What happens when you get Cliff Bleszinski, John Romero, Tom Hall, Dave Taylor and more in a room? You get a great chance to look back at some of the best side-scrollers ever released on PC.
In what might be one of the best side promotions for a crowdfunding campaign, 3D Realms has put together a video looking at the history of sidescrollers. It’s a fantastic, quick look back at the history of some of the best side-scrollers on PC: Commander Keen, Abuse, Halloween Harry, Jazz Jackrabbit, and more.
It’s kind of crazy how many little snippets are part of this video, including this letter that Scott Mulliere sent to John Romero:
The video is all part of a promotion for Rad Rodgers, a 90’s style platformer from Interceptor Entertainment. The Danish developer was responsible for porting the original Duke Nukem games to Steam, as well as the Rise of the Triad remake that came out in 2013.
Comments
13 responses to “A Quick Look Back At Some Of Your Favourite Side-Scrollers”
I always preferred arcade side-scrollers to PC. Final Fight, Captain Commando, Dungeons & Dragons. Those were where its at.
Not sure why Halloween Harry is in there. It was just an Alien Carnage rip off. ^_-
Weren’t they both done by the same guys?
They’re literally the same game. It got renamed somewhere along the line, perhaps because “Halloween Harry” wasn’t bland and generic enough.
It was actually because Apogee felt that having “Halloween” in the title made it sound like it was a seasonal themed game so it wouldn’t sell well at other times of the year.
That actually makes sense. I only ever played it as Halloween Harry
I seriously hope you’re just trolling. 😛 Halloween Harry and Alien Carnage is the same game.
They changed the name for the Full Version due to the game not being Halloween themed….
Wow I’m surprised this comment section isn’t littered with comments.
These are among the first games i ever played before i ever owned a console which is primarily what i play now.
Loved me some Dangerous Dave, Jazz Jack Rabbit and Commander Keen.
Thanks to Alex for getting me onto Rad Rodgers and for writing this article, PC side scrollers don’t get enough love.
Man, Apogie had some gold. Commander Keen , Secret Agent, Cosmos Cosmic Adventure…
I’ve probably still got more hours pumped into the Commander Keen games than anything else since.
wizball space quest… crystal caves
Man, shareware. I wonder if kids today in our rampant piracy era can even wrap their heads along that concept.
I wanted to say “I loved Abuse when I was a kid”,..