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LodiB88

PC action platformer games

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With D2TWID recently reminding me of Commander Keen, it naturally gave me some new interest in digging up some decent action oriented platformer experiences. And while I'm aware that the PC is quite far from the best system for such games, nonetheless I'm interested in some of the better ones. As such if you've played any PC platformers, what are some you've enjoyed? It has to be action based so it cannot be adventure, puzzle, RPG oriented etc. but aside from that, anything else, 2D or 3D, is fair game for mentioning. While not precluded from the selection, there are a few I'm already well aware of:

Commander Keen series
Duke Nukem 1/2/MP
Jill of the Jungle
Xargon

So of course, other ones would be appreciated most, but you're entirely welcome to bring up any you want nonetheless.

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Some freeware ones:

Abuse
Cave Story
Spelunky
Soldat
Happy Wheels
I Wanna Be The Guy
N
Liero

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Commander Keen is, apart from Doom, the other half of my gaming childhood, and one of the first games I ever played. I am still an active member of the Keening community which continues to put out mods and levelpacks for all its various episodes. I love it.

I played Hocus Pocus a lot as a kid, though I kind of have to admit it's not that good of a platformer.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I didn't have that many platformers I played growing up. The Duke Nukum platformers are pretty cool. Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure is a charming one. Crystal Caves is fun too.

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what kind of a scene does Commander Keen have nowadays anyway? Are there any cool custom campaigns running on some kind of Commander Keen equivalent of GZdoom?

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Another World (aka Out of this World). Frustratingly hard at times, but well worth a playthrough. Also, Flashback.

Prince of Persia (the original Broderbund one in 2D).

Did you know Blizzard once made a platformer game once? It was called Blackthorne. You got to kill orcs with a shotgun.

Hocus Pocus had rather mediocre gameplay, but the super catchy music and very pretty backgrounds made up for it.

In more recent games, I liked Giana Sisters Twisted Dreams, though I never bothered to finish the final boss because it takes forever to reach it.

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Modding of Keen has been extensive over the last 12 years or so, and have grown more elaborate as the patch database expands. As the Keen source has not been released (though it was found by Tom Hall a couple months ago!) patching remains the most viable way of modifying the engine, though some modders have done impressive things with it.

There are a couple clones/interpreters, such as Commander Genius and Netkeen, which support online multiplayer and expanded game modes as well as Windows support. I unfortunately am not the person to talk about them as I haven't really used them much yet. Much can be learned at the Keen forum, the modding forum, and the Commander Genius homepage.

And yeah Prince of Persia! Not sure how I forgot that one. One of the most elegantly simple but addictive platformers I know.

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Super Meat Boy is a good one on Steam.

Mega Man Unlimited (Fan Game)

Street Fighter X Mega Man

Mega Man 8-bit Deathmatch - Obstacle Course (a map pack for a mod for Doom.) 3D Platformer

Uh... umm, I got nuthin' but Mega Man.

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The only (non-shareware) PC platformer I ever finished was Duke Nukem II. I don't have much to compare it to, but I had fun at the time.

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King Arthur's Gold got their steam release the other day. Best 2D platform game I've played in years.

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Vinyl Goddess from Mars, the game that was originally supposed to be next in "Jill of the Jungle" series, is my old favorite.

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The best platformer I've played in a decade is easily Dino Run. I think there's a kickstarter bid for a sequel going on right now.

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Intrusion 2
ARIES
Awesomenauts
Cargo Commander
Bionic Commando
Cave Story+
Mark of the Ninja
Shank
Shank 2
Rocketbirds
Rush Bros
Rogue Legacy
Terraria
Trine
Trine 2
Final Exam
Cargo Commander
Shadow Complex
8 Bit Warrior
Metal Slug


The list goes on and on. That's all I can think of offhand. There are 2 I don't know the name of that just came out. One with a pink haired girl and the the other that looks like a Metal Slug game with Megaman gameplay.

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I've heard of many of the new titles mentioned here, but most of them aren't really the type of action platformer I'm looking for. I like to be going around killing things, not a whole lot else, or they don't really fit the action genre for me. The ones I mentioned in the OP, Jazz, Cosmo,, Hocus Pocus, Goddess from Mars, Crystal Caves, perhaps any Apogee one are, among those mentioned or eluded to, look like the ones that may fit the bill to what type of game I'm looking for, based on a little looking around I did with the titles mentioned so far. So focusing on that type what's recommended? I also noticed there is a fan made new trilogy for Keen apparently; anyone played these?

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I recall that I found most "native" PC platformers to be mediocre, compared to the offerings on consoles and home computers, which were the Kings of the genre for over a decade. On the PC they usually lacked smooth scrolling, smooth sprite movement, parallax scrolling, etc. and ports of classic arcade platformers didn't translate well to PCs. I also found it frustrating that a base Amiga 500/1200 could outperform a 386 or even a 486 at the same platform title, if the PC version was anything short of a programming masterpiece, or at least could run it with a fraction of the resources. Compare e.g. Cannon Fodder, Worms, Disney platformers etc. no way those required 2 or 4 MB of RAM on the Amiga...

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I'm not a fan of dual stick action shooters such as Inversion 2 and Terraria. DS + Jump just doesn't feel right compared to standard 8 way shooting of consoles.

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In particular are Jazz Jackrabbit 1/2, any Apogee game other than Keen/Duke, and/or the fan made Episodes 7-9 of Keen worthwhile plays?

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LodiB88 said:

the fan made Episodes 7-9 of Keen


I can't speak for the others you mentioned really, but these are most definitely worth playing. (As are many, many other mods, if you get around to them.)

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The new Giana Sisters game is alright, but I'd guess it's a bit more puzzly than you're looking for. I lost interest in it pretty fast, though. Err, old new. I forgot they've got another one out now. I guess the C64 one counts too, that was technically a PC.

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LodiB88 said:

In particular are Jazz Jackrabbit 1/2, any Apogee game other than Keen/Duke, and/or the fan made Episodes 7-9 of Keen worthwhile plays?


Having finished Jack Jackrabbit 1, I can say that at the time it was a good surrogate for Sonic-like action on the PC, when the only other option was experimenting with an emulator. Smoothly coded game, too. Jazz Jackrabbit 2 however is a wholly different and compllicated beast, being Windows-only and having been released much later. Also, high res/small sprites...meh.

Keen was an OK series, and original enough to keep me interested. However, I never really was satisfied with any of the "native" PC platformers. Even Jazz Jackrabbit seemed to lack a certain je ne sais quoi compared to Mario, Sonic or arcade platformers like e.g. Blue's Journey or Metal Slug on the Neo Geo, despite it having no real technical flaws.

I think the problem was the extreme simplicity/shallowness of the gameplay. OK, it was a platforming "run and gun" game....with more run than gun. Most enemies just felt like they were simply mindless destroyable obstacles, offering no real challenge or need for strategy. Compare e.g. with how different strategies you had to employ with each enemy in Metal Slug or Blue's Journey...and let's not even mention the bosses. In that sense, it was uncomparable to just about any good classic platformer. OK, it was fast and flashy and "cool", but all in all, extremely forgettable. Kinda like giving Sonic a gun (which you can only aim forward). Meh.

I suppose Monster Bash would make for a different experience....but pretty much all non-Keen "native" DOS platformers I've played felt like they were a decade behind in terms of gameplay and design, kinda like they were just souped-up versions of Amstrad CPC platformers (GOOD ones were few and far between on that platform). Keen is OK, as I said, but perhaps too "intellectual" and slow-paced for a pure arcade fan. It felt like a more puzzly and toned-down New Zealand Story (which, BTW, never received an MS-DOS PC port :-/ )

Of course there are good ports of arcade and Amiga/Atari ST classics like Blues Brothers, Turrican, Dizzy Prince of the Yolkfolk, Gods, Prehistorik 1 & 2, etc. but I'm not sure if those should count as "PC" platformers.

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Prehistorik 2 was developed for PC/Amstrad and released in '93, so that one should definitely count. It's also a fine and funny platformer, thanks for bringing it up, heh. There was also the Disney line of platformers, which were actually quite decent up to The Jungle Book, which was the last one I played before deeming them too childish, hehe. Not much of run & gun in these games though.

I guess the safest bet for platformer violence is still goddamn Abuse, that lovely dark & gritty slaughter-platformer. Sonic and Mario can go explode in precisely mouse-aimed napalm! PC on top!

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dew said:

Prehistorik 2 was developed for PC/Amstrad and released in '93, so that one should definitely count.


Wiki-ing showed that to be true. PC and Amstrad CPC as the primary platforms. In 1993. Go figure O_o

That page also led me to remembering this little gem here. It became notorious in the magazine that had bundled it to its floppy of shareware stuff (PC Master) after a reader pointed out that all level codes were satanistic references (FROM THE BROKEN CROSS, ST. PETER'S KEY ALL BLOODY etc.). WTF?!

Edit: thinking that perhaps the version the magazine had was a bad hack joke or something, I tested a freshly downloaded copy of the shareware Ugh! from here, and peeked into the exe. Turns out I remembered correctly O_O

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Maes said:

WTF?!

Seconding the notion. I've played Ugh! a lot as a kid, I bet it made me the heathen cynic I am today. That's one hell (I'm not sorry) of a joke by someone on the team.

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StupidBunny said:

I can't speak for the others you mentioned really, but these are most definitely worth playing. (As are many, many other mods, if you get around to them.)


Can you name some of the others? I greatly prefer ones based on the original 4-6 games so I'd prefer focus on those and not any Keen 1-3 mods.

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Dragonsbrethren said:

The new Giana Sisters game is alright, but I'd guess it's a bit more puzzly than you're looking for.

Huh? There's nothing puzzly about Twisted Dreams, it's as old school as modern platformers get. I suppose if you find it to be puzzling you probably had similar issues with Mario and Sonic games as well?

I don't know why anyone would mention Terraria in this thread, it's as far from a pure action platformer as you can get.

As for an action platformer list on PC...
First, the absolute underrated classic, CAPTAIN CLAW:



Then:
Abuse
Bionic Commando Rearmed
Bleed
Giana Sisters Twisted Dreams
Intrusion 2
Jazz Jackrabbits

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Jodwin said:

Huh? There's nothing puzzly about Twisted Dreams, it's as old school as modern platformers get. I suppose if you find it to be puzzling you probably had similar issues with Mario and Sonic games as well?

I don't personally, but I wouldn't exactly call it an action platformer, either, that implies a bit more emphasis on combat to me. There's definitely a minor puzzle element with the character switching.

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LodiB88 said:

Can you name some of the others? I greatly prefer ones based on the original 4-6 games so I'd prefer focus on those and not any Keen 1-3 mods.


Well most mods in existence are Vorticons (ep. 1-3) mods. I actually prefer the gameplay dynamic in the first 3 episodes so am a lot more familiar with those mods, but that being said I'd try out "The Ruin of Roib". It's a very new release and it's brilliant. (And FUN FACT B.P.R.D. made it!)

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