As my summer vacation comes closer and closer to an end, I needed something short and easily digested in small chunks to piss away the last few days that I have left and I discovered an XBox Live Arcade game that I had bought on sale and never played, so I figured why not...and I am so glad I did. Comic Jumper: The Adventures of Captain Smiley was just what I needed.
Comic Jumper came out in October of 2010 from the fine folks at Twisted Pixel. It centers around a comic book character named Captain Smiley and the foul-mouthed logo on his chest named Star. As the game begins, we are in one of Captain Smiley's many adventures as he goes against his arch rival, Brad. Brad is everything that Captain Smiley is not. He is good looking, strong, smooth with the ladies, and he has the Brad-copter that is covered in speakers that constantly drone out the Brad theme song. At the end of this first adventure, we see Captain Smiley's comic cancelled and him having to jump into other comics as a guest star in order to boost his popularity and earn enough money to restart his failed book. He has to go into fantasy, silver-age (there is Kirby all over this stuff), and manga comics in order to further his adventures. It is a lot of fun and the different takes on different genres of comics is a hoot to see.
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| This gives a peek at the styles |
You can tell that this idea has been in someones head for a long time and you get to unlock a ton of extras with the in game cash that you earn that really let you know where the story came from and where it could have gone. Concept art, comic covers and art used in game, videos from the creators, audio clips of music from the game, models used for producing the characters, and exclusives that unlock a lot of fun stuff from outside of the game. These extras give a lot of back story, but also each increases the amount of in game money that you earn on each of the eleven missions. The exclusives were probably my favorite because they included two cool gamer pics, a premium theme for the Xbox dashboard, and a new level for one of Twisted Pixel's other games, Splosion Man. Additionally, just for the playing the game, you unlock two different avatar items, a t-shirt with Star on it and a wearable Captain Smiley head.
Overall, I really love the game. The dialog is great and the attention to detail when it comes to the types of comics that the levels are trying to emulate are top-notch. If I have any complaints it is that the fantasy levels could have been more diverse and represented the story matter better and the game play can get very repetitive at times. It is definitely a game that gets better the more time you spend with it. The dialog and characters will make you forgive that and you will have a lot of fun overall.
So if you have the Microsoft points and some time to kill, give Comic Jumper a try...and tell 'em that your buddy Brad sent ya, brah!
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| Brad is a bad-ass, brah! |
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