Retroulette #6: Joe and Mac

Sometimes the robots that pick these games are nice to me. Today's game, Joe and Mac for the SNES, is one of my old favorites. You play as one of two buff deformed cave children on a quest to get kisses. I haven't played it in years though, so let's see what happens.

I'm playing as Joe, most commonly known as "the green haired one". The game starts with a world map, similar to the one in Mario Brothers 3. Except this one is pointless and uninteresting.

It's nonlinear, see, because you can choose to play the level, or turn the game off.

Then the adventure begins! The first enemy you encounter in the game is a pterodactyl. So right away you know this game isn't going to help you with your science homework. Next you encounter some other cavemen, but these guys look different than you, so you hate them.

Hate crime!

 You can get a variety of weapon powerups in the game. The range on your standard club hovers around nothing and attacking anything with it will just get you hit back, so it's really required to have a powerup at all times. But don't get the fireball. Fuck the fireball. It is entirely worthless and you should only pick it up if you can't find a quicker way to tell the person you're playing with you want to play another game.

I'll take the Poison Shroom.

Speaking of that, this game really shines in co-op and playing it alone now I can feel something is missing (someone to go ahead of me and take all the damage).

Anyway continuing on in the level I'm fighting more cavemen on the back of a T-Rex and they all run away for some reason.

This probably isn't foreshadowing anything.

Then I smack some T-Rex babies and get to the end of the level. But what's this? A mighty roar (actually more of a "Bah boo! Bah boo!") and THE T-REX APPEARS! This boss is pretty easy and goes down without much of a fight.

That'll teach you to attack me for killing your babies.

After each boss battle a sweet caveman babe walks in from... somewhere and gives you a kiss. If two people are playing, only one of you gets a kiss, and it's determined by I don't know what. This has the potential to ruin friendships.

Wait, that's "it"?

The next level is a treacherous journey over water, and it's here where I first die.When you get killed you float as a ghost angel a few seconds before you respawn, which I find to be a pretty bold statement on cavemen religion.

The boss of this level is some plant pod thing and this idiot is even easier than the first boss. Being a plant, his mobility is pretty low. So you can just go behind him and attack him all you want without being hit. Hell, even the fireball is almost helpful here.

"Nooooo! You've discovered my only weakness!"

The next level is only like 20 seconds long. You're just climbing a tree. But there's these jerk ass bees everywhere that constantly try to sting you so you just have to jump to the top as fast as possible. The boss here is a giant Pteradactyl. It's easy, but for some reason every once in awhile my character would just run away scared from the dinosaur whose ass I've been kicking for the last minute or so.

That's funny. I don't remember pressing the "freak the fuck out"  button.

The next level is a wacky river ride and at the end you fight a gang of Dolphins. You can just stand in the middle and throw weapons at everything so once again it's pretty easy.

Do that, fireball.

After that we've got a crazy trip down a waterfall, and the boss of this one is what Paleontologists call a "B-ball...neck......saur".

Probably.

Also, the girl here is ugly, so I never cared if my brother/friend got a kiss from her.

Ugh. You can stay kidnapped.

Next we're spelunking our way through an icy cave. The boss here is a giant mammoth, and he sucks. He takes forever to kill and I died like three times.

He's either got tons of HP, or he's immune to hundreds of boomerangs to the face.

The next level is another short vertical climb with another Pterodactyl boss. Then it's some volcanic levels with more bosses. After that it's a bone pit. And it's here I'm struck down by a bolt of lightning and my game ends.

Hopefully caveman God is cool with the "killing hundreds of his creations" thing.

I didn't get to the end this time, but if I recall, the game somehow ends with you fighting the devil.

Yeah, it's a pretty awesome game.

HOW MUCH DID THE COVER ART LIE?

What the hell is this!? Where's Joe and Mac's trademark colorful locks of hair? And I never fought a green T-Rex. This cover art is a load of bullshit.

This game is still a blast to play. If you haven't already, grab a chum and start smacking some dinosaur babies with a club.