Prince of Persia was the first game to come to mind for meThis
I don't think you are going to find one that matched the popularity of console platformers simply because PC wasn't as popular when they were in their heyday. But if you want to list classic ones, I would throw Commander Keen and Jill of the Jungle in there as well.
Duke Nukem 2 is, in my opinion, the best DOS platformer.
Zool
not really. they didn't work all that great because most PCs of the time had keyboards not controllers. (there were joystick ports etc. but I don't think they were used much and you didn't have something like an SNES controller. and configuring them was terrible too IIRC.)You did have SNES style controllers like the Gravis Gamepad. A lot of of the big platformers like Jazz Jackrabbit and some of the Commander Keen games had built in support for it.
You did have SNES style controllers like the Gravis Gamepad.I did have one of those eventually. but I think not at the same time that I was playing Commander Keen, etc. I don't think I ended up using it successfully on any game it was more of a novelty for me.
And I don't think keyboards are intrinsically worse for platformers than controllers. I think it's just a preference thing. I prefer a controller but if I had grown up playing a lot more platformers on keyboard, maybe that would be different.I would say they are. The games mentioned were all in competition with SMB1-3 and at some point SMW so the overall experience was just not as great as what you had with Nintendo, both in game design and controls.
I would say they are. The games mentioned were all in competition with SMB1-3 and at some point SMW so the overall experience was just not as great as what you had with Nintendo, both in game design and controls.I'm not saying there were any 90s era PC platformers on the same level as something like SMW, there probably wasn't. I'm just saying there's nothing intrinsic about the keyboard that makes it inferior to controllers for platformers. You can learn to play SMW with a keyboard and be just as good at it as with a controller. Lots of people grew up playing and beating Mario, Sonic, Mega Man, etc with a keyboard via emulation.
this is just my experience. for sure there are those people that had great joysticks and played the heck out of the PC platform games, but I think the quality of the experience is not going to be anywhere near the best NES/SNES games.
I'm just saying there's nothing intrinsic about the keyboard that makes it inferior to controllers for platformers. You can learn to play SMW with a keyboard and be just as good at it as with a controller. Lots of people grew up playing and beating Mario, Sonic, Mega Man, etc with a keyboard via emulation.a standard keyboard does have simultaneous key-press limitations. otherwise I would still disagree but it's largely subjective. if you say a keyboard is just as good for you as a controller I can't tell you it isn't. but for me, having grown up with both at the same time, I would say a controller is undoubtedly better.
Commander Keen is pretty dang close thoit's even still referenced today in Doom games but that's more because it's owned by the same company
it's even still referenced today in Doom games but that's more because it's owned by the same company
a standard keyboard does have simultaneous key-press limitations. otherwise I would still disagree but it's largely subjective. if you say a keyboard is just as good for you as a controller I can't tell you it isn't. but for me, having grown up with both at the same time, I would say a controller is undoubtedly better.Hmm I actually didn't think about that. I think 6 key rollover is pretty typical for modern keyboards but that probably wasn't the case in the 90s. I know there were keyboards back then that had no key rollover but those were definitely not the standard. But as long as you have a keyboard with at least 6 key rollover, that shouldn't be a problem for 2D platformers or most games really.
I'm quite partial to Commander Keen 4