ToeJam & Earl: Back In The Groove

THIS SEQUEL TO A CLASSIC MIGHT JUST LEAVE YOU IN A BIT OF A FUNK

- Adam Bryant

Remakes and reboots are coming out of our ears these day, some better than others. On one side of the spectrum you have Capcom’s Resident Evil 2 remake, which wowed everyone by creating a game that retains the essence of what made the original game great but offered a completely new experience.

Then there’s ToeJam & Earl: Back In The Groove, a remake-but-nota-remake that does little more than produce a near-identical recreation of the first game in the series, which upon its release on the Sega Mega Drive all the way back in 1991 was praised for its humour and originality.

Back In The Groove does the minimum to set the story. Funk-loving aliens from planet Funkotron, ToeJam and Earl, have stolen a spaceship, the Rapmaster Rocketship, and travelled back to Earth to impress their partners, Lewanda and Latisha respectively, but their plan backfires when a misunderstanding leads to them pressing the wrong button on the ship. This generates a black hole that sucks in the Earth, the ship and everyone inside into the vortex.