Retro game review: Joe & Mac (Nintendo Entertainment System)
Oddly enough, games based on cavemen characters were popular in the late 80’s and early 90’s. From the Turbografx-16’s big-headed mascot Bonk to the big-bellied Chuck Rock, there seemed to be a steady stream of games focused around prehistoric man.
One of the games to carry this theme is Joe and Mac, also known as Caveman Ninja in some regions. Its the typical “save the damsel in distress” story that used to cobble together enough of a reason to send our heroes on an adventure. Is Joe and Mac worth your time?
Gameplay
You begin the game in a lush prehistoric setting and are instantly thrown into the action as various dinosaurs and other creatures try to get in your way. Flying pterodactlys, chomping dinos and thuggish cavemen are a few of the enemies you’ll come across in your journey.
You begin the game equipped with a throwing axe that you can lob forward or upwards to attack flying enemies. Holding down the attack button for a few moments gives you a charged attack that has more power and distance, but holding the button too long tires your caveman and wipes out a big chunk his power bar. In my experience, its not worth the risk or benefit to use this technique. As you progress, you’ll pick up alternate weapons like a fast-firing dagger and a slow but powerful stone wheel. Pressing A gives you a standard jump, but pressing up and A makes your caveman pull off a super jump that boost him to near the top of the screen, which is essential for survival and progressing through the environments.
The level layouts are quite bland and uninspired. The first section of level one doens’t even require you to make any jumps. Its just a straight shot to the midboss, which gets boring pretty fast.
In full disclosure, I was only able to make it to level 2-1, where I encountered one of the most unfair bosses I’ve ever encountered in my 30+ years of gaming and simply was not able to get by it. Even using save states on my trusty Retron 5, this midboss is simply unfair. Not too hard, but practically broken. I fought this Audrey 2-inspired plant at least a dozen times and never managed to take down more than 25% of its life bar. This alone tanks the score of this game.
Perhaps this boss would be manageable if the controls were better, but Joe and Mac control like the clunky cavemen they are. Controlling yourself when you’re in a high jump is pretty good, but basic movements lack nuance and finesse, which makes the game much harder than it should be.
Presentation
Visually the game is a mixed bag. The sprite artwork is clunky and amateur, but sufficient. However the game features some of the most vibrant colors I can recall from an NES game. In addition, I was thoroughly impressed by the multi-layered (parallax) background scrolling they were able to pull off in this game. Seeing a single scrolling background on the NES is uncommon, but they managed to pull off up to SIX LAYERS of scrolling backgrounds. I can’t think of another NES game that pulled off this technical feat, so I have to give it some respect for that achievement. Heck, a lot of 16-bit games didn't do this.
Music is good, though not particularly memorable. It captures the tribal caveman theme well with thumping, bouncy themes. Sound effects are better than average as well, with nice effects and a couple of good simulated vocal cues.
Verdict
I see Joe and Mac as a missed opportunity. With just a couple of extra months for testing and refinement, this could have been a great game. But when someone who considers themselves to be a fairly skilled gamer can’t get beyond the boss of level 2-1, that’s a big problem.
The game for the most part looks great and sounds nice too, but these control and difficulty issues are just too much to ignore and crush the score of this game that had a lot of potential.
Score: 3/10
