ToeJam & Earl

The Good
ToeJam & Earl is one of many video game games that were released, often by Sega, for the Sega Genesis in the early - mid 1990s.

Yo! Yo, Yo! Check this out! Two totally hip and funky, in a early 1990s way, space aliens crash, and end up stranded on planet earth. Like, totally funky to the max, man!

The only way that ToeJam and Earl can hope of getting back to their funky home planet, is by collecting all the missing pieces of their hip-hoping space ship.

Thus your adventure begins (one or two players) through a series of randomly generated (or standard) levels looking for a particular piece of your space ship.

Each surreal level has the wackiest assortment of enemies that stand in your way of getting a ship piece and or finding the elevator door to the next level.

You got crazy dentists (with one of the scariest laughs you will ever hear on the Genesis), annoying mothers pushing that are their kids in shopping carts, boogie monsters and that is just for starters.

The surreal, almost abstract, look of planet earth, and its eccentric inhabitants, along with the ability to explore the levels and even go back to your earlier levels is a level of sheer genius, creativity, wit and video game interactivity that was revolutionary for its day.

ToeJam and Earl can locate food to restore their energy bars (but don't eat too much), money (to buy items or get a bit of advice) and, yes, mysterious presents. As you progress in the game, your ''coolness' rating becomes better, which gives your a bigger energy bar and extra lives.

Yes, you read it correctly. You can collect Christmas (or holiday) presents of various shapes, sizes and or colors. Opening a present may give you temporary weapon (i.e. tomatoes), it may give you a new means of transportation (i.e. wings or rocket skates) or it may summon an enemy or cause instant death.

Initially, you are not entirely sure what a particular present offers you (you can pay someone to tell you) and its entirely possible that a small green present might give you wings, only to give you instant death or some other calamity the next time that you play the game.

In the two-player mode a split screen is used, when ToeJam and Earl are not together. This gives each player an increased level of interactivity and gives each player the chance to decide how much competition or help they want to give the other player.

Most of time the level map is not terribly helpful, until you explored most of the level and these are oftentimes HUGE (for a cartridge game) levels.

Terrain can very from golf coarse-inspired green grass, to desert and the design may remind you of an old cartoon, say one that stared Marvin the Martian.

Other nice popular culture nods can be seen with the sharks (who hum the "Jaws" theme song whenever they get close to you) and the old St. Nick himself who will drop a few presents, if you can sneak up on him, before flying away using a jetpack-like device.

Needless to say this was one video game that was made even more fun to play if you had the Game Genie device for the Sega Genesis.

The Bad
ToeJam & Earl can actually be a pretty tough game, especially in the later levels. If you do not have enough presents, and know what each one does, then you will certain later levels to be painfully difficult to complete.

Yes, this encourage exploration and you are (thankfully) free to revisit an earlier level (by falling down), but I am not entirely sure that certain levels can be successfully completed without a steady supply of certain presents.

ToeJam and Earl does not have a password feature and while it possible to earn extra lives (especially by upgrading your coolness meter), this is a long game that you need to complete in one setting.

The Bottom Line
ToeJam & Earl is a revolutionary game for its funky humor, popular culture wit and the extent that the player or players is free to explore the surreal and eccentric third rock from the sun.