The original Toejam and Earl was simply awesome. You have presents scattered around levels that you would collect, and they would do things like give you super speed or give you the ability to kill enemies (normally you can only avoid them) You never know what\'s inside a present until you either open one or have the Sage guy tell you. Sometimes presents had bad stuff, like the dreaded Randomizer, which would randomize the contents of all the presents in the game, or the one that instanly kills you, or puts you to sleep, or messes with your controls. There are 30 levels, but each level is random, and there are literally thousands. If you fall off a cliff on one level, you are dropped back to the last level. You have to search these huge levels to find pieces of your spaceship. Not every level has one, there are 10 pieces in 30 levels. TJ&E was one of the best games ever to come out in the 16 bit era.
TJ&E2 sucked ass. It was NOTHING like the first one.