Robocod

STORY / GAMEPLAY
It's nearly two years since 1990, when the original "James Pond" was developed for the Amiga computers, scoring a massive 9 out of 10 in almost all major video game magazines of the time. The story begins with Dr Maybe (!) who's holding a toy factory to ransom in the North Pole (Santa's toy factory actually) with the intention to cause present-less Christmas for every child! The nasty doctor has been manufacturing a range of lethal playthings in an attempt to take revenge for his defeat in the previous game's story. And he will finally succeed unless James (our little fish-Bond hero) steps in! A high-tech RoboCop style suit enables Pond to expand his torso to preposterous heights! This comes in extremely handy during gameplay as very often you'll have to reach platforms and grip on them with your "fishy" fingers! During the game, you will find loads of power-ups. Hostile creatures lurk in these levels, and they come in many forms. There are no weapons in the game, so James must jump on them to kill them. The whole action takes place in rooms fully decorated with huge toys, candies and other kid stuff. Ok, the action is a stereotypical platform mayhem and basically all you have to do is to run, jump, squash, stretch (!) and generally splash your fins around, defeating baddies and killing massive bosses every two stages or so, in a joyful and very colorful wrap!

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The graphics on the ST are pretty good and colorful but the action suffers from major frame-rate problems (some found on the enhanced STE version too, despite the use of the Blitter chip). The game's visuals are comparable to the Amiga (OCS) and PC versions though there are some background details missing in all stages. The ST version has up to 22 colors on screen while the STE version uses up to 27 colors (and surely more shades at the backdrops' coloring). The game's sound on the ST is good, including all of the original (Amiga) tunes during gameplay but no sound effects(!)