ToeJam & Earl

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.