Joe & Mac

n/a

Joe & Mac
System(s): Sega Mega Drive
Publisher: Takara
Developer: Eden Entertainment Software/Elite Systems
Original system(s): Arcade boards
Developer(s) of original games: Data East
Sound driver: Krisalis sound driver
Genre: Action
Number of players: 1-2
Release Date RRP Code US 1994-01 $59.9559.95 T-103036 BR 1994 044960
VRC Tectoy

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Joe & Mac, known as Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja in Europe and Joe & Mac: Caveman Fight (ジョーとマック 戦え原始人) in Japan, is a 1991 platforming action game by Data East, initially released for a DE-manufactured arcade board, but later ported to home computers and consoles such as the Super NES, NES, Game Boy and the Sega Mega Drive. Data East themselves produced the SNES version, while the rest of home versions were created by Elite Systems thanks to a conversion license granted by Data East, including the Mega Drive version which was developed by Eden Entertainment Software in late 1993. Publishing licenses of this version were granted to Takara in North America, TecToy in Brazil and Codemasters in Europe. While the game was released in North America and Brazil in early 1994, the European version never materialized.

Gameplay

You control Joe, a green-haired caveman, as he tries to rescue his and his blue-haired friend Mac's girlfriends, who have been kidnapped by enemy cavemen one night. Joe shoots a weapon by hitting ; he can change the particular weapon by grabbing a new one when it appears, but hold to much causes damage for recoil (hammers and wheels, for example). and both jump, however makes Joe jump higher and curled into a ball; is a shorter jump that can be used to crush enemies.

There is also a 2 player mode that let the second player control Mac; while most ports use a menu at the title screen to select the mode, the Mega Drive version requires you to hit  START  with the second controller at the title screen to play in 2 player mode.

Versions

On the Mega Drive, Joe & Mac is a no-frills arcade conversion, and while some of the graphics have been simplified, the game remains broadly the same. Its Super NES counterpart, on the other hand, is an expansion over the arcade game, featuring longer levels and more content, and a map screen not dissimilar to that of Super Mario World. The core gameplay remains identical between all versions, however.

In the arcades, Joe & Mac operates with an internal screen resolution of 256x240, which is then expanded horizontally to fill a 4:3 display. As the resulting pixels would not be square, the art assets are drawn "thin", with normal dimensions being resolved when displayed on-screen.

This is convinent for the Super NES version of Joe & Mac as its internal resolution is 256x224 (meaning the horizontal expansion is roughly the same), however this Mega Drive version operates with a native resolution of 320x224, causing almost every graphic in the game to appear too thin as the assets were not re-drawn. A side effect to this approach is that more of the play area is visible at any one time than in either the arcade or Super NES versions.

Production credits

• Written by: Tim Round
• Additional Code: Jason Stoat, Stuart Middleton
• Graphics by: Tim Round, Terry Baker, Stuart Middleton, Rob Thursfield, Lee Beckett, Rob Dorney
• Audio by: Krisalis Software Ltd
• Music by: Matt Furniss
• Music Driver by: Shaun Hollingworth
• Testing by: Phil Bradley, Lee Mather, David Fowler
• Special Thanks: Kinya Tago, Phil Bradley, Mike Brown, David Fowler, John Davies, David Powell

Magazine articles

• 

  Mention of the European version by Codemasters in Mean Machines Sega #18 (1994-04)

Promotional material

Print advert in Electronic Gaming Monthly (US) #52: "November 1993" (1993-xx-xx)

Physical scans

Sega Retro Average
Publication Score Source Electronic Gaming Monthly (US) 70 GamePro (US) 78 №56, p56 Sega Mega Drive Advanced Gaming (UK) 60 №23, p22/23 Mega (UK) 62 №17, p34

	68
Based on 4 reviews

Sega Retro Average

Publication Version Score 1700 igr dlya Sega (RU) 50 Cool Gamer (RU) 60 Electronic Gaming Monthly (US) NTSC-U 70 Entsiklopediya luchshikh igr Sega. Vypusk 9 (RU) 70 GameFan (US) NTSC-U 80 GamePro (US) NTSC-U 78 MAN!AC (DE) PAL 65 Sega Mega Drive Advanced Gaming (UK) NTSC-U 60 Mega (UK) NTSC-U 62 MegaTech (UK) NTSC-U 45 Sega Zone (UK) NTSC-U 69 Tricks 16 bit (RU) 64 Video Games (DE) NTSC-U 66 VideoGames (US) NTSC-U 60

	64
Based on 14 reviews

Joe & Mac

Mega Drive, US
Cover
Cart Manual

Mega Drive, BR
Cover
Cart Manual

Technical information

ROM dump status

System	Hash	Size	Build Date	Source	Comments
✔	CRC32 85bcc1c7 MD5 9800244038a6235c6d437582aa75f52f SHA-1 d238ecdbc76affb0b92946a1ee984399b6e8fe27	1MB	1993-11	Cartridge (US)