Joe & Mac

"Cavemen, women, and Rolling Stones. What exactly is this, anyway?!"

The cave babes have been stolen!

Joe: No cave babe? Must save!
Mac: Save cave babe!
BORO: BABES OF CAVE CHEW BUBBLEGUM DO THEY EAT FRIED BEANS?

The gathering of the Neanderthals!!!! Yes, that's right, the cave babes have been captured, and it's up to cavemen Joe & Mac to save them.

Joe: Review Joe's game!
Mac: No, review Mac's game! Mac has better game!
Joe: Same game!
Mac: Review Joe & Mac!!
BORO: MY REVIEW BESTEST.

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Design Elements
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Visuals
The visuals of Joe & Mac are very good. Joe & Mac look basically the same besides the color of their clothing and hair. Joe has messy green hair, and Mac has messy blue hair. Their clothing consists of grass and leaves around their waist down to near their knees; Joe's is green, Mac's is blue. Their bodies are well detailed. Their faces are what you'd expect from a human face: Eyes, nose, mouth. You can see the muscles and toning on their bodies, arms, and legs. Enemy cavemen have the same bodily detail, but their chest is covered with a Fred Flinstone looking orange and black spotted leopard skin. Their hair color is a dark brown, much messier, and their faces look more, say, evil. Other enemies are dinosaurs, which are flying pterodactyls, vicious raptors, and red compys. The pterodactyls are flying dinosaurs that range in colors of green, red, gray, and purple. They are moderately sized, and you can see the bones in their wingspan. Some pterodactyls are bosses, and detail is easier to point out. The raptors are larger than Joe & Mac, and are always orange with red stripes. You can make out the creases in their reptilian skin. The compys are always small and red, and it's hard to make out if there is any extra detail on them. Bosses include mammoths, tyrannosaurs, and more. They are the most well detailed, from fur to their skin.

The environments are quite lush and colorful. The first level is basic: Gray rocks, green grass, and a blue sky background with clouds. The big part of the level is a sleeping dinosaur that lies in the middle, though. It takes up a couple of screens, and is very well detailed. The next level is has lots of water and greenery for furthermore impression. As you go on you will visit trees, waterfalls, caves of ice, and eventually several levels of... ahem... VOLCANIC DESTRUCTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rating: 9 Excellent

Music/Sound
The music is very tropical in a sense. The tropical style of the music stays the same, but depending on the level, it can be more upbeat (Grassy levels), or more intense (Volcano levels). I enjoyed the music.

The sound effects are simple. Whenever something dies, you'll hear a funny squealing and popping noise. Dinosaurs roar, and whenever you throw a boomerang or a bone, you'll hear it whishing through the air. When Joe & Mac are hit, they'll make a goofy, high pitched ''OW'' noise.
Rating: 7 Good

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Gameplay Elements
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Gameplay
Joe & Mac is a side scrolling action game. You start up the game and you can choose One Player, Two Player, or Two Player Super Game. There's also Options, where you can change the difficulty, and the two controls for the game. That's right, two. X and Y control shoot, and A and B control jump. You can customize the controls for the four buttons for shoot and jump. In gameplay, you can't shoot until you get a weapon. Until then, you're limited to club swinging. Don't worry about it, though. At the beginning of most of the levels, there's a weapon waiting in an egg (or just in plain view). There are four weapons: Bones, Boomerangs, Flames, and Rolling Stones (they're coming to your Emotional Rescue). You can shoot three bones at once, but their power is weak. Boomerangs are the same, but they have a longer range. Flames are very powerful, but you can only shoot one at a time. Rolling Stones are usually the best, because you can shoot two at once, they can travel up walls, and they're as powerful as the flames. However, Rolling Stones are usually limited to ground only, and when you do get one in the air, it will travel in the air for a short time before rolling on the ground. Mick Jagger does not make an appearance in this game.

You can press the up button, or a form of the up button (up left, up right) with your jump button to jump higher. You can jump on most enemies heads, including pterodactyls, and sometimes you can reach heights you couldn't before.

To go from level to level there's an overworld. It's nothing much, really. When you continue, you'll start at a white checkpoint on the overworld. If this checkpoint was used before levels that you beat before dying, don't worry about it. You can just walk by those levels. The checkpoints are just... I really don't know. The overworld is overhead, but you walk on a simple Super Mario World like path. On the overworld there are some blue minigames behind ''locked doors'', but they're occasionally useless. In fact, anything behind ''locked doors'' is useless. If you get a key, don't bother using it.

Let's get to levels... levels, levels, levels. Short, short, short, easy. The levels in this game are very short and very easy. In fact, this game has some of the shortest levels in video game history. On two of the game's levels, you travel upward by jumping up several steps, and you reach the end of level boss. Another one of the levels has a pterodactyl carrying you down a waterfall while avoiding rocks. Moving around the rocks and holding down, in a matter of seconds you're at the end of the level. At the end of each level you face a boss. You can see their life bars on top of the screen under yours. Here's where strategy comes into place. You can toggle between your weapons with the select button, and you may use different ones while fighting. Still, it's a very short and easy game. This game will take you only perhaps an hour to an hour and a half to beat at it's default difficulty. To make up for this, you only have three continues and there is no saving or password system, but after getting used to the gameplay it won't really matter. However, this game is still a very fun platformer and replaying it often never gets old for some reason.
Rating: 8 Great

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Final Rating
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The Good
+Fun, straightforward platformer
+Great visuals
+Tropical music
+Rolling Stones

The Bad
-Too easy, too short
-Useless minigames

Joe & Mac is pure prehistoric fun! It is very short, but it's most likely very cheap now, and is very replayable simply because it's fun. And that's a Cheezmonky X guarantee!

*Dy$e fires a handgun at Cheezmonky X*

GAH!!!!!!

*jumps on the back of a dinosaur and leaves*
*Christopher Walken attacks Cheezmonky with a Tyrannosaurus*

Final Rating: 8 Great

Christopher Walken was not harmed in the making of this review, but he did chase Dy$e, Cheezmonky, and CJayC away and took over GameFAQs.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/26/01, Updated 05/02/02