ToeJam & Earl

The Good
it is very easy to get to grasps with. the story is easy to get to grips with. the landscapes are easy to know what they are, e.g grass.

The Bad
THE NAME. i don't know were they got it from but who would want to be known as "toe jam"??? It reminds me to much of a (expletive deleted), or a dirty (expletive deleted) session with a smelly, homeless (expletive deleted). And when your actually in the game, all you seemingly do is go wondering around doing exactly (expletive delted).

The Bottom Line
A BORING GAME. a waste of money. a waste of time. a waste of money. To sum up that last line, A WASTE!

The Good
This year I’ve decided to start my own holiday tradition. Now, every year near Christmas, I’m going to force a friend or family member to play through ToeJam & Earl on the Sega Genesis with me. You may wonder what ToeJam & Earl has to do with Christmas. Well, ToeJam & Earl has EVERYTHING to do with Christmas. I’m not just talking about the enemy in the game that happens to be Santa Claus wearing a jet-pack, either. I’m talking about the presents!

You play as the titular space aliens, ToeJam & Earl, as they wander a strange, randomly-generated representation of Earth seeking the ten pieces of their trashed spaceship. Various Earthlings also wander the landscapes, and most of them are deadly. To survive, you must pick up presents that may contain weapons to dispatch the Earthlings, or other devices that can be used to escape. Sometimes you’ll find items that can work against you, such as one that outright kills you instantly. That may not sound very exciting, but that’s where the random nature of the game comes into play.

Each of the presents come in different shapes, sizes, and patterns of wrapping paper. Each individual item is designated to the particular style of present. For example, if you find tomatoes in a square, purple present, then you know that every present of that style holds tomatoes. However, this changes from game to game, so the tomatoes won’t always be in the square, purple present. To further complicate things, some presents hold a randomizer, which re-shuffles the items so you don’t know what’s in them. It works extremely well, too. You need to ration your presents and be cautious about which ones you open.

My favourite thing about ToeJam & Earl is definitely the co-op. In fact, it’s one of my favourite co-op games of all time. Unlike many two-player games of the time, both players play simultaneously and aren’t required to stick together. This is possible through the magic of split-screen, which wasn’t too widely used in video games at the time. It’s a very important feature, since there’s a lot of ground to cover. It’s almost necessary for the players to split up, since there are twenty-four levels and some of them are quite large.

One of the more memorable aspects of ToeJam & Earl is its nonsensical sense of humour. Its humour revolves around how an alien might view Earth. Everything is somewhat familiar, but skewed and twisted. Earth is represented by twenty-four levels stacked on top of each other and connected by elevators. There are no buildings, but there are roads. The enemies are also based off of common Earth things, like mailboxes, ice cream trucks, and hula dancers. Normally I’m not a fan of this sort of absurd humour, but in this context, it almost seems to make sense.

The Bad
A certain amount of patience is required to play ToeJam & Earl through to the end. The game is excruciatingly slow. Although there are temporary speed-up items, both ToeJam and Earl move a notch slower than a stroll. Adding to the tedium, there isn’t a lot of variety in the game. More difficult enemies and more diverse terrain are added in later levels, but they do little to add variety. To make things worse, there’s no password or save system, so it has to be completed in one sitting. This doesn’t bother me personally, but half the people I’ve played with have quit before the end of the game, while the other half I had to convince to keep going.

That’s a big problem, because I wouldn’t suggest playing ToeJam & Earl alone. A big draw for me is working together with another person. It actually feels like a cooperative experience, and not just a single-player game that allows you to tow around a friend. If you attempt this game on your own, the tedium will likely start to grate a little harder. It’s sort of like waiting in line for a roller coaster. It may still be a fun and memorable experience, but unless you have someone to keep you company, you might not have the patience for it.

It also doesn’t help that ToeJam & Earl is pretty merciless. I wouldn’t exactly call it hard, but definitely unforgiving. You’re given a very small number of lives, and extra lives are fairly scarce. You’re awarded lives each time you level up and they can also be found within presents. However, they’re very easy to lose. After taking a hit from an enemy, the window of opportunity to get away from it is very small. Sometimes an enemy will hit you over and over again, giving you no chance to escape. Sometimes they’ll even continue to attack even after you’ve died and respawned. It can be very frustrating when you lose multiple lives to the exact same enemy.

Further complicating this is the sheer number of enemies, some of which move faster than you. Early levels present you with weak enemies, most of which don’t actually harm you. Every so often you’ll come across stronger enemies like the dentist, or the invisible bogey-man. The further you move through the game, the more plentiful the strong enemies are. What really gets annoying, though, is the enemies that exist merely to hinder you. Whenever you get within even a remote proximity (sometimes you won’t even see it) of a hula dancer you’ll start to hula dance uncontrollably. Funny, yes, but when you have two swarms of bees and a phantom ice cream truck bearing down on you, all you can do is scream in frustration. On the other hand, these instances do lend themselves to moments of excitement.

Finally, Toejam & Earl aren’t as funny as they could be. Some of the dialogue is completely groan worthy. Every time you enter an elevator, you’re treated to a short cutscene containing a conversation between the two characters. Most of them go something like, “Earl, you’re on my foot!” to which Earl replies, “Am not!” Get it? Because he was on his foot! Ha ha ha harrr! Yeah, I’m not sure how hard it is to write good elevator dialogue but I’m pretty sure anyone over the age of eight could do better.

The Bottom Line
I remember when I was a kid and I saw an advertisement for ToeJam & Earl, I knew I had to play it. Sadly, I didn’t have a Genesis. My cousin owned one, but we could never find it for rent in my hometown. It wasn’t until three years ago that I finally got my chance to play it, and it was everything I’d hoped for. This year, I’ve decided to make it an annual tradition to play it with a friend during the holidays. I love ToeJam & Earl that much. However, one thing has become apparent to me after so many times playing through it: It’s not for everyone. If you don’t have a lot of patience for slow-paced games, then ToeJam &Earl will drive you nuts. It’s slow, plodding pace and tendency to drag on for longer than its welcome can be trying. If, however, you’re a patient sort of gamer and you have a patient friend handy, then ToeJam & Earl is an OUTSTANDING game that I think the two of you should play.

The Good
As far as Mega Drive games go, Toejam & Earl is the cream of the crop. The premise is simple. Toejam & Earl have crashed landed on a forbidden planet that goes by the name of Earth You must control TJ & E in either one or two player mode & find the broken bits of TJ & E's rocket ship and get back home. This is done by looking across a couple of dozen levels of Earth, just avoid those pesky humans if you can.

In TJ & E the world is like a wedding cake, it's stacked vertically. To progress from level (literally) to the next you use an elevator. This is ingenious as if you miss something vital you just drop off the current level to fall back to the previous one.

This is one of the most creative & playable games made in the last 20 years. It works best in two player mode but can be fun played solo. The whole idea is made for the two player mode though and the most benefits come from using this mode. You must work together to succeed, an idea that is rarely used in games nowadays.

You have to play the game to fully understand how good this game is as it is more of an experience than a game.

The sounds, graphics & smooth play of the game make it fantastic from start to finish and that coupled with the chance to rob Santa make this a must play title.

The Bad
The fixed world option is a tad lame.

The Bottom Line
Approach with an open mind and play for an hour, you will be hooked.