The real premise behind Comic Jumper is fantastic. Faced with a poor performance in his own comic book, Captain Smiley--a bulky superhero with a smiley face for a head and a wise-cracked star named Star on his chest--finds himself canceled. In order to make ends meet and prove his worth for an eventual relaunch, he'll have to guest star in other comics to earn money for his comeback. Additionally, Twisted Pixel--that's the company that developed the game--buys the rights to Captain Smiley, making him an employee of the game's developer. This ends up leading to everything getting incredibly self-aware, with plenty of opportunities for the characters to directly reference the game's development and, as has become something of a Twisted Pixel trademark, a lot of terrific live-action video. It's almost as if the developer took the wildest parts of 'Splosion Man and The Maw and expanded it all into an entire game.
It's funny, the writing is strong, and it also has a great visual style. What starts out as a fairly generic modern comic look quickly gives way to three additional styles. The fantasy style '70s comic, Nanoc the Obliviator, has an appropriately desaturated look and lots of fur boots, evil birds, and... uh... golf balls. It makes sense in context. After three levels of that, you'll move onto a silver age style, where "invisible" ropes are clearly seen as dashed lines and a governing body attempts to maintain moral standards by fining you every time Star decides to swear. Things really go off the rails after that with a manga style, which, cleverly, has you moving from right to left instead of left to right. Smiley takes on a Cloud Strife sort of look in the manga style, and jokes are made about how the game's creators probably didn't bother to do much actual research into the source material before writing a bunch of easy, yet great material, all of which is well-delivered by a pretty seasoned voice cast.
But middling gameplay isn't enough to stop Comic Jumper. While I found myself disappointed with portions of the game, the sense of humor and green-screen madness on display make Comic Jumper something much, much more than a basic platformer, and it's this aspect of the game that makes it relatively easy to recommend.
73 Comments