ToeJam & Earl III: Mission to Earth

ToeJam & Earl III: Mission to Earth is a revival of the cult Sega Genesis series, created in 2002 for Xbox by studio Visual Concepts, otherwise best known for sports simulations. After years of silence, the pair of funky alien heroes, DJ ToeJam and rapper Earl, returned in a completely reworked 3D form, once again exploring a strange version of Earth, collecting bizarre items with random effects, and trying to avoid the planet's odd inhabitants while searching for pieces of their broken spaceship, the RadZ7.

Compared to the original isometric-view entries, the third game moved to a fully three-dimensional environment and classic platformer movement, a fundamental shift in genre and visual style for the series that divided long-time fans - some praised the effort to modernize, while others missed the randomness and atmosphere of the earlier titles. Items still hid inside unmarked gift boxes, and their effect could only be guessed after use, so risk and chance remained part of the gameplay, and a two-player co-op mode was also available, a traditional pillar of the whole brand. There was no shortage of small diversions in the form of minigames and dance sequences meant to recall the relaxed, lighthearted nature of the series.

The game retained the typical humor, funky music, and bizarre sense of humor characteristic of the whole series, though critics pointed to uneven pacing and a missing spark of the original's magic. Despite the mixed reception, ToeJam & Earl III remains an interesting example of Sega's attempt to revive its own nineties brands on a new generation of consoles, and it is still remembered by fans of the original series as a bold, if not entirely successful, experiment with the transition to 3D. Despite its lukewarm reception, it remained the only attempt to bring the brand back on a then-modern console, and the series fell silent for many years afterward.