Keen: Surprisingly realistic?

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Levellass
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Keen: Surprisingly realistic?

Post by Levellass »

Let us consider Keen as compared to other video games and ask ourselves which has the more realistic gameplay, for I have noticed some things. For comparison I suggest examming three other ID-ish games, Woolfenstein 3D, Doom and Duke Nukum 3D.

Durability:
Other protagonists can survive a shotgun blast to the face and numerous other bullet wounds in various part of the body without slowing down. Duke can take a rocket launcher to the chest and drop kick a landmine.

Keen dies whenever he's shot by anything. Or poisoned, or falls into fire or...


Recovery:
Other protagonists heal themselves instantly with snacks or bandages or even toilet water. There is no scarring or impairment of damaged clothing.

Keen doesn't recover, when he dies he has to try all over again. Candy has no effect on his performance.


Carrying capacity:
Other protagonists can hold an arsenal of weapons plus hundreds of rounds for those weapons with no slowing down or impairment.

Keen has one little 'toy' gun and a pogo stick. He can't pick up enemy weapons.


I put it to you that Keen is a far more accurate reflection of the average human than most FPS protagonists of his time, even most platformers.
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Post by Nisaba »

...Keen jumps twice as high as his own size. but of course due to the planets gravity. obvious popovious trallala
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Post by Plasma Captain »

Well. Hm. You've got me convinced.

However, allow me to play devil's advocate:

* Keen can fall from absurd heights and land on his feet, staring at the screen, with no ill effects whatsoever.

* Keen can grab onto ledges with his bare hands, regardless of his velocity. He always catches them, and his hands are never harmed.

* Likewise, Keen can grab onto poles while falling really fast and doesn't seem to be affected by burning palms.

* Despite having a football helmet on, all those times Keen has bumped his head into stuff should still have added up to some serious head trauma.

* Where does he put all that candy? WHERE DOES HE PUT ALL THAT CANDY? (Okay, I always figured these were nothing more than gaming abstractions, but in case they're not, this is a legitimate question).

The jumping thing is explainable as he's never appeared on Earth. Mars has a lower gravity than Earth, and it should be assumed that the other locations Keen visits are similar.
Last edited by Plasma Captain on Sun Feb 14, 2016 14:11, edited 1 time in total.
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Roobar
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Post by Roobar »

[quote="Plasma Captain"][/quote]
That's nothing. He's caring a fictional weapon, with which he can shoot down and ride on his own bullets lol :) And not to mention he's not old enough to carry weapons. And so on and so forth. We can continue with many more unrealistic things.
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lemm
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Post by lemm »

The enemies in the Keen games use a lot more pseudorandom behaviour than the enemies of typical platformers from that period, which generally moved in simple patterns.
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Post by Keening_Product »

Plasma Captain wrote:* Keen can grab onto ledges with his bare hands, regardless of his velocity. He always catches them, and his hands are never harmed.
And he can change direction mid-air!

But yes, relative to other games, Keen's a relatively realistic representation of mortality. Good point, ll.

The jump height is also a good point. Probably originally so high to represent of Mars' low gravity, the feel of how Keen moves has stuck as a key part of the game. Would be fun if a mod set on multiple planets played with the gravity.
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Post by Plasma Captain »

lemm wrote:The enemies in the Keen games use a lot more pseudorandom behaviour than the enemies of typical platformers from that period, which generally moved in simple patterns.
This is something I'd never really thought about, possibly because Keen was my first exposure to the platformer genre. Yeah, the enemy behaviours are pretty diverse, without being unfairly chaotic.
Keening_Product wrote:
Plasma Captain wrote:* Keen can grab onto ledges with his bare hands, regardless of his velocity. He always catches them, and his hands are never harmed.
And he can change direction mid-air!
Isaac Newton is spinning in his grave.

Really though, this ledge thing has been in my mind ever since I saw this 3D remake of Keen 4 that gave Keen fingerless gloves as an aesthetic design choice for that reason.
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Post by Roobar »

Keening_Product wrote:The jump height is also a good point. Probably originally so high to represent of Mars' low gravity, the feel of how Keen moves has stuck as a key part of the game. Would be fun if a mod set on multiple planets played with the gravity.
That's not true. We all know Keen was inspired by Super Mario Bros. for NES (all started with Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement, later on turning into Keen 1-3). And that Mario can also jump really high on Earth. So the low gravity is not the origin of his high jumps. The question is how does Mario can jump so high? We should look elsewhere.
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Post by VikingBoyBilly »

wiivn wrote:
Keening_Product wrote:The jump height is also a good point. Probably originally so high to represent of Mars' low gravity, the feel of how Keen moves has stuck as a key part of the game. Would be fun if a mod set on multiple planets played with the gravity.
That's not true. We all know Keen was inspired by Super Mario Bros. for NES (all started with Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement, later on turning into Keen 1-3). And that Mario can also jump really high on Earth. So the low gravity is not the origin of his high jumps. The question is how does Mario can jump so high? We should look elsewhere.
Has Mario ever been on Earth? Name one game that specifically identifies the location is Earth.

Eww, Mario is missing.
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Post by Roobar »

well, every one knows that Mario is an Italian plumber and the first Mario is in the sewers of New York. And in the movie, he and luigi save the Earth from invasion.
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Post by Nisaba »

Keening_Product wrote:The jump height is also a good point [...] Would be fun if a mod set on multiple planets played with the gravity.
ding dong! that would be fun, indeed.
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Post by Keening_Product »

We all know Mario is superhuman.
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Post by Levellass »

* Keen can fall from absurdheights and land on his feet, staring at the screen, with no ill effects whatsoever.

* Keen can grab onto ledges with his bare hands, regardless of his velocity. He always catches them, and his hands are never harmed.

* Likewise, Keen can grab onto poles while falling really fast and doesn't seem to be affected by burning palms.
Low gravity. real low. At least as low as Mars' which is about a third of Earth's. This makes both his jump height and fall survivabilty plausible plus his ledge gripping and poles.

* Despite having a football helmet on, all those times Keen has bumped his head into stuff should still have added up to some serious head trauma.
Well no... he hasn't really impacted it that hard. It's jumps and pogo bounces and severe impacts should be accompanied by dizzyness or disorientation, which Keen has never shown. Low gravity again!

* Where does he put all that candy? WHERE DOES HE PUT ALL THAT CANDY? (Okay, I always figured these were nothing more than gaming abstractions, but in case they're not, this is a legitimate question).
There's less than you'd think if you look at them as real candy sized as opposed to the 'bigger so the player can see them' size. I for one can put all the jawbreakers Keen comes across in Keen 4 in my pockets.
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Post by Plasma Captain »

Levellass wrote:Low gravity. real low. At least as low as Mars' which is about a third of Earth's. This makes both his jump height and fall survivabilty plausible plus his ledge gripping and poles.
This is a fair point.
Levellass wrote:Well no... he hasn't really impacted it that hard. It's jumps and pogo bounces and severe impacts should be accompanied by dizzyness or disorientation, which Keen has never shown. Low gravity again!
I would think those high velocity pogo collisions would do something. Unless nobody else plays the game like I do, constantly impossible pogoing and hitting my head into low ceilings.
Levellass wrote:
* Where does he put all that candy? WHERE DOES HE PUT ALL THAT CANDY? (Okay, I always figured these were nothing more than gaming abstractions, but in case they're not, this is a legitimate question).
There's less than you'd think if you look at them as real candy sized as opposed to the 'bigger so the player can see them' size. I for one can put all the jawbreakers Keen comes across in Keen 4 in my pockets.
http://www.shikadi.net/keenwiki/File:Ck3lv01.png

I defy you to put 39 cheeseburgers, 10 soda cans, 8 candy bars, and 6 slices of chocolate cake in your pockets.
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Post by Levellass »

Fair point. Real Keen must not get so many points.
What you really need, not what you think you ought to want.
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