"An interesting and fun side scrolling beat 'em up"

Comix Zone has always been one of the better known titles on the Genesis and for good reason. It's fun, challenging, and interesting. It does have it's shortfalls though, especially in the game play area.

In Comix Zone you play Sketch Turner, a street smart comic book artist. One night during a lightning storm one of Sketch's creations, an evil villain by the name of Mortus, escapes into the real world. But in the real world he is powerless, at least until he destroys his creator. Needless to say this is bad news for you. Mortus decides to dish out some poetic justice and make you a comic book character, and in the comic book world he will have his minions deal with you once and for all. The rest of the story simply unfolds, bit by bit, and you won't completely understand until the last 2 or 3 levels.

The game play of Comix Zone is your standard fighter...for the most part. Your health bar appears at the top along with an item bar with 3 slots. You scroll from panel to panel fighting baddies, usually no more than 2 or 3 at a time. You are usually confined to one small size panel, which can make things tricky when dealing with lots of enemies, but it also keeps the action high and makes things very interesting. Luckily you can throw, punch, and kick enemies into each other, and even off of ledges in some places. Also, to keep things interesting talk bubbles appear above your and any other character(s) on the screen's head. These serve two purposes, the first being to tell the story of Comix Zone, and the second being to give you hints and keep the game play exciting. For example, if you do nothing but sit there and punch one enemy, he'll simply say ''Boring...'' and block your every punch. This feature keeps the player from being cheap, and keeps the action going. There are also a few puzzles thrown in on occasion, but they are all pretty straight-forward. Most of them consist of something simple and easy like having Roadkill, your pet rat (more on him later) go and turn a switch for you.

As always there are items to interact with. These can be used to your advantage, or disadvantage. My main problem with these items is sometimes you'll have to destroy them by using your fists and you can take serious damage. Take, for example, the beginning of the second level- there is a giant steel doorway you have to knock down. If you do so by using punches and kicks you will lose a good third of your life. However, there is a way around this. You can use the ever so useful dynamite item to blow it up. Don't be too happy though, trust me, you won't always have dynamite on you when there's a big doorway in your way. There are several other useful items such as throwing knives to damage enemies, lemonade to regain health, and the power fist, which turns Sketch into a huge and muscular super hero that can kill every enemy on the screen instantly. Probably the most interesting item is your pet rat Roadkill. He was brought into the comic world with you, and when he came there he gained the ability to shoot electricity from his tail. He can also sniff out hidden items for you, a very useful tool indeed.

The controls are fairly easy to learn. I had them down in about 2 or 3 of the ''panels'' featured in the first level. You use X to punch or kick, depending on what directional button you use it with, Z to jump, 1, 2, and 3 are all used to for the corresponding item (Press 1 to use the item in slot one, etc.). The punch/kick button is used in correspondence with the jump button and/or directional key to have Sketch perform various moves such as sweeps and uppercuts. As previously mentioned, that game won't let you stick to one move so it's best to learn most, if not all of them. For basics if you just press X you'll punch but if you hold up and towards the enemy and hit X you'll unleash a high kick. That's just one of the many attacks available, though. Others include the aforementioned uppercut, a sweep, and a powerful jump kick.
The controls probably would have been better if 3 buttons were used- one for punching, one for kicking, and one for jumping, but they still get the job done well the way they are. My only other problem with the controls is, while jumping ledges is rarely required, jumping accurately is a bit difficult using the keyboard. But as I said, it is rarely required and therefore not a major area of concern.

Graphically, Comix Zone is exactly what one would expect from the name. It looks exactly like a comic book. All the enemies look like the same sort of bizarre lackeys who were rejected from an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You can see part of the previous and next panel from whatever panel you're in, and you even get to see Mortus' hand reach in and draw some of the characters, one of the more interesting and creative features of Comix Zone. The backgrounds are pretty detailed, and just like the enemies and other items they look rather cartoonish, which in this case is a good thing.

The music is fairly well done, but not mind blowing. It mixes standard video game techno with heavy and fast drum beats. The opening theme is rather good, but the rest are very forgettable.

The sound effects are a bit dull and repetitive. You can only hear the same grunts and taunts so many times before you begin to get incredibly annoyed. The voices in the game sound surprisingly good though, especially when you consider the fact that this is a port of a Genesis game. Even in the midst of the sound of enemies groaning and fists flying you can still clearly understand what every character is saying.

SCORES
Game Play:8
Controls:8
Graphics:9
Sound/Music:5

In closing, if you want a beat 'em up with an interesting story, great game play, unique and fitting graphics and good controls then this is the game for you.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/13/01, Updated 11/13/01