James Pond 2: Codename Robocod


killbarney

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James Pond 2 review



James pond is a small orange cod who is a super cool spy fish. James Pond's debut was at the end of the 1980's in his first game. James Pond starred in a sequel after the first game called James Pond 2: Codename Robocod. This was released firstly on the Amiga in 1990 and then it went on to the Sega Master System.

The basics

In James Pond 1, our favourite cod fish saved the world from the extremely sinister Dr. Maybe. James Pond has now been provided with a robotic suit from the scientist 'Phil'. This lets him survive out of water which means he can do many things in his ventures. The evil Dr Maybe is now back and ready to cause destruction. The toys at santas factory are crying out for help so you as Robocod have to help them as their saviour, and the HERO! James is told that evil Dr Maybe has invaded the toy factories and has placed bombs there. He has to get to the factories in order to stop the bombs before devastation happens. He has to do this so the toys are safe for christmas. Wings and armour were supposed to be added to the suit but it was stolen by Dr Maybe so these are found in levels as extras which help you along the way.
This is a cool plot and quite original- a hero fish! fighting evil toys!

The levels

The levels in the game are straight forward. In them there are many platforms and the levels are made so you have to use your abilities to get past like jumping, flying (when you have the wings) and stretching upwards by using your robotic suit. Pits must be jumped across and ledges must be accessed by stretching in your robotic suit upwards and clingling to another ledge. Enemies are killed by bouncing on their heads. You have to search the levels for the penguin bombs placed by Dr Maybe and once you have got them you can leave the level through the flashing poles. The levels are themed and at the end of a particular theme there is a boss. These bosses are defeated by bouncing on their heads but you have to watch them to find out when they're vulnerable or you could get hurt. There are 13 doors that lead to levels including the door that leads to the last boss, the final showdown, the giant snowman. Throughout the levels there are many different enemies that try to kill you from snowmen and snakes to flying cards! The bosses are crazy as well. These range from a fat woman that likes to jump up and down to a mutant fang toothed car that spits littler cars at you.

Graphics

The graphics in my opinion are nice on this game and the Master System uses a vast range of colours throughtout all the levels. The vibrancy of this design is brilliant.
The sprites in this game are nice aswell. I especially like them when he is flying once you have the wings, it looks really good.

Sound

The sounds on this game are o.k. They are mainly kinda cartoony and innocent and they seem to suit the game correctly since the aim of the game is to save christmas. There are different sounds occaisonally in the levels and then there is the boss music, which like every game, makes you feel a bit tense and it's made to sound evil like the boss should sound.
The music suits the game and accompanys the gameplay nicely.

My verdict

This game in my opinion is really good. It combines its bright colours with the graphics and sounds to create a fun gaming experience on the legendary Sega Master System. The game is very fun to play and because it has a wide variety of enemies to come across amongst other things. This game is great because of how different it is and although you could compare it to a mario game because of the way it's set out, it is completely different. Where on mario, can you find a big overweight woman that bounces up and down! The only problem that I found was that it could get very frustrating when you wanted to complete a level and you got held up by some annoying bit that would get you over and over again. This though can be overcome and then once your past it you feel much better. When you finish the game by killing the snowman and releasing santa and the toys you feel great, the kids will be happy for christmas yipee. The game is really fun to play and I would definitely reccomend it to anyone.
I give this game: 8/10

To play

Hopefully you've taken a liking to the sound of this game and now want to play it (I hope so) if you haven't played it before. This can be played on the Sega Master System emulator- fSMS32 which can be found in the GP32 file archive to download. Then all you need is the rom....................and you'll be having fun in no time!


Hopefully you enjoyed reading my review of James Pond 2: codename robocod, I had fun and hopefully if i've convinced you to play it, you will too!!!

Cheat

(for you people that find an excuse to cheat)
When starting the game, collect the objects on the rooftop in the correct, following order:
Cake, then hammer, then Earth, then Apple, then the tap. This will make you invincible. Enter the first door and exit throuhg the post on your left. This makes all the doors open and because of this you will stay invincible!

Here are some screens off the game:







 
Fsms does not support the parallax scrolling, so i'd recommend playing it with Masterlator so all the graphics appear correctly.

-Craig

www.gbax.com
 
I think (suspect?) it first came out on the Atari ST (though not sure .. the Amiga version came out very near the same time). I've not tried it on CaSTaway though.. never played these games but always meant to .. maybe I will now :)

jeff
 
From site site:

Four games using the James Pond character were created during a four-year period. In 1990, James Pond: Underwater Agent appeared on the Atari ST, Commodore Amiga and Sega Genesis (Megadrive), published by Electronic Arts and Millennium Interactive. Between 1991 and 1994, James Pond 2 - Codename Robocod was released on thirteen platforms ranging from the Commodore C64 and Sega Genesis, to Super Nintendo (SNES) and finally Nintendo Game Boy.

http://www.gamewaredevelopment.co.uk/games...?id=15_0_10_0_C
 
I am going to try it on the Masterlator and then ill try the Mega Drive version on DrMd sice it's such a good game. Also thanks for the information Skeezix. Thanks for reading my review and hopefully you liked it! :)
 
It's a good Atar ST game too, used to play it a lot.

Think it ran well on Castaway also.
 
I loved this game back in my old 386 days.

Did you know the cheat for unlimited lives?
2nd level, i think, you come to a place where are following bonus objects: Lips, Icecream, Violin, and two others i can`t remember but if you collect them in the order their first letters spell LIVES, you enable the cheat.

Works on the pc version, not sure for Genesis... I never tried...
 
there was also james pond 3 - which was a comedy sports events game.

and one more vote for the megadrive version here. :)
 
Isn't the sequal James Pond 3: Operation Starfish? Its a smilar game but instead of stretching you can run up walls, upside down etc. with magic boots (or some such idea). Its on the Megadrive I think.

-Craig

www.gbax.com
 
craigix posted on Feb 27 2005 at 02:38 AM said:
Isn't the sequal James Pond 3: Operation Starfish? Its a smilar game but instead of stretching you can run up walls, upside down etc. with magic boots (or some such idea). Its on the Megadrive I think.

-Craig

www.gbax.com

hmm... you might be right... so what was aquatic games then?

edit: looks like a spinoff... hmm, i've never played operation starfish, I'll have to give that a try...
 
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The Amiga version was the best one as it had nice raster effects and best music. The Megadrive one is the second best in my opinion. It is a great game. It blew away mario in its day in graphics and had great design and playability too. Some of the levels were really cool.
 
Aquatic games was a seperate game starring J-pond himself, my favourite level of that game was feed the fish as the starfish character ;) .

Actually never played James pond (The original) but went straight to 2, then aquatic games & finally 3.. which unfortunatly i didnt play much before i ended up with a new console.

Still one of my favourite games.
 
I still like the AMIGA version the best. I think the backgrounds on the GENESIS make the levels look a bit more chaotic.
They made the same error with ZOOL on the A1200...

I just love multicolour raster effects.. (DOJO DAN, Fire and ice etc etc.)

The amiga version did indeed have better sound.

Too bad that cartridge space was expensive those days so that storing MODS and all would take too much ROM.
(i believe the Z80 and DAC on the SMD were also worse than on the amiga)
 
Giving cheat-information with a review might be not a good idea, otherwise nice review and of course "James Pond 2" is a great game
 
at least for me, james pond 1 and 2 dont work with drmd D:
I'm using gigadrive, but no saves O-:
earthworm jim 2 doesnt work either...gonna test some more
 
DrMD Beta 7 running at 144Mhz sound at 16Khz

James Pond 2 runs fine at 45fps
James Pond 1 runs fine at 45fps
Earthworm Jim 2 runs fine at 30fps

:p
 
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