James Pond 2: Codename Robocod

> GAME INFO

James Pond 2

• Publisher: Millenium
• Developer: Millenium
• Release Date: 1992
• Code: Unknown
• GFX: Unknown
• Music: Unknown

• ZZAP64 Game Rating: 87%
• Our Game Rating: 88%
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FILE: jamespond2crend.zip

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> JAMES POND 2: CODENAME ROBOCOD by Millennium

• Completed by Inge Pedersen
• Reviewed by Vinny Mainolfi

Here's a game that I love playing time and time again, no matter what system I play it on. It has great versions on the Megadrive, PS1 and GBA, which are all in my personal collection. The Commodore 64 version faired very well and seemed to hit a high note with the gaming freaks back in 1992.

The game itself falls into the platform genre and boasts of a large playing area and some fine graphics to boot. The controls can be a little frustrating at times, but it still doesn't detract you from the job in hand: defeating the Evil Snowman. Talking of the Evil Snowman...

Level 6 is finally complete!

HOW WAS IT COMPLETED?: I had to play through half the game twice before I found a 100% working version (also included). The picture included shows the final boss, but it seems that the snowman screen is much simpler than other versions of the game. I've used cheats for lives, energy, and credits. In addition I hacked the game so I could jump four times longer than normal.

SO WHAT HAPPENS?: Once you've killed the Evil Snowman, you get an ending message that reads: "CONGRATULATIONS. THE WORLD IS SAFE FOR NOW...? ROBOCOD IS A HERO."

COMMENTS:

Inge: Very nice game. It can be a bit difficult to control the character sometimes, and the music is very tedious after a while, but the graphics are great and the look and feel of it is good. So why, WHY does it have to be just a simple text-message at the very end?
Vinny: I'm completely with Inge on this one... it's a nice game to play, and has some cool graphics. Okay, so it can be seriously difficult to control at times, but it's still fun to play. It's a shame that the ending had to be so poor and totally lacking in originality. Did the programmers run out of memory, time, or steam?
Brendan Phoenix: Just viewed the Amiga ending and it is animated and much much better. Cant be too harsh as we are only talking the C64 here, but this ending is still woeful. Just really shoddy - just sort of cuts to the black screen straight away. No end music, animation, nothing.
Kungfufurby: No... no... NOOOOO!!! They used the generic text screen! That's what I was hoping would NOT happen! Thumbs down.
Andy Vaisey: Robocod was one of them games I played first on the Amiga (like Shadow of the Beast, Blood Money and Lemmings) and thought could never be pulled off on the C64. But again, C64 developers showed what a great system the C64 was in the right hands, even in the later, darker days. Shame then that this pile of crud ending in no way reflects the charm of the game. Sob...
Frank Gasking: A cracking conversion... I remember first playing the Megadrive version when it first came out and being totally blown away. Then the C64 got a release and it was a very solid conversion and very well done (Even though the roof tiles at the start looked like inverted commodore character square brackets )... It even retained the cheat mode by collecting the objects at the start in the correct order.

I had to wait until the budget version came out, and I was so excited to get it. I remember my mum kept checking in Boots for it for a few weeks then surprising me one day after school back in 1993.

Shame about the ending though... with all the effort and love put into the conversion itself, its a shame the same couldn't be said or done with the ending. Maybe they just ran out of development time and tied things off quickly - which might be the reason behind so many of the poor endings :(

FINAL SAY: Very, VERY poor :(

G.E. RATING: 1 / 10

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