I figured it’s time to review another game, one that I’ve actually finished. Now, this weekend I downloaded Twisted Pixel’s latest game: Comic Jumper.
Comic Jumper is a very tongue in cheek look at comics and the culture around them. From the fans, to the cliche’s they always tend to have in them. In Comic Jumper you play as Captain Smiley, a hero who’s comic has apparently gone stale. He takes down his evil arch rival, BRAD. But once the fighting is done, you see everyone hates his comic, and it’s eventually canceled. Lucky for Captain Smiley, Twisted Pixel finds his comic, and knows exactly what to do: Send him to other comics, and have him make money.
This is by far one of the funniest games I’ve played. The fourth wall in this game is absolutely destroyed with the writing, and even the “Help Me” attack. All the characters are well written, unique, and funny. From Smiley sucking up to his new bosses, to Star being a sarcastic hanger on, to Brad who’s such an ego maniac he’s made all his hench robots busty gals who are in love with him. Each level is full of great one liners, and references to the comic genre’s they’re spoofing.
The game is filled with all sorts of nods, and each level really gives the genre’s credit where it’s due. From the enemies in the fantasy realm of Nanoc throwing things like chickens, and the birds dive bombing with the sounds of crashing speeder bikes to the silver age level having really bright colors and an the comic’s code keeping track of “violations”, to the Manga level being in all black and white, and all the characters being in love with Brad. All these things make the game a blast to play.
Though, the gameplay, can be very very frustrating. The first thing you’re going to notice is that the game is pretty darn hard. Enemies send out a bunch of projectiles, and they do a lot of damage. The biggest issue with the difficulty though, is that all the enemies take a TON of shots to take down. And bosses are even worse. Sometimes it feels like you’re barely doing anything to them, and even after you’ve gotten the weapons leveled up a bit (I only got it up to the level right before max, but it still takes a lot of shots to take down most enemies).
Sometimes the game will switch from guns, to melee for an on the rails beat em up, which isn’t bad. It’s kinda hard to want to go back to guns, when three punches take down these guys, and it takes tons of shots to take down similar enemies. Though, you can’t jump in these sequences, inexplicably.
These sections don’t really happen much though. You’re mostly shooting, and sometimes it’ll go to third person, and it can become a fairly big chore to keep track of where you’re shooting, and what you need to dodge and avoid. But they do offer a change of pace. Sometimes, the game will go an almost like twitch game shooter. And again, this offers a nice change of pace, but your hit box is pretty darn big.
None of these are really deal breakers in the game play market, but they are annoyances. The only times I’ve nearly turned off the game was in Benny fight, when a hit sent me careening into another hit, which sent me into another hit, and left me with next to no health. Now, this didn’t happen often, but sometimes you can get hit several times in a row, taking a HUGE chunk of life away, and it IS annoying.
This game has a TON of unlockable extra’s, from gamer pictures, avatar awards, videos, musics, character models, and art. Each shows a lot of personality, and really gives you a lot to work for.
Overall, this game is very fun, and while it IS hard, it’s humor is well worth the effort to play this game. This game gets a 8 out of 10. It’s great, fun, and a challenge, but never feels impossible.
Played on Xbox 360, and cost 800 points at time of purchase.
