{"id":18939,"date":"2019-04-12T00:01:53","date_gmt":"2019-04-12T00:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=18939"},"modified":"2019-03-25T12:19:00","modified_gmt":"2019-03-25T12:19:00","slug":"toejam-earl-back-in-the-groove-ps4-switch-xbox-one-pc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/12\/toejam-earl-back-in-the-groove-ps4-switch-xbox-one-pc\/","title":{"rendered":"ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove (PS4, Switch, Xbox One, PC)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>As a kid, I never had a SEGA Genesis.\u00a0 I was a SNES man, myself.\u00a0 Most of the time, I was fine with that, as the SNES had more games that interested me at the time.\u00a0 But there were a few times when a game on the Genesis caught my eye.\u00a0 ToeJam & Earl was one of those games, as it was very colorful and cartoony with unique gameplay.\u00a0 Over the years they\u2019ve had a few sequels, and now they\u2019re back again with ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove.\u00a0 It\u2019s a homage to the original game on the Genesis, and it\u2019s available to download on nearly all current game consoles and PC, but reviewed on PS4 here.<\/p>\n

In the game, two hip hop rapping aliens, ToeJam and Earl, are taking a joyride with their lady friends Lewanda and Latisha in their spaceship.\u00a0 They travel to Earth so they can crank up their tunes, but Earl accidentally presses the wrong button and causes a black hole to appear, sucking them and the Earth inside.\u00a0 Now the four aliens must explore the Earth, which is now a bunch of little islands floating out in space, find the parts of their spaceship, and fix the Earth back to normal.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a little hard to describe the game unless you\u2019ve already played the one on the Genesis.\u00a0 If you have, then all you need to know is this one plays exactly like the first game, just with gussied up graphics and new modern day features.\u00a0 There are a few new aspects, like dark levels where you use a flashlight to see, or snow covered ice levels, but otherwise it\u2019s exactly the same.\u00a0 But if you haven\u2019t played a ToeJam & Earl game before, the best way to describe it is that it\u2019s a cleverly disguised randomly generated dungeon crawler.<\/p>\n

You first pick one of the four characters.\u00a0 You can play by yourself or with a friend in co-op either via couch multiplayer or online.\u00a0 You\u2019ll explore 25 floors searching for pieces of your spaceship.\u00a0 On each floor you\u2019ll have to find the elevator to the next area, and they\u2019ll let you know if there is a piece there, too.\u00a0 Watch out for crazy Earthlings who can take out your health meter and other status effects.\u00a0 Not all humans are bad, though.\u00a0 Some just slow you down, while others can help you.\u00a0 Be on the lookout for money, food, and presents.\u00a0 Presents have random power-ups when you open them, but watch out because sometimes they can have bad things hidden inside, too.\u00a0 Find all the spaceship parts to win the game, but if you lose all your lives, it\u2019s Game Over.<\/p>\n

As you perform actions, you\u2019ll gain experience.\u00a0 When you have enough, find the wise man in the carrot costume (yes this game is weird) to level up your stats.\u00a0 You can play a \u2018fixed\u2019 version of the game where all the floors are the same every time, or you can unlock a random mode where the areas will be different each time you play.\u00a0 There are bonus areas where you can earn extra items.\u00a0 These include rhythm dance-offs, and a 2-D bonus stage that pays homage to the Genesis sequel: Panic on Funkotron.\u00a0 The game is very polished, too, with a detailed in-game instruction booklet that\u2019s very informative and fun to read, and even a tutorial world that explains things by letting you play.<\/p>\n

If you liked the original game, you\u2019ll love this one.\u00a0 Me personally, I\u2019ve always wanted to like the ToeJam & Earl games so bad, but all you do is walk around most of the time, and it gets pretty hard and seems to rely a lot on luck.\u00a0 So I\u2019ve had a tough time getting into the series because of that.\u00a0 But it doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s a bad game.\u00a0 So if you\u2019re a fan or just want to give the series a try, you can\u2019t go wrong with this one.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Crude Humor and Mild Cartoon Violence.\u00a0 You can eat nasty food that\u2019ll make your character barf, and there are fart attacks, too.\u00a0 Most of the time you just try to avoid Earthlings, so the game is pretty non-violent most of the time.\u00a0 You can get a slingshot to shoot tomatoes, though, but that\u2019s about as violent as it gets.\u00a0 Reading skill is helpful for some of the text, and younger games may find it a bit too difficult at the Normal setting.\u00a0 Luckily you can set the game\u2019s difficulty at easier levels, and that\u2019s something that all ToeJam & Earl games have done, so that\u2019s pretty cool.\u00a0 I think ToeJam & Earl would make a neat cartoon, don\u2019t you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a kid, I never had a SEGA Genesis.\u00a0 I was a SNES man, myself.\u00a0 Most of the time, I was fine with that, as the SNES had more games that interested me at the time.\u00a0 But there were a few times when a game on the Genesis caught my eye.\u00a0 ToeJam & Earl was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18939"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18941,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18939\/revisions\/18941"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}