For those of you that don’t know, that’s Frank’s Dad.

I want to talk about Comic Jumper. It’s a video game. It’s a “comedy” game. I’ve always found that term funny (get it?). If a comedy game is ever frustrating, annoying, broken… I am not laughing. Comic Jumper comes from Twisted Pixel, the same people who made The Maw and ‘Splosion Man, two games I enjoyed thoroughly. So, when I heard of Comic Jumper, a game whose protagonist jumps from comic to comic, guest starring in an effort to build readership for his own rag, cracking jokes all the while, I was in. I wish I hadn’t been.

This game is just not fun to play for very long. You do the same three things ad nauseam, which would be fine if those things were fun, but they aren’t. Why keep going, right? For the jokes. That’ what you are there for. Unfortunately, most of the time, because of the way the checkpoints and difficulty are set up, you end up dying during the banter, the good stuff. It works a little like this:

-Start level, protagonist and his star buddy say something funny (Yay!)

-Shoot things for a while (not fun, bad feedback on what is happening RE: hitting things)

-Get hit by enemies (Since most games, especially side-scrollers like this, do a good job of showing a distinction between background and enemy, I often take that for granted. Not anymore.)

-Barely make it to a checkpoint, which triggers in-game dialogue. Die during dialogue.

-Restart at checkpoint… except no dialogue this time.

I imagine this was to keep from annoying you if you were dying repeatedly, but I’m not even here for the god damn gameplay. I just want jokes. Which is why I have been watching a lot of 30 Rock on Netflix instead.

My verdict on Comic Jumper: Starts off strong, falls off quick.

Play demo if you must.