More Fun With Joe
More Fun With Joe & Mac
This is Part II of my Caveman Ninja feature. If you haven't read Part I, maybe you should fuck off. When we last saw Joe, he had just slain a brachiosaurus as part of his quest to rescue cute women from ugly troglodytes. Not that I particularly care, but this game seems to embody an underlying current of sexism within classic video games. Think about it: I bet you can name at least ten or twenty games where you play as a bold hero who must rescue the helpless princess from the clutches of evil. You can also include games like Super Mario Bros. where you play as an unlikely hero who saves the day. If I were a bitter middle-aged lesbian teaching Gender Studies, I might subject you to a long self-righteous diatribe about how video games perpetuate gender roles. But I'm not, and I won't, because it's bullshit. Video games exist to entertain us and empower us. It is the sense of accomplishment that we get from righting wrongs (or vice-versa) that makes games fun. When I save Princess Zelda in a game, I feel fulfilled because I have rescued a character who has hierarchal importance within the context of the game's lore. It is not out of some crass Freudian hope that perhaps Zelda will reach through my television screen and give me a handjob. In conclusion, feminists suck. Now back to the game.
So we're in Level 4 now and Mac is still dead. This level doesn't pull the same bullshit that the last two levels did; you only rescue *one* of your whores here. This level takes place in some sort of volcanic region. Despite the intense heat, Joe is able to tread across the hot, rocky terrain is his bare feet. Yeah, whatever. The first part of this level is a fucking joke. Do you think you can handle guiding Joe past some rolling rocks and tumbling cavemen? If so, you'll soon find yourself at the crossroads of yet another level split. If you were actually playing the game, you could only take one. But since I rock, I'll show you both.
Course A takes you past lava pits where you'll jump over lava jets that shoot up in predictable intervals. You'll also fight more fucking caveman and pterodactyls. It's not that interesting and not that difficult. But hey, it looks really nice.
Now it's Course B time. I prefer this one. In both courses, the game goes out of its way to hook you up with the fire weapon. You might think that enemies who live in such a hot climate would be immune or resistant to fire, but you'd be wrong. This isn't Final Fantasy, after all. In Course A, the fire doesn't do anything special. In Course B, you can use it to set half of the level on fire, killing a ridiculous amount of enemies as a result. Of course, you have to be careful not to fall into fire yourself, but it's not that difficult.
Just like the last two times, both courses end with the same battle. This time, you don't even get different backgrounds in the boss fight depending on which course you took. What the fuck is that? This level's end boss is an angry ankylosaurus who bounces around like a motherfucker. Or IS it? There are no babes in sight. Something is up, and it's not just that this bastard looks and acts more like a prehistoric hedgehog than an ankylosaurus. Oh well, no time to worry about that now. Most other bosses can't be hurt when they're in the middle of certain attacks. For example, once that Audrey II rip-off in Level 2 starts to spit a seed, Joe's attacks will bounce right off her. This is not the case with the ankylosaurus. If you hit it, it loses life regardless of what it is doing. Despite all that natural armor, the stupid thing takes damage like a little bitch. Hmmm... that's another indication that this guy might not be the boss...
And he's not. Once you kill the ankylosaurus, the ground collapses and Joe falls about 500 feet down into a subterranean lair. Along the way, he can collect a sick amount of food and fully restore his energy. This drop is at least as long as the distance Joe travels in Course A from Level 3 when the pterodactyl carries him down the waterfall. Since landing on stalagmites while accelerating at the rate of gravity (9.8 m/s²) doesn't kill little Joey, I don't know why it would have killed him in that part of Level 3. Oh right, because that would have made the level too short.
Once Joe finally lands, it's time to fight another giant angry monster and rescue another girl in bondage. Man, that's hot. This time, Joe's opponent is a wooly mammoth with leprosy. As you attempt to beat him, you will inevitably knock off his trunk and probably one or both of his tusks as well. I guess Mother Nature hadn't quite perfected pachyderms at that point in history. The mammoth has three attacks: he'll throw rocks at you with his trunk, charge at you, and stomp causing rocks to rain from the ceiling. He takes a lot of hits to kill, especially since hitting his trunk and tusks doesn't damage his body. He also mixes up his attacks a lot. The bottom line is that this boss is reasonably tough.
Welcome to the fifth and final level. I like to call it Level 5. This level starts off in a boneyard on a dark and stormy night. Here you'll fight struthiomimuses, blue and purple archaeopteryxes, campfires, and even more cavemen. As if that wasn't enough, you'll also fight GOD. For reasons which I have yet to fully grasp, God sends lightning bolts at Joe to smite him. Oh right, it's cuz Joe is an insolent heathen.
Like the last three levels, Level 5 has multiple bosses. The first one is a partial dinosaur skeleton that shoots baby dino skulls at Joe. When Joe hits this motherfucker with a fully charged weapon, he flies apart and Joe must dodge the bonestorm that ensues. This boss is really easy, especially for a late game boss. Once you beat him, you'll replenish your life for the last time and head off to the final fork in the road.
Course A is a continuation of the boneyard from the first half of the level. The lightning has subsided, but you'll fight baby Rexes, flying machines, struthiomimuses, campfires, and still more fucking caveman. Those hairy bastards never quit. If you can, you're much better off staying in the top part of this level; it's hard to dodge in the lower part because the low ceiling prevents Joe from fully jumping. Either way, this course isn't too bad and I would definitely pick it over Course B.
Course B kinda sucks. It takes place amidst bubbling red tar pits while three of the game's most erratic enemies, the archaeopteryx, the struthiomimus, and lightning, try their best to kill you. Of course, there's the obligatory cavemen and pterodactyls as well. Lightning is the worst obstacle ever. Just take Course A and pretend you never saw this crap. As always, you fight the same behemoth either way.
And now it's time to meet the end boss. It's another T-Rex, or uh, something kinda like one. Unlike the T-Rex that Joe fought in Level 1, this dino is red and its attached to one of those wavy segmented things that have been a staple of cheesy video game bosses for as long as I can remember. Because of its neck, this boss is a lot more mobile than his counterpart from the first stage. And whereas the Level 1 T-Rex could only spit small rocks and rolling cavemen, this guy spits out big rocks and spawns struthiomimuses. This boss is not fun to fight, but once you beat him, the game is finally over. Oh wait, no it's not. Once Joe fells his foe, he jumps down its throat for no apparent reason. It is here that he encounters his final battle...
This is the game's actual final boss and no, I have no idea what the fuck he is either. He appears to be some sort of half man/half-dinosaur, kinda like Dinosaur Neil from The Tick, but not really. He's also parasitic: for some reason, this neon green neanderthal's vitality is linked to the heart of the unconscious dinosaur that you're fighting inside. If you hit Swamp Thing or the heart, you decrease his life bar. This boss is a total bitch to beat. He backflips around while spitting maggots, sometimes three at time, and he is hella fast. As you damage him, he will begin to slow down. Thus, the more damage you to do him, the easier it becomes to slay him. When this horrid abomination has finally gasped his last breath, the game draws to its thrilling conclusion.
After Greeny McWeird and the dinosaur's heart have stopped moving, Joe is free to exit the dinosaur's body. Rather than simply turn around and exit through the mouth, Joe decides to take the other way out. Like most other dinosaurs, red T-Rex has three rectums. Each one leads to a different fate. What unfortunate ending awaits our hero?
If Joe takes the top path, he'll be confronted by a caveman in drag. That's definitely not cool. The game then ends with Joe & Mac running away in terror while the credits scroll across the screen. Yes, even if you only beat the game with one player, both characters appear in the ending. The second ending is slightly better. If you take the middle rectum, Joe & Mac encounter a woman of large girth. Of course, she also freaks them out and they vault away as the credits roll by. Sure, she's still kinda gross, but it's better than a transvestite. Besides, fatty must be an exceptionally good hunter or gatherer in order to have gotten so fat. Finally, if you take the bottom path, Joe & Mac encounter five hot ladies... and then they run away yet again. What's more, they get chased by seven girls instead of five. I don't know why our heroes would flee, since they spent THE ENTIRE FUCKING GAME rescuing babes, but whatever. Maybe they're like Ace and Gary. Analyzing it any further would be fruitless, so let's give up.
Although Caveman Ninja lacks any sort of depth, it is a fun distraction. While it is rather basic and short compared to other platformers of the era, it has the advantage of looking nicer than many other games that came out at the time. The cartoonish mannerisms that Joe, Mac, and their enemies add an element of humor to the game, something that was rarely seen in those days, especially in games that were released outside of Japan. In some part, however small, Caveman Ninja helped pave the way for other quirky platform games, such as the phenomenal Earthworm Jim. While Caveman Ninja isn't as good, I'd still recommend it. After all, how can you possibly resist whomping cavemen with giant wheels?
Posted by: Syd Lexia
05/28/05
*The dinosaur in question is called ichthyosaurus.
