Commander Keen 2: The Earth Explodes

Yet again, Earth needs the help of heroic young boy Billy Blaze, aka(once he's wearing his brother's football helmet) Commander Keen. As he returns to Earth, he sees a huge spacecraft hovering over the planet... the Vorticon mother-ship. They had attempted to keep him from returning to Earth, as they realized that he was the only one who could stop their evil schemes... but Keen won that time, and with your help, he will, this time, too. The entire game takes place on the mother-ship. The Vorticons are intending to blow up the planet(as the title alludes to), through targeting eight of the largest cities, and Keen must single-handedly destroy all of the laser cannons(or Tantalus Rays, as they are known in the game) aimed at the cities in order to stop them and ensure that the world is safe. The story is more epic and exciting than that of the first... whilst it certainly was fun to collect the parts of the Bean-and-Bacon Megarocket to enable the Commander to fly back to his home planet, saving said planet is somewhat more interesting. I would say that the first game works well as an introduction to the universe, character and series, and this raises the stakes and is a solid sequel. A few new features are added, one of which can be recognized from the later games, such as the two in Goodbye Galaxy!, namely, moving platforms. Light switches are also added, but I will leave it up to the players to find out what they are good for(though I will say that they are extremely helpful). The general surroundings are considerably more hostile towards Keen... where the first game took place on a planet inhabited by both friendly, agreeable aliens and... less friendly ones, this has you inside the mother-ship of some aliens that are dead-set on destroying your home-planet(though you do find out something interesting in the game, regarding that... all may not be what it seems). As such, the Vorticons themselves are not your only concern, since the ship is full of complicated technology powering and running it, quite a bit of which is lethal to eight-year-old human boys. The robots aren't exactly the most forgiving type, either, in particular the variety that fly back and forth, occasionally firing three quick blasts of energy. However, the small ones who merely push you(which, in itself, with such dangerous surroundings, can be enough to kill Keen) may prove useful more often than not. The colors are somewhat more grey in this, though not exactly bleak(it definitely is still a children's game). Between the end of the last game, and the start of this, Keen has gained a new ray gun, one belonging to an elite warrior of the Vorticon race... this proves to be more powerful than his own from the first game, so he keeps it throughout the entire game. Essentially, this means that you can now shoot those pesky wolf-like things, which were invincible in the first game. The controls remain the same, "heavy", laggy, bordering on(and occasionally crossing that line to) clumsy, and with the trial of two-button shooting, which causes problems when trying to fight enemies, one in particular, who takes three rounds to go down, is able to shoot back(and only one shot is necessary to take Keen out of the equation), jumps high and moves fast. In-game saving is missed, though I will admit that I only got to play this and the other two parts of the trilogy after having completed Goodbye Galaxy!(or, more accurately, the first part of it, Secret of the Oracle, the fourth entry into the series) and Keen Dreams, so I was perhaps spoiled. There is still no difficulty setting, either, though the game does pose a reasonable challenge. Wikipedia even lists this as the most difficult of the trilogy, though I would say that the third is, each game in Invasion of the Vorticons(the first three games) gets more difficult than the last. The game takes a little longer to complete, not to mention more skill and perseverance. The game-play is about the same as that of the first. There are a few puzzles to solve, and some time is spent locating key-cards and generally finding your way through the levels. You get to choose the order of the levels again, well, within reason, that is. Level design is quite good. The humor is the same cartoony brand as the first, directed mainly towards but by no means exclusively appealing to, children(and like with the first, there really isn't so much of it that you can't simply ignore it if it downright bothers you). The platform gaming remains fun, and the additions make things more interesting. It's also quite entertaining to play. Once again, extra lives are gained through amassing enough points, which will also ultimately count towards your ranking on the high score list which is still the main incentive in the series towards replaying the game, and this list will also say how many of the eight cities you managed to save from laser-induced annihilation before the game ended. The sound is still somewhat simple, but it's good for what it is. The graphics aren't marvelous, and they are 2D, all the way, but they aren't bad. While I'm not sure I'd say that the series has achieved the greatness that started in the "interlude", the lost episode, Keen Dreams, which was made between the trilogy and the later three official Commander Keen Games(the Goodbye Galaxy! series and Aliens Ate My Babysitter!) and continued through the last three games(I have yet to play the Game Boy Color version, and from what I've read of descriptions, I doubt I will make much, if any, effort towards doing so), this is about as good as the first game, and surpasses it in a few areas. I recommend this fun little game to fans of the Commander Keen series, and to fans of DOS games and/or platform games. 7/10