The Adventures of Captain Comic
Description official description
You are Captain Comic, galactic hero. Your mission is to recover three treasures from the planet Omsoc, which have been stolen away and hidden on the remote planet of Tambi.
Captain Comic is a platformer featuring a huge nonlinear playfield divided into several different terrains. As Comic, you must search throughout Tambi for power ups and items that will aid you in your quest to recover the three treasures. The Captain's main weapon is 'Blastola Cola', a can of drink that allows him to hurl fireballs at his foes. For each can that he finds, an additional fireball can be thrown.
There are many different paths that are available from the start, but without the right item or weapon, it can be impossible to progress through certain paths, or even to commit suicide. It's up to the player to decide the correct route to take, and which places to return to at a later time.
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Credits (DOS version)
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Reviews
Critics
Average score: 57% (based on 5 ratings)
Players
Average score: 2.6 out of 5 (based on 47 ratings with 8 reviews)
The Good
Nothing!
The Bad
The controls are bad, the engine is horribly slow (even for an XT - jeez!), the sound effects are blah, everything here screams "don't play me!"
The Bottom Line
This is one game you should truly ignore.
DOS · by Tomer Gabel (4538) · 1999
A fun game, but it can use a little more.
The Good
This game has a good mix of fantasy, science fiction, heroism, and humor in it. It has a superhero with a funny name who goes to a planet named after a type of computer. He has to recover three treasures commonly used in fantasy stories that were stolen from another planet (that name is really cosmo spelled backwards). Michael sure used many good tricks while making this game.
Michael also does well with his use of story setting, items, and enemies. Rather than having a planet with one type of landscape, he combines several lands including a medieval castle landscape, an alien moon, and an indoor space station, which make the game interesting. Instead of aliens, goblins, and robots, Michael uses other types of enemies like evil birds, evil bees, evil toads, little UFOs, atoms, and even beach balls, which aren't used in most games and make the game even more fun. As for the items, some, like the jumping boots, are commonly used in Mario games, but like everything else in the game, most are not common in other games. The game graphics are old, but they look really colorful and are brighter than most 80's games. I think the game is really fun.
The Bad
Although this game is fun it really leaves plenty of room for other things. Every time you start a new game everything is the same. The Difficulty level is the same; there is no option to make the game easier or harder, and the levels always have items and enemies in the same places. The pause menu only has a quit option, rather than other choices like sound on/off, clear high score, and load/save. Michael also could have added a more challenging way to get the treasures when you come up to them, like solve a puzzle, or fight a boss. Also, if it's a planet with a castle, a space station, and several indoor areas, why are there no people and only animals? The story also could have gone into a little more detail, like show whatever stole the treasures.
While the graphics are alright, the sound effects and music are really lacking. A lot of it is very brief and quiet, and the theme song is a Marine Corps theme. I 'm sure Michael could've thought of his own theme.
The Bottom Line
Unlike most 80's games with the same graphics and sound as this one, it does lack a bit. Most fans of these games may put this game down, but I still think it is worth trying because it still has that good combination of game elements, and new elements not used in most games.
DOS · by Andrew Shepard (1388) · 2007
Great game for 1988 but outdated by 1990
The Good
It was the first EGA game I remember playing that was colorful and came close to what we were used to on the NES and Sega Master System. It was shareware and didn't cost anything to try it out.
The Bad
It was very slow on the average machine at the time. The animations are done with only a few frames so they look jumpy. It was late 1989 by the time it was really available on all BBS's. And shareware without an incentive of a new game when you paid didn't seem to make sense.
The Bottom Line
It is a side scrolling platform game like super mario brothers. It may have been the first of it's kind but quickly became old news as more shareware PC platform games hit the market.
DOS · by gametrader (208) · 2004
Trivia
Cancelled port
Ron Risley's PAL port from the NTSC NES version was complete, but never marketed.
Development
After Scott Miller saw Captain Comic, he tried hard to recruit the author, Michael Denio, but Michael didn't have faith that shareware games could make money, and so he stayed at his normal job.
Music
For the NES port, the programmers chose classical music from the public domain so that they would not have to pay royalties to other music companies.
Names
The planet "Omsoc" where the treasures are stolen from is really "Cosmo" spelled backwards. Michael Denio used this trick for naming several things in the series.
Theme song
The theme song for Captain Comic was traditionally a rendition of the United States' Marine Corps Theme.
Information also contributed by Andrew Shepard and Sciere
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Crapshoot
A humorous review on PC Gamer
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by IJan.
NES added by lugnut.
Additional contributors: Frenkel, Shoddyan, Patrick Bregger.
Game added November 30, 1999. Last modified April 2, 2024.