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Mzo

Comic Jumper

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I found an old muffin in my backpack once: A forgotten breakfast gone undiscovered for how long? I couldn't remember. It certainly looked appetizing enough through its Saran Wrappings; a cornucopia of sweet glaze and blueberries. I think nuts may have been involved. Point is, shit was looking good and I was hungry. I slowly unfurled the flimsy plastic and brought it to my nose for a cautious sniff, its sweet scent eagerly filling my nostrils. That was all I required, we were good to go.

My first bite quickly turned sour in my mouth. As I let the half-chewed bite tumble out my mouth and to the ground for dramatic effect I couldn't help but notice green patches of mold festooned throughout. Was this the same muffin that had looked so appetizing only moments before?

Yes, that muffin story is real but the muffin was also Comic Jumper and now I'm going to add that there were maggots crawling around in the muffin and that I bit into one and it squirted bile right down my throat and then I threw up actual poop because that is what a fucking terrible game Comic Jumper really, really is on the inside.

The sad part, and I mean the REALLY sad part, is how amazing, charming, hilarious, and out of control everything is when you are not actually playing Comic Jumper. The cutscenes, transitions, voice acting, jokes, tons of extras, green screen hijinks that make Twisted Pixel a character in their own game, the art (oh god yes, the art) and the music are so damn good that I think people should still play this game. It is still fucking worth playing, but only by the smallest of margins.

How did the team behind The Maw and Splosion Man lose their way so damn nasty? It sounds like time and budget constraints more than anything else. They put so much effort into the trappings of the thing that they came very close to completely forgetting the actual gameplay itself. On the deadline they took a collective shit into a beautiful faberge egg and rushed it out the door.

Just play it. Gross. Enemy types are all way too similar from comic to comic: Boring, huge bullet sponges that pour down on you endlessly as you plod your way through too-long and somehow even more boring corridors. Level design is non-existent. The run and gun gameplay is something like Earthworm Jim meets Gunstar Heroes, except maybe they found religion first or met at the same AA meeting and are now horribly uninteresting people. There are also some super-simplified beat-'em-up segments and Sin and Punishment style foreground run and gun, but they're as insipid as the rest. The game really only shines during its twin-stick shooter stages and certain boss battles (one of which is unapologetically ripped right out of Splosion Man. Seriously.). This little glimmer of potential only serves to accentuate how terribad the rest of the game really is and is in no way capable of saving it.

While I'm bitching, buying the extras also sucks. It's actually a neat system where you earn money for playing stages and then buy bonuses (like art, video clips, etc.) that give you a bonus modifier to money earned. This makes it one of the few games where it's more worthwhile to purchase the cheapest items first. Too bad there are hundreds of these things and they're set up like a cumbersome animated DVD menu, forcing you to watch dozens of purchased items roll by, assembly-line style, until you get to the ones you haven't yet bought. Developers, make this shit a big fucking menu that is easily traversed with no animation in the future. Thank you.

At least the soundtrack is free.

BOOM GOES MY RINGTONE BOOM BOOM GOES MY PHONE

I'm going to say play it, but only so we can make in-jokes about all the awesome stuff that happens around the game. The 400 point sale was a good time to get it, so this review is like a week too late. You're welcome.

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Updated 09 Jul 2011 at 02:01 AM by Mzo

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Video Games

Comments

  1. ChaoofNee's Avatar
    Thus is the fate of what should've been a magnificent game. It makes me cry both out of disappointment and from the pain of actually playing through this thing to enjoy everything that's NOT the game.
  2. Josh's Avatar
    I tried the demo, and I think it's a barrel of dicks.

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