Comic Jumper: The Adventures of Captain Smiley

To make a long review short, every person who loves both comics and video games should play Comic Jumper. The somewhat short game is filled to the brink with clever writing, excellent voice acting, and an interesting art style which all leads to one of the best potential downloads available on the Xbox Arcade.

In Comic Jumper, the player controls Captain Smiley, a comic book hero based on "modern" day comics. Captain Smiley's self titled comic gets canceled due to low ratings, so Smiley has to make guest appearances in other comics until he become popular again. Unfortunately for Smiley, the comics he decides to guest star in all have some sort of crazy villain that attempts to hamper his progress. Another thorn in Smiley's side is the star attached to his chest which constantly berates him—even bites him occasionally—and provides some of the funniest (and maybe a bit politically incorrect) jokes of the game. This bold and brash humor is one of the key factors that makes the game stand out.

From Nanoc the Barbarian, (read the name backwards to get the joke) who resides in the realm of fantasy comics to the Improbable Paper Pals who are still in the Silver Age of comics, Smiley visits a wide variety of environments, all of which are a treat to look at. However, the environments are not the only things that change. In each new setting, Smiley changes to better represent the setting. In the Silver Age, Smiley is transformed into a superhero straight from the fifties, and looks like something Jack Kirby would have drawn. In the fantasy realm of Nanoc, Smiley is presented as a tribal warrior with animal pelts across his body.

The writing and acting in the game are sublime. Chris Sabat brings both Captain Smiley and Star to life in a way that only a professional of his grade can. Smiley and Star's main nemesis, Brad, is the "surfer bro" that everyone hates. He is literally the type of guy who would write a theme song about himself, and then continue to play it while goes about his daily life. There are countless other foes that have their own hilariously written personalities, but I do not want to spoil anything here.

What I will repeat is the fact that the game is hilariously written and keeps the player genuinely laughing out loud throughout the entire game. The only time the game stops the player from laughing is when the crushing difficulty experienced in later levels rears its ugly head. I consider myself a fairly laid back gamer, but even I was slightly angered by the terribly placed check points and difficulty that is worthy of an old fashioned 16-bit game. 

These small issues aside, I whole heartedly recommend Captain Smiley to any person who wants to play a game that has a decent play time, genuine laugh out loud moments, and overall fun game play. Captain Smiley nets itself 4 chest talking stars out of five.