Captain Bumper

"It’s a bird . . . it’s a plane . . . it’s the space version of Johnny Bravo!"

Macintosh exclusive games are rare finds these days. In the early to mid nineties, there were quite a few edutainment titles that never made it to the PC, but actual exclusive games, designed for the purpose of entertainment and nothing else, were a rarity. And in this day and age, well, Mac exclusives are almost unheard of. But, here we have one in Captain Bumper. Captain Bumper is a title developer by MacRun games, and it follows the eccentric quest of a spaceship captain as he tries to rescue Princess Lovita and find his lost cargo of . . . bananas.

The personality of Captain Bumper does closely resemble that of Cartoon Network tour de force, Johnny Bravo. Both are blonde, rather dumb-witted characters with a crazy supporting cast. Captain’s Bumper’s include the Zeurbs, led by their king, that take after Donkey Kong’s Kremlings, and their leader K. Rool. He also must rescue the lovely Princess Lovita, impersonated on several occasions by the Zeurb Queen. Besides searching the planet Negolandus for his cargo (bananas) and girl (Princess Lovita), Captain Bumper is also on a quest for spare parts for his ship, which struck an asteroid. So many errands for one man to run. Luckily he escaped in a smaller, banana-yellow vessel, something along the lines of an airplane from the 1930s, which you pilot throughout Captain Bumper. Interesting, is it not?

Captain Bumper pilots his back-up plane through a wide-variety of locales to located all of the stuff he needs to find. He fights UFOs, creepy lobster-men, and, of course, Zeurbs. But what gets me is that he also flies his plane through underground mazes, Zeurb complexes, and other tight places where a plane would not go, as well as the typical space missions. I would have much preferred that the indoor levels be set with Captain Bumper on foot, like in Star Fox Adventures, with some missions set in the skies on the plan e, as well as some with Captain Bumper questing to rescue Princess Lovita on foot.

To keep you ship in tiptop shape for some Zeurb blasting, you have got to keep up your maintenance. Scattered throughout the levels are things to keep it running smoothly. Gas cans replenish your fuel, energy cell batteries power-up your shields, and ammunition packs get your weaponry firing again. Besides these standard methods of filling up the standard features of the ship, there are also a few rare power-ups that can allow a multiple spread weapon for a short period of time, so you can fire two or three shots at once. It can be very helpful going through some areas filled with enemies or debris.

Captain Bumper is a classic, side-scrolling space shooter. The fact that it has classic gameplay is one thing, but incorporating classic graphics was a bit too much. Sure, the frame rate is incredibly constant, always staying at about thirty frames per second. The animation is slightly choppy, but it is not sporadic. The motions of characters move in little constant spurts, in time with the framerate, so it really does not look unintentional. But the designs of the characters and environments are so simplistic if the animation or framerate lagged any more than they did, Captain Bumper would not really be worth playing. That’s a strong statement coming from me, because I support the notion that graphics have little or no impact on how good a game is. But these images are amazingly simplistic.

For example, the UFO consists of an oval base, with a half circle drawn on top. Then, there are a few designs on it to give it a little flair, and a pilot’s head drawn inside. That’s all the detail featured. There is no excuse for not adding to the detail in Captain Bumper - it is not like the game is taking up a whole lot of space. Again, trying to make up for the simplistic drawings are some wonderfully colored environments. The lime green goo in the third level especially sticks out in my mind, but bright colors abound.

What I cannot figure out is why MacRun included some great graphical touches, like being able to play Captain Bumper in Full-Screen Mode, and with a transparent dashboard, when they did not spend more time detailing the sprites. Graphically, this game could have been a last hurrah for the era of two-dimensional, side-scrolling games, with its huge sprites, vibrant colors, and constant framerate. But the detail just is not there in any characters, buildings, or anything. Even I, someone with no artistic talent whatsoever, could draw these characters.

As for the music, well, what can you say. Captain Bumper contains instrumental rock - lighter than Joe Satriani, heavier than Natalie Merchant. Medium rock if you will. One of the biggest problems with this ‘medium rock’ is how it just cannot decide whether it wants to be hard or soft. At times the tempo picks up, becomes louder, and the bass is more noticeable. At other times there are tender, melancholy guitar licks filling the silence. Make up your mind already!

Even if the quality of the composition was not very good, I can safely tell you that the sound clarity is quite amazing. There is never any fuzz, scratching, or distortion, even on my crappy, default iMac speakers. This clarity also extends to the sound effects, which give Captain Bumper the wonderful feel of a cozy ‘B’ sci-fi movie. You have got the weaponry noises, different ones for different weapons, enemy sounds, general ambient effects to make Captain Bumper more atmospheric, and a host of other ones too. MacRun’s sound team did a nice job with the effects in this game.

Captain Bumper controls entirely using the keyboard, except for the menus. This takes a little bit of getting used to, but the end result is much more fluid movement of the ship, as you don’t have to constantly be moving the mouse just to maneuver your vessel. ‘Space Bar’ handles the firing duties nicely, an d ‘Control’ flips your ship around, so it faces the other direction. Using the arrows for movement is a great idea, and it makes you feel as if you’re using a stick to pilot your ship on the keyboard, something I’ve never felt before.

The replication of using an airplane control stick while sitting at a keyboard is one of the reasons why Captain Bumper is such a fun game, even though it has numerous problems. Another is how delightfully simplistic and addicting the game is. Sure, there are a few mazes to navigate through and a couple of puzzles to solve, but Captain Bumper is all about blowing up all of the Zeurbs. (And collecting your bananas.) Side-scrolling shooters have not been seen a lot of late, and it’s good to see the genre surface again.

One of the traditions of a side-scrolling shooting game is that it has to be insanely difficult. Captain Bumper lives up to this tradition on many levels, but it thankfully is beatable on the easy level. However, even when you hit the Medium level, you’re in for a test of space-shooting prowess that is just as difficult as anything R-Type or Gradius can throw at you. And, well, once you hit the hard difficulty level, you have to have the reflexes of a cat just to make it through the first level, dodging the asteroids. For an example, to show how the game becomes more progressively difficult with each level, the asteroids in the first level are going four times as fast on the hard difficulty level than they are on the easy one.

The artificial intelligence is also considerably beefed up every time the difficulty level changes. On the easy level they tend to just languish around, and wait for them to kill you. On medium, they’re a bit more tenacious, and they are more forthcoming in their attacks. On hard, they swarm with other vehicles to chase you down. They’re constantly firing in patterns to keep you on the run. Plus, they increase in numbers with each level increase as well.

Captain Bumper is a very addicting game, but without multiplayer capabilities the addiction can be broken. This could have been a cooperative tour de force. Instead, we are left without any method of rescuing Princess Lovita with another player. Regardless of that shameful oversight, I have still played Captain Bumper an awful lot. It’s a great time killer, somewhat of a mindless game to play when you are bored out of your mind.

Nothing prevented Captain Bumper from being a masterpiece, except for likely the budget of MacRun. Even with its many flaws, this side-scrolling, old-school, space-shooting title has some things going for it, from the throwback gameplay to the intuitive control system. Besides, having an entertaining, eccentric character base always helps. Captain Bumper is worth checking out just to see the personnel of the story in action, but also to see a control interface that may become standard within a few years.

PROS
*Extremely responsive controlling system.
*Classic addictive gameplay.
*Finally! A decent Macintosh-exclusive game!

CONS
*Captain Bumper flies his plane into some rather implausible places.
*Graphics are quite dated.
*No cooperative play is featured.

SCORE SUMMARY

GAMEPLAY--7
GRAPHICS--3
MUSIC--2
SOUND--8
CONTROL--9
FUN--7
CHALLENGE--MEDIUM TO HIGH
REPLAY VALUE--MEDIUM

OVERALL--6

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 06/21/02, Updated 06/21/02