Comix Zone [Sega Genesis/Mega Drive Longplay]

Start: 00:00
EPISODE 1 NIGHT OF THE MUTANTS: 01:43
EPISODE 2 WELCOME TO THE TEMPLE: 13:03
EPISODE 3 CURSE OF THE DEAD SHIPS: 25:50
Ending: 39:48
Comix Zone is a 1995 beat 'em up video game developed and published by Sega for the Genesis. It is set within the panels of a comic book with dialogue rendered within talk bubbles and sprites, and backgrounds possessing the bright colors and dynamic drawing style of superhero comics. This style is in previous video games, for example Ocean Software's Batman: The Caped Crusader in 1988,[2] but Comix Zone stretched the idea to such an extent that Sega applied for and was granted a patent for a "videogame system for creating a simulated comic book game".[3]
The concept for the game originated from a 1992 demo video for the Amiga titled "Joe Pencil Trapped In The Comix Zone", animated by Peter Morawiec. It explores how the gameplay and the comic book elements would blend in.[4]
Sketch Turner, a "starving artist" and freelance rock musician living in New York City, is working on his newest comic book, Comix Zone. It is the story of the New World Empire's attempt to defend Earth from an invasion of alien renegades, with inspiration coming from Sketch's oddly vivid dreams and nightmares. One night, while Sketch is working on Comix Zone during a thunderstorm, a lightning bolt strikes a panel of his comic. In this instant, its main villain, a powerful mutant named Mortus, escapes the comic book's pages, desiring to kill Sketch so he can become flesh and blood and take over the real world. Because he does not possess any power in reality, Mortus sends Sketch into the world of his own comic, freely drawing in enemies attempting to kill him.
Inside the comic book, Sketch meets General Alissa Cyan, who believes he is "the chosen one" who came to save their post-apocalyptic world from the evil of Mortus and the alien invaders. Ignoring Sketch's protests, Alissa sends him on his mission, keeping in touch with instructions and hints via radio. It is up to Sketch to stop Mortus's evil plans and find a way out of his own comic.
At the end of the game, Sketch and Alissa reach a weapons factory hidden on a derelict ship and Alissa attempts to defuse a nuclear weapon that Mortus and the Mutants plan on using to wipe out the New World Empire and humanity. Before she can finish Mortus suddenly comes back into the comic and throws her into a chamber that starts to fill up with liquid. Mortus then battles Sketch personally and depending on how quickly the players defeat him they can trigger one of two endings.
If Mortus and the Kreeps he summons are defeated quickly enough the player can trigger a switch and drain the liquid from the chamber Alissa is trapped in. Alissa is then freed while the nuke self-destructs. Following this Alissa comes to the real world with Sketch and Roadkill and joins the army, eventually becoming Chief of Security for the United States. Roadkill is given a vast amount of mozzarella cheese and spends a lot of time exploring the city's new sewer system when not sleeping under a pile of Sketch's dirty socks. Comix Zone becomes an instant sensation, selling out on the first day, making Sketch famous as it becomes the best-selling comic book ever and the three live happily together, though a sequel hook in the end credits ominously implies that might change someday...[5]
If the players take too long to defeat Mortus though the chamber will completely fill with liquid and Alissa will drown shortly before the nuke self-destructs. Sketch and Roadkill come out, but Sketch's comic is destroyed, leaving him devastated at having saved the New World Empire, but not Alissa. The end credits then imply that he will re-create his comic in an attempt to ensure a happy ending.[6]