Captain Comic II: Fractured Reality

The Good
It was cheap, I was like 7-8 years old when I got it, and I was able to afford its 15 dollar price tag myself, making it the first game I ever bought. When you are 8 years old, bright big bold 8-bit graphics like in Captain Comic II made your little brain trip. The game can kind of be described as Mario Brothers 3 rip-off, which is interesting because both games came out around the same time. You control the Captain in a side-scrolling adventure in a free formed interconnected world. Your power, like Mario, is fireballs that you collect from finding soda cans...the more cans you collect, the more fire power you get. There were also many interesting objects you collected along the way that got saved on the bottom screen in your inventory. Every thing seemed to have usefulness. The thrill of finally getting the jet-pack when you are a little kid and getting a chance to explore impossible to reach areas was great. Also, the cavern world of lava was just a breathtaking testament to what could be achieved with 8-bit graphics. There were many secrets to be found, and the game got increasingly more challenging and confusing. The story was weak, but it was secondary to the large free world you could explore with shiny 8-bit effects gleaming everywhere (especially in the amazing looking green gem white marble temple you discover early). Utterly bizarre game that is actually still playable today, much like like Mario 3 is.

The Bad
A lot of jumping puzzles where a poorly timed jump spelled your doom instantly. Also, the game was kind of a choose your own path adventure, so if you were in a world they required some special key or item to pass, you were given no clue as to what other world to travel to find it, you just had to be lucky. This made the game hard to beat in my childhood. When I picked it up again off the Underdogs site a few years ago, I had to use a walkthrough to beat it...but I did finally get to see the ending after nearly 10 years of being left in the dark.

The Bottom Line
A bright, colorful, well designed side-scrolling platformer that was very interesting and unique in its day. It was challenging and oddly beautiful.