I’ve noticed throughout my years of internetting that a lot of people have a soft, cushy spot in their heart, in the exact shape of ToeJam and Earl for the Sega Genesis. I’ve also noticed that there is no room in these hearts for its sequel, ToeJam and Earl in Panic on Funkotron. And I say BACK OFF. Having been one of my favorite games of the Genesis days, and a game I still play with relative frequency (most recently last week), I am here to let you all know that it is just as good as the original…just different.

The main reason people talk so much smack is that this game is nothing like the awesome original. The first game, released in 1991, featured some very unique gameplay. Randomly generated levels from a top-down viewpoint, funky powerups (rocket skates, Icarus wings, hell yeah.), funny characters, and a fun soundtrack all helped compliment this bizarre Genesis classic. In it, you play as ToeJam and Earl, two aliens from Funkotron that crash land on Earth. All you’ve got to do is avoid the wild Earthlings, grab the ten pieces of your destroyed ship, and head home. To progress through the levels, you must use presents that you find scattered throughout the randomly generated levels, avoid the Earthlings (the only form of combat was through a temporary powerup of tomatoes), grab your ship part, and head up an elevator to the next level. The experience was different every time, even in terms of how many levels you play, as some levels did not feature a ship piece. Plus, it featured two player co-op for the entire experience! It was (and still is) fresh, original, and extraordinarily fun.

The sequel came along two years later (1928, I think. I don’t know. What’s 1991 + 2? Forget it, I’ll figure it out myself), and it was a drastic departure. A side-scrolling action-platformer, this game was nothing like the original. And people today look back on it and scoff. It did take away a lot of what made the original so amazing, but at the same time it was still its own experience and extremely fun and enjoyable in its own right.

Upon returning to Funkotron, ToeJam and Earl discover that many Earthlings managed to stow away on their ship. And the presence of the Earthlings has made the great Funkopotomus, Lamont, lose his, and in return the planet’s, funk. ToeJam and Earl made this mess, they must clean it up: bottle up all the Earthlings and send them back where they came from!

A truly fun, funny, and bizarre story, it is told through a series of 2D levels packed with secrets, great dialogue, and one of my all-time favorite video game soundtracks. Allow me to break down why this game is awesome:



1. It’s super 90s.
Everything from the attitude to the dialogue to the music to the way the characters dress to the friggin’ font, this game screams 90s. Now I may be one who hates decade-specific nostalgia (suck it, VH1), but I’ll be damned if this game doesn’t make me want to return to 1993. Everything’s so laid back, so cool, so Generation X. The color palette especially just gives off that 90s vibe.


2. The soundtrack is funk-tastic.
The soundtrack is just amazing. A very funky, fresh street sound that makes it feel more like you are just hanging out in these levels than rushing through. It’s all very relaxed, but it’s so goddamn catchy that I kind of want to start a ToeJam and Earl cover band. There’s even an eight-song mini-soundtrack featuring full jazz/funk versions of a majority of the game’s tracks. And yes, I listen to it rather frequently. Check out my personal favorite, Lewanda’s Love:






3. The co-op is a blast, especially for a 2D sidescroller
ToeJam and Earl are best friends on an adventure, and playing this game with a friend enforces that even further. Featuring two player co-op (player one is ToeJam, player two is Earl), you and a pal can plow through the whole game together, bottling up Earthlings and sending them back to Ol' Blue and Green. Now, a lot of 2D sidescrollers mess up the co-op (Sonic 2, I am performing a full on death stare in your direction), but ToeJam and Earl 2 does it right. If one of you goes too far or tries to go back, you get smushed up against the side of the screen. You’ve got to stay on screen together, and it works. And if you somehow lose your buddy, just press start and you’ll magically appear with your chum.

There’s a few really great little things that make me love the game’s co-op. One is the bubbles. There are bubbles you can stand on top of and ride to otherwise unreachable areas throughout the game, where you need to keep your balance or slide off. With another player, he gets on your shoulders, and you both need to maintain your balances at the same time. Chaotic fun. There’s also a way to share health. If one of you is running low, you can hit up your buddy and both can press down at the same time. The result? A HIGH FIVE that evens out both partners’ health. A HIGH FIVE. Awesome.

And my favorite bit: at random moments throughout the game, ToeJam and Earl will have very brief conversations. Nothing special, but just a reminder that these two are just hanging out, having a good old fashioned adventure. For example:

Earl: “I have to go to the bathroom.”
ToeJam: “I thought I told you to go before we left.”

Or,

Earl: “Achoo.”
ToeJam: “Gesundheit.”

Again, nothing special, but it appearing at completely random times really just makes the experience that much better.




4. The game is funny and has a great personality.
I don’t mean it has a great personality in that it’s fat and ugly but you’d still bang it because it’s cool, I mean the game has its own identity and personality to it. The writing is awesome. Little interactions between characters, such as ringing someone’s doorbell or encountering one of the many NPCs that litter the game environments (a rarity for a lot of sidescrollers), show that both characters have a definite personality and that Funkotron is alive and well with an array of interesting individuals.

And the Earthlings are a great satire of our own society. There’s a fat rich woman with annoying and vicious poodles that bite you, a buff asshole on a jackhammer that prevents you from moving, a yuppie that takes pictures of you with a blinding and debilitating flash, and THE BOOGEYMAN. A little purple dude that comes in and out of visibility, yelling “HEAP BOOGEY BOOGEY BOOGEY” and scaring the hell out of you, draining some health. Then there’s the nude man in a cardboard box that slings mud at you, the annoying bratty children, the duck on a magic carpet, some little shit floating on balloons and shooting spitballs at you, a fairy that throws laughing dust at you, and a douchebag cow ghost that possesses you and makes you moo. I mean, what the hell is NOT to love about these enemies?


5. It’s just a really good time.
It may not have randomly generated levels, or too many interesting power-ups, but this is a hell of an experience. The level design is outstanding, as the levels are filled with enough secrets to fill up 50 copies of LocoRoco, fighting enemies never gets too frustrating, and there’s even a dancing/memorization mini-game to take part in. But let us not forget the…



6. HYPERFUNK ZONE!
Yes, the greatest bonus stage ever. I want to retire there. Crazy colors, funky patterns, presents galore, you turn into squiggles, and it yells HYPERFUNK ZONE whenever you enter it.


So I suppose I’ll shut up now. For everyone that gave this game a hard time when it came out, or rolls their eyes at how this game isn’t the original with better graphics, go download this bad boy on the Virtual Console. Or not download the ROM. I won’t not tell…no one… … ?

Seriously, play ToeJam and Earl in Panic on Funkotron. Give it one more shot. It’s a really fun game and does not deserve all the hatred. Now it’s time to go pack my bags, I’m off to the HYPERFUNK ZONE!

So yeah. If you happen to have your preorder bonus code for Banjo-Kazooie on Xbox Live Arcade, you can download that shit RIGHT NOW! Or, if you are me, 2 hours ago.

GameStops have been giving them out for about a week now, and some have run out, so if you preordered Nuts and Bolts and have yet to get your card....well, good luck. You may not get one.

But for those of you with the cards, hit up Xbox Live right this second and you will get your reward!

And yes, the game looks absolutely fantastic in HD.

I work for a small online games retailer in Waltham, Massachusetts. I work with many people who play video games. There is one kid in particular, though, I'll call him...Keith. His favorite game of all time is Grand Theft Auto IV. He plays the online multiplayer from when he gets home at 5pm, until he goes to bed at 2am. And on weekends? He plays it from the moment he gets up until the moment he goes to bed. I am not exaggerating at all. He is hardcore about that game.

We talk games all the time, to make the day go by. I'll talk once in a while of my exploits on Call of Duty 4 over Xbox Live, or how fantastic games like BioShock or Portal are. I'm not a huge shooter fan, honestly. The three I mentioned are pretty much all I've played in the last two years or so. But what happens when I mention them? He flips his lid!

"First person shooters are so fuckin' dumb. You have to be a retard to like them," he'll say. I can kind of respect that. Some people get motion sickness, or some people find the genre to have way too many generic titles to really sift through and find the truly outstanding ones.
"Why?" I would ask.
"Because the character is a gun. It's a fuckin' gun. That's so stupid! Why would I want to play as a gun?"
"But you aren't playing as a gun. You are playing from the perspective of a character. You see what they see."
"No you aren't! You're playing as a gun! No personality, you can't even see anybody. You just see the gun. Why would I play as a gun? I don't get it."
"But you're missing out on some of the best stories ever told in games! BioShock is so incredibly immersive and beautifully done and--"
"Nope. That game sucks. You're a gun, it's dumb."
"But you're not a gun! You are a man who ends up in this abandoned underwater society and you find out how the place fell apart and--"
"No you don't, you're playing as a gun. You're an idiot for liking those games."


So, let me ask you all this: Do you ever feel like you are playing as a gun in a first person shooter? Are there FPSes where the immersion is just not there and you think you're just playing as a gun? Or do some people just not understand that there is more than one way to see your character in a game?

UPDATE: As of January of 2009, he has turned around out of the blue. After tons of begging and pleading for him to play CoD4, Left 4 Dead, and other outstanding shooters, he has embraced the first person perspective. He now has replaced GTA IV with CoD:WaW as his game of choice every day, and frequently plays L4D when myself and others are online to play it with him.

I think it takes a lot for me to go back to a game. Unfortunately, I am the type that picks up a new game, plays around with it, and then OH SNAP! A new game comes out. Time to grab that new game, and let's forget about that other thing I was playing. I've probably only beaten about 30% of my collection, maybe only 3% of which I've COMPLETED. That's not a lot. Sure, it gives me time to play other games and experience a lot more than others, but at the same time I'm sure I'm missing out on a lot.

So what exactly is it that keeps me coming back to Metal Gear Solid 2? A game that many people take steamy dumps on for its pseudo-philosophical storyline, overly dramatic voice acting, predictable and linear gameplay, and the question, "Do you remember what day it is tomorrow?" I'll tell you what: the stuff I just mentioned.

I don't care what anyone says. Philosophical or not, the story has made me think about life. The game makes me contemplate the passing on of information, and has made me realize just how much more important that is than passing on genes. Genes get all screwy in the process, and if you keep going down in history, your own genes are but the most minute fraction of the sexy 6033 AD supergenes of our descendants. So it made me think: kids are annoying, lame, and a huge waste of money. Why not create something incredible to pass on, something that keeps my name alive forever?

All that stuff aside, though, the game does so many amazing things with its story and gameplay that keep me coming back for more. I want to relive, over and over, what I feel are some of gaming's best moments. That original mindrape when you first see Raiden still gets to me. Remembering how I felt the first time I felt betrayed, and going through the game remembering how I grew to love Raiden as a character, how he was needed to tell the story the way producer Hideo Kojima saw fit. I want to relive the amazing scene when the tanker sinks, I want to relive the fight against the Metal Gears, I want to relive the emotional moment when the usually emotionless Snake embraces Otacon, something a man with a beard like Snake never does. So many moments that made me feel SOMETHING, moments that stay in my memory as clear as day.

And if the story doesn't keep me coming back, there's nothing like classic stealth action. MGS2 improved upon everything its predecessor did that made it amazing. It felt like the perfect, ultimate Metal Gear experience. Figuring out enemy patterns and planning out a route to not get caught is still thrilling after having played through the game over ten times, and the feeling of me vomiting all over my controller when I get caught never goes away. I don't care how mechanical and linear MGS2 is, I don't care that there's pretty much only one or two ways to do any given task in the game. There's something about the way the game is set up and the way that everything comes together so brilliantly that makes me never, ever want to stop playing this game.

What brings it all together is the overall experience, and how no game has ever matched it. When have you ever had an established hero, a character you fell in love with, and then watch them go on to assist you for another game while you're stuck as someone completely different? The huge risk that Kojima took by taking Solid Snake out of the spotlight for a while before thrusting him back just to the side of it is something I cannot recall any other man in Kojima's shoes doing. It took massive balls and is still a risk he does not regret. By not only doing that, but turning everything you thought you knew about the real and fictional world on its head, is something few games do, and even fewer do well, it makes MGS2 an experience that is unmatched, seven years later.

I think what makes the perfect game is gameplay that keeps you coming back and keeps you entertained, a story that makes you think as well as react emotionally, and an experience that cannot be duplicated in any way, shape or form. And if a game is perfect in your eyes, you're going to want to play it again and again, regardless of how many copies of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts or Left 4 Dead are headed your way.

And believe me, I love me some Banjo.