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Toe Jam & Earl 3 Review |
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Toe Jam & Earl 3
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Let me preface this review by saying that this game is not a game for every gamer, as it’s very different from games out on the market today. If you have any reservations as to whether this game is in line with your likes/dislikes, rent/borrow first, then buy if you like it. I know I am gonna take a ton of crap for this particular review, but if I went against my gut feelings on this game, I wouldn’t be doing anybody a service and lying to myself, so here goes the good bad, and ugly of it all.
As many people have noticed, the reviews for the current Toe Jam and Earl game have run the gamut from great, to mediocre, to downright terrible. There being no common consensus for the game on whether or not it’s actually good, I thought I would pick it up and make up my own mind about it. I’ve never played a TJ&E game before, since I was a Nintendo fanboy back in the day, so this was my first foray into the world of Funk. Hence, for better or for worse, here’s the official JTake on TJ&E3: Mission to Earth.
Relatively simple and easy to learn, TJ&E makes itself accessible enough. Which I honestly believe is the goal of TJ&E3, to make itself an easily digestible piece of gaming fluff. This is not a game you think hard about, there is some strategy involved, but for the most part you collect Funkify notes, keys to unlock doors, and various food, as well as special presents the Santa Funk has left around the world of TJ&E. The presents are varied, and amusing to use. They consist of X-ray glasses, spring shoes, Funk Rhythm, Icarus wings, Rocket Skates and the like, which will assist you in collecting the 12 Vinyl Records of Funk for the Funkopotamus, who has had his Vinyls stolen. This is essentially your mission: to recover the 12 Funk Vinyls, which have been stolen and hidden on planet Earth. In general, the vinyls aren’t hard to find. It’s collecting enough keys to get into the various worlds and levels, as well as using the appropriate presents you’ll find in each level to complete your tasks that will be challenging.
Your enemies are varied and creative, and you’ll need to employ various tactics in Funkifying the Earthlings you’ll meet and making them friendly towards you instead of hostile. They’ll range anywhere from little schoolgirls who’ll kick you until you Funkify them, to Dentists, Cowboys, babies in walkers, and present stealing Gophers. Each of your enemies will be of different strengths, and depending on your level of Funk Fu ability, you may or may not be able to convert them with a simple Funk Fu blast, but be required to use a weapon in your present arsenal to convert them to the Funk. You can also use any of the three main characters to accomplish your goals, Toe Jam (the skinny red one), Earl (the big yellow one), or the newcomer Latisha (uh… the girl one). Each have slightly different abilities, but the differences are fairly insignificant, so you can cruise thru the game with one character if you’d like, or switch it up if you’d like by finding a switching spot found in various levels.
The levels themselves range from inventive and fun to simple and somewhat boring, but there are a number of goals in certain levels while other levels will require platformer-like timed jumping tasks or simply converting all the Earthlings in the level to the Funk. One drawback to the levels in general, is that they don’t offer much variety in the way of Gameplay elements. You’ll find yourself doing basically the same thing in each level: convert the Earthlings, find the presents, find the vinyls, collect keys to open new levels, and find money. This gameplay element alone makes it difficult to play the game for more than an hour or two per sitting, because while it’s fun for the most part, it grows somewhat tedious to do for extended periods of time.
The controls are simple, left thumbstick controls movement, right controls camera, A button jumps, and Y button fires the Funkify Notes you’ll collect in order to Funkify Earthlings. Pulling the left trigger puts you into first-person mode, so you can better aim your Funkify notes as well.
Surprisingly enough, the graphical world of TJ&E is a very pretty place. Even though the game was started on the DC and subsequently canned when the DC itself was canned, it manages to make use of some of the graphical goodies available on the Xbox. The levels are a bit sparse of detail though, which may or may not be partially due to the fact that the levels are randomly generated, but even still there are trees, rocks, and snow banks that do provide a good amount of detail, with bump mapping, particle effects, and shading.
The one area that could have definitely used more polish is in the character models themselves. The trio of TJ, Earl and Latisha are modeled well enough, but the enemy models range from pretty good to merely passable. Given, the game is played from a generally far off perspective, so many of the graphical details are not fully noticeable, but they don’t do so well when close up or zoomed in. For example, the very first Boss is horribly rendered and looks hollow instead of showing a sense of solidity, which is where the old DC-esque graphics pop into mind. The lack of detail in characters other than the trio is also painfully evident during the loading cut scenes between levels when TJ, Earl, and Latisha are staging a concert and the crowd is shown. The crowd is full of poor models with jaggy edges and simple textures and doesn’t do anything to reinforce the fact that this is an Xbox only game. On a lighter note, the framerate is solid, the animations are smooth, and the trio moves fluidly.
Overall spoken humor in the game is good, and well implemented. Each of the trio will elicit different responses from the other characters, so depending on which character you choose for a certain level will determine the jokes that will fly your way. One such level is one where you are supposed to catch all the elves, get their presents from them (Funkify notes) and blast some Yeti with the notes. Playing it with TJ or Earl is fun enough, as it’s played on slippery ice, but when playing it with Latisha, the elves seem to turn into little perverted school kids, throwing out one-liners like “Hey Latisha! Wanna see the South Pole?” or classics like “I swear that’s just a present in my pocket Latisha!” among others. Nearly every NPC has some sort of one liner or two, which adds a little more fun to the mix.
The raps that Toe Jam, Earl, and Latisha do are 100% old school rap in the same vein as Run DMC, the Fat Boys, and the like. So if old school raps turn you off, then you may not find this particularly appealing even though it does fit in with the atmosphere of the Toe Jam & Earl universe. The same goes for all of the music in TJ&E, it’s all old school, and doesn’t try to make itself like current rap styles. (Personal Opinion Interjection [POI] Most current mainstream rap lacks Funk of any kind, so why would it be included in a game that concentrates on funkyness?)
The voice acting in TJ&E is done well, particularly on the trio of lain characters. Just looking at the three, you can somewhat imagine what they’d sound like: Earl is well… big. His voice is deep and funky. Toe Jam, is scrawny and his voice is appropriate, as he sounds like a skinny rapper. Latisha seriously reminds me of a chick straight out of Destiny’s Child, all attitude. They all have a collection of random one-liners they’ll throw out when completeing a goal or when you press the appropriate button on the controller to make them speak and they are funny enough, but they do get a tad old after a bit.
Although the first few levels are pretty easy… make that VERY easy, it does get harder as the levels progress. The bosses get pretty tricky, and later levels get pretty tough, although most of the difficulty will be having the right present at the right time to use it on the right enemy. So completing the 30 or so levels will take some time, especially if you have to go back into earlier levels to get more keys you missed the first time. The ability to play with two players at once does add to the playability, as they can start in on any game you’re currently playing and leave at anytime if they need to.
One feature that I was not able to try that could extend the replay value immensely is the little Arnold Schwartzenegger wannabe bodybuilder you’ll find in many levels. He’s wearing an Xbox Live poster board and taunts you in full Ahnuld voice to quit being fat and lazy and download extra levels thru Xbox Live. It’s great to see developers utilizing this feature so enthusiastically, especially when it means more value to the consumer.
I’ll be the first to admit that even though I love many mainstream games such as Halo, SegaGT 2002, and Grand Theft Auto among others, I still like a game every now and again that doesn’t do what everyone else is doing, and that has it’s own distinct personality and quirkyness. Toe Jam and Earl 3: Mission to Earth is such a game. Despite not being a graphical wonder, the game’s got style, it’s fun for the most part, and does elicit more than a few laughs especially in the company of friends. Even if it isn’t for everybody, there are more than a few gamers who will enjoy it. Myself included.
Review By: JakeT
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