Captain Comic - The Adventure

"Killing defenseless creatures to classical tunes"

Captain Comic seems to be a vague spaceman trapped somewhere in outer space with a goal of returning to Earth, or something similar. At least that's what I got out of it. The game is set up in the classic ''left-right'' scroller sense and you fire your gun at various targets, some of which appear to be enemies. Here is the breakdown, as I see it:

Graphics: Not too shabby! This is a bright, fairly well animated game which a large main character. The difference between Captain Comic and most other Color Dreams games is that you can actually tell if something is a power-up or a bad guy. SCORE: 8.

Sound: Every other sci-fi space game like this has had somewhat eerie, somewhat upbeat original background music. Here, Captain Comic makes use of classical music! I'm no expert on classical tunes, but I recognized at least half of the ''songs.'' Whether this is bad or good or even appropriate is debatable, but at least it's different. The sound effects are average, not breaking any ground on the jump noise or the sound of the gun firing. SCORE: 6.

Playability: Okay, now here is where I have to complain. What is the point of this game?? Since this is a Color Dreams game, attaining the instruction manual is next to impossible, and there is nothing in between the startup screen and the actual game to give any story line. It's ok if a game like Tetris has no story, but an adventure game needs a purpose. Also, when the game begins, you have to kill earthworms and birds! They aren't even really attacking you. The earthworms are crawling on the ground and the birds are flying in the air. Their only fault is doing what they are supposed to do. Ah, who cares? Blast 'em anyway. The play control is horrible. I don't know what it is with these non-licensed Nintendo games, but they can never get the play control aspect of the game down. How hard is it to make a game that when you push the jump button, your player jumps? Speaking of, Color Dreams screwed up the order of buttons here--A fires and B jumps. Game designers should have known by then that the industry standard is the opposite. Also, there is no crouching or firing any other direction that straight ahead. Very poor design. At least Captain Comic is somewhat non-linear, as you can usually choose what path you take to your goal, whatever it is. SCORE: 3.

Challenge: This game starts out tough and ends up staying that way for the entire game. And, no, this is not a game that is so terrible it is so challenging just to play it for more than 20 minutes. SCORE: 8.

Overall: Even with no storyline and a few other problems, this does turn out to be a decent game, possibly Color Dreams' finest. If you're a fan of the scroller, this would not be a bad addition to your collection. Plus, it's light blue and odd-shaped like all Color Dreams games, so it's a good conversation piece.
OVERALL SCORE: 5.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 09/25/01, Updated 09/25/01