PAX East Preview: Comic Jumper

Twisted Pixel has been damn good to the XBLA. The Maw set the stage and quickly became a favorite of many, and Splosion Man remains probably my fondest Xbox 360 memory to date. When their plans for Comic Jumper were announced oh the many moons ago, it was not difficult to perk up and take notice. The premise seemed cool: a wacky superhero jumping between the panels of a comic book in true brawler fashion. It promised a style and humor we can almost expect from Twisted Pixel even in their short time on the scene. At PAX East I was able to sit down and preview the first ten minutes of the game, which was being showcased at Twisted Pixel’s booth, and I found myself both very impressed yet slightly let down.

Comic Jumper is a side-scrolling brawler that seems to play much like the also PAX-bound Shank. Our hero, Captain Smiley (with his sidekick, — chestkick? — Star), runs along flat surfaces punching and shooting his way through a host of enemies. The game looks great, much like their other titles, exuding a polish that many XBLA titles lack, and it genuinely looks like a moving comic book. The first ten minutes of the game feature a large amount of cut scene-like panel work, and unfortunately, a lot of bad dialogue.

The lovely thing about Splosion Man’s story was that it was all told non-verbally. This does not always work, but for a title as crap-your-pants crazy as Sploison Man, it did. Grunts and laughter and squeezing noises were all that the game needed. Comic Jumper is a different beast. The bits I saw of the game feature not just a little dialogue, but almost a majority of dialogue. Most of it did not make me laugh, despite obviously intending me to. It wasn’t even B-movie bad dialogue. There were just boring, lame attempts at humor. I didn’t expect such a failure from the team that brought us the Donut Song, but I can’t deny what I heard. In fact, humor-wise the best moment of the entire demo was when Comic Jumper knocked out a fembot and rode her across part of the level like a skateboard. That was more than funny. I should add a disclaimer here that this may have just been my ultra-rich sense of comic humor. Others I’ve talked to liked it well enough.

But we can’t judge a game only on its dialogue. The gameplay is what we’ll be faced with for the majority of the time, and though the characters and their interactions are often what will make the game memorable, gameplay is probably the centerpiece of this brawling adventure. In this regard, Comic Jumper looks to be a hell of a good time. It features a mixture of fist and gunplay that looks to be interchangeable at will. Enemies can be tossed around like beanbags and grappling even seems to play a small role during certain tussles, as well as a smattering of quick-time events. The best parts seem to be when Captain Smiley is doing something ridiculously violent, like throwing his enemies out windows or the aforementioned “Femboard” sequence. And strangely enough, the in-battle dialogue blurbs are infinitely more amusing than the cut scenes. The demo video below really does show the game’s finer points off, and the more I want it, the more I wish I had control of Captain Smiley already. Dialogue aside, I can’t wait to just get to the pulverizing.