adult, I'm amused by how all the surreal alien fruit instead looks familiar (and kinda tasty).

It's hampered by a pretty terrible camera, though - you're frequently hit by things from off-screen before you can adequately react to them. As far as Apogee's best platformers go, the Duke Nukem and Commander Keen games are a better fit - maybe even Bio Menace. But as far as Apogee's best platformers to me go, Cosmo's still a fave.

Oh, and Word Rescue. That one's somehow still fun as an adult.
 
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