Caveman Ninja

Caveman Ninja is Data East's caveman action game, known in Japan as Tatakae Genshizin Joe & Mac and remembered mostly for one design decision: the heroes are cavemen whose only weapons are things they can throw, and everything else is platforming.

The throw is the mechanic. Joe and Mac hurl rocks, bones, boomerangs and fireballs at dinosaurs and rival tribesmen, and the weapon changes as you pick up new ones - each with a different arc and a different rate. The campaign runs through a prehistoric landscape of jungles, ice caves and volcanoes to rescue a group of captured women, and the levels are built around riding dinosaurs: jump on a pterodactyl to fly over a section, on a triceratops to smash through obstacles. Two players can play simultaneously, which is the standard way to experience it, and the co-op is genuinely co-operative rather than simply parallel. It was ported to the SNES and Genesis and spawned two sequels, including Joe & Mac Returns (also on this site).

• ▸Throwable weapons - rocks, bones, boomerangs and fireballs
• ▸Rideable dinosaurs that change how a section plays
• ▸Two-player simultaneous co-op through the whole campaign
• ▸A rescue-the-villagers premise with a comic tone