What's so great about....Toejam and Earl

Trode

In the first of what I'm hoping will be a series of threads, I (or whoever wants to start their own) will take a well-regarded classic game that I just don't 'get', and ask the games fans exactly what it is I am missing, and why I should give it another chance. So if you like the game in question and feel you can properly explain why someone else would, put on your preaching hat and wade in.
Just a couple of requests.
I don't want this to turn into a 'slag off someone's favourite game' fest. You can post in agreement if you want, but please do so in a spirit of genuine inquiry, not stubborn negativity.
Similarly, if your only contribution is something along the lines of "if you don't like Game X than you're a spanner/you must hate games/you have no soul" etc, please don't bother. I realise it's a highly subjective topic, but if you can't put forward a cogent argument, you're just wasting everyone's time, including your own.

So, to kick off the meat of the thread, the game in question is:

Toejam and Earl on the Megadrive.

It's fairly original, I'll give it that, and it has an uncommonly palpable, laid-back, vibe, but to me it just seems so...dull. You wander endless, bland, almost featureless landscapes, avoiding enemies, grabbing items of limited usefulness and.. that's it? Surely there's more here than Pacman without the maze or sense of urgency?
Enlighten me.

Retr0gamer

Blasphemous swine!

But seriously I do get where you are coming from. Toejam and Earl has dated a little badly. The games scrolling is really jerky.

The game isn't all that great in single player, never was. However multiplayer is a lot of fun. The laid back atmosphere suits it and some of the humour raises a chuckle. You can also cover a lot more of the map which could become annoying in single player when you just can't find that piece of your spaceship.

I haven't played the game in ages but used to only play it in multiplayer with my mate when we would rent it out for a rainy weekend. I tried playing it in single-player on an emulator a few months back and was surprised at how much it had aged and at the lack of fun I was getting out of the single-player experience. Needless to say it wasn't long until I just didn't bother with it and stuck on Eliminate Down instead.

djkeogh

Toejam and Earl, eh. Yeah I loved the game when it was first out and it really just tapped into something in me and my mates that we all loved. I have to say it's muck in 1 player mode and I would never stick it on on my own. It did have a charm when played multiplayer though.

I recently downloaded it again to revisit it on the Wii and got the same friends around again to relive the youth. We weren't impressed and got bored very quickly. Safe to say it's a game of it's time and is probably best left there. Time hasn't been kind and I don't think there is much more than an idle hour or so of fun as you trip down nostalgia lane.

LoGiE

Great idea for a thread Trode!

I spent many hours on this one and like most posters I found it far more enjoyable in Two player mode. While it may not have aged well it did have a good select of power ups, team play and humorous banter (for the 90's!) Hell you even got a free poster with it.
A lot of the points made are very valid but then again they can also be leveled against a lot of modern better looking games. I think it's fair to say that Toejam & Earl had enough quirky and entertaining parts to earn it a place in the mega drive's game hall of fame.


*Anyone else remember losing all those lives swimming / flying to the island on level one in order to get to the secret 'level zero'.... I can't even remember what was there it's been that long since I played it!

Retr0gamer

It was a small island with 1 or 3 extra lives I think. It also had a jacuzzi with 2 bikini clad babes in it that would give you your health back when you took a dip.

BLITZ_Molloy

Personally I didn't particularly like the game when it came out. The gameplay didn't do it for me. But it had alot of innovative features that made it interesting, if not entirely enjoyable. Plus, the characterisation and a certain air of edginess that was what the Mega Drive was supposed to be about.

Trode

Well, it seems the consensus is that the game's only really enjoyable in multiplayer, which is probably why I wasn't getting much from it, even taking into account the effects of time. The periodness of it some people mentioned is kind of interesting, the MD at the time did seem to have a few self-consciously 'cool' games, where characters had to wear sunglasses and say 'dude' in every sentence, all trying far too hard to do what Sonic managed near-effortlessly, and TJ&E does it better than most. It's both amusing and embarrassingly awful, like Captain Planet.

Great idea for a thread Trode!

Thanks, I'm hoping a few people copy it and we see a variety of games suggested.

seo-ireland

I only recently played TJ&E for the first time and I was bored within an hour. I really wanted to like it but it just didn't grab my attention. Apologies to all TJ&E fans, just a personal opinion. I think I would have loved it back in the day though.

CiDeRmAn

Not sure what folk loved about this one either, although it was an early release on the Megadrive so people may not have had a lot of choice.
That said a mate of mine swears by it and plays it to this day, having long sonce completed it he returns to the random mode regularly, ah well, takes all sorts, doesn't it?
Xbox remake was better, quite liked the Panic on Funkatron side scroller and the one packaged with the "Menacer" light gun.