Thanks to a kind donation of a box of spare computer parts, the kids' old win98 machine is once again operational; that's the good news. The bad news is we can't find the Win98 CD and the best default mode (maybe the only mode) on that card is 16-colors, so it's back to basics.

!(right)http://www.3drealms.com/keenhistory/keen1title.gif!Since they can't play many of their CDROM-based pre-school games, the hunt was on to find something hey could play, and that made me think of the mainstay of computer games when their oldest brother was this age, and that means it's time to dust off Commander Keen.

If you don't know him by name, or by the names of Id Software or legendary game pioneers Tom hall, John Carmack and John Romero, you should because just about the whole evolution of PC-based gaming is firmly rooted in the staggeringly brilliant innovations of this crew.