Homestyle Flashback: Comix Zone

2008 was a great year for the super hero genre - The Dark Knight blew movie audiences out of their socks, Robert Downey Jr. rocked the Iron Man armor, and in comics themselves, Batman’s dead and Marvel has been taken over by villains. Comics in general have seen a huge push in mainstream media, but there’s one major area where they’ve always slacked - games. It’s true. Look at games based on comics in the last 20 years and you’ll be hard pressed to find one that’s worth the time to play. And the games are based on the same heroes ad nauseum - you’re always either Spider-Man and Wolverine being the prime suspects. But there’s one game that celebrates comics, not franchises; celebrates the medium and not the characters. Ladies and gentlemen, for your reading pleasure, allow me to present Comix Zone.

Pure 90s

Released in 1995 during the later years of the Sega Genesis (or Mega Drive), Comix Zone was received with mixed reactions. It’s a pretty difficult and unforgiving game, but it was also creative and original, something more than the blue hedgehog or the plumber who were dominating the industry at the time. When you first start up Comix Zone, you’re greeted by something different almost immediately. The usual soft “Sega” voice is instead replaced with what sounds like Elvis. So right away, you know something’s not quite normal here.

As the first level begins, you’re given a little intro explaining and setting up the game. It’s New York City (of course; everything superhero related takes place in New York) and lightning hits the drawing board of one Sketch Turner, resident 90s stereotype, complete with bad haircut, fingerless gloves, and torn shorts. This guy is the very definition of the 90s - loud, brash, in your face. I wonder what it was about the 90s that made everyone so pissed off…

Oh...That's right....

Anyway…when the board is struck, the villain jumps out and threatens to kill Sketch. You know he’s the villain by his “evil” getup - big hat and goofy mustache. In fact, it’s best just to show you what the 90s thought of heroes and villains.

Enter: The Villain

This guy’s name is Mortus and his plan is to kill Sketch. For some reason, he never really explains why he needs to kill Sketch in order to escape the comic, or even why he can’t do it in the real world, because that would shatter the in-game logic. Using his newfound New York powers, he sends Sketch into his own creation, where apparently he can be killed. At this point, you could be forgiven for drawing some comparisons between this and a movie by the name of Cool World, circa 1992, starring Kim Basinger and Brad Pitt, with the major difference being that Sketch Turner looks like the backup for the Spin Doctors and Brad Pitt looks like…well, he’s Brad Pitt.

Once Sketch is planted in Comix Zone, the game really begins. In the first room, you meet Alissa Cyan, resident hard-ass chick who’s glad you’ve arrived because you’re a superhero and you’re here to save….umm….somebody? Much like Mortus’s plan, Alissa’s intentions are incredibly vague. Not only that, but she says “We’ll be in touch” and then refuses to talk, without ever leaving the room. That’s just awkward. You ever say “Bye” to someone and then they wind up walking alongside you to their car or something? Totally uncomfortable. That’s what that felt like. So what we learn there is that Sketch creates heartless chicks with zero social tact.

In terms of actual gameplay, Comix Zone really changes things up. It takes the conventions of a real comic (panels, word bubbles, being made of paper) and turns it into a unique kind of game. To get from one screen to the next, Sketch has to bust through panels or jump around them and fights are mixed with word balloons so there’s some character development (kinda) at a greater degree than most side-scrolling action games. It really was a clever design at the time, and I’m glad this is the only game to try that, since it seriously would have overstayed its welcome if done too often.

The only drawback to having comic-y banter during enemy fighting is repeating enemies. When you kill an enemy, he comes right back. It’s kinda weird to talk smack to some guy, watch him explode into confetti, and then have him respawn.

Fighting the Homeless

The game is colorful and animates well, and the characters are generally well designed, for the few that there actually are. The music sucks a little bit, but there’s a little bit of voice acting which adds a little personality to the characters (though I could do without Sketch saying “See ya” after every kill and “Oh Yeah!” at the end of every level like he just snapped into a Slim Jim).

Here’s something weird I learned only from checking out Youtube videos - you can rip the backgrounds. If you hold attack, Sketch will tear a chunk off of the background and make a paper airplane out of it. A paper airplane that doubles as a boomerang that you can’t catch. Seriously, this thing will whoop your ass on the return trip. Oh, and it takes some of your life away to make it in the first place - something lame about you tearing up the world around you so you’re harming yourself. So create origami in-game sparingly.

Hadoken!

This game was awesome for its day and it remains just as neat. It’s just different enough to be intriguing and the fact that it has branching paths in each level and multiple endings kinda makes you want to go back for more. If you can find a copy of it and haven’t played it before, pick it up. It certainly beats playing “Superhero Movie Tie-In #56″ coming soon. Just remember that before Mario was turning into a piece of paper, Sketch Turner did it first.