At this rate I'll have 2,700 posts in the thread! Still, Dig Dug warrants at least 27 posts. So I feel entirely justified.

99. Commander Keen (series)
PC, 1990-1991


I loved these games. The more I look back at them, the more I see how much they influenced various things I really, really love in gaming. I played them at my godparents' house which I think was a farm somewhere in Wairarapa, and Commander Keen was a must-play for me alongside other games such as Crystal Caves and... well, I forget the names of the others at the moment. The Commander Keen games were easily the best. I loved that you could travel from map to map instead of just being 'teleported' between them. I loved the pogo stick. I loved being able to play the levels in the order I chose. It just seemed so great. A traversable overworld. I didn't know those words back then, it was just walking around a map, but these days they apparently struggle to get it into modern Final Fantasy games. Go figure. Anyway, yeah, I loved them. I can never remember much about them until I see the screenshots and the videos, but every time I watch one of those videos and see those screenshots, I remember everything I see. It was just a really, really fun game.