James Pond: Codename Robocod Review

By John Walker Published 16 August, 2006

Smells like old fish.

Version tested: DS

It seems that everyone I know played James Pond: Codename Robocod in 1991. My sister remembers it. People at my poker game all remembered it. My friend Hannah happily peeped on the phone last night as an old memory was stirred. I've a 100% success rate in my unofficial James Pond: Codename Robocod awareness studies. So you can see why canny folks keep releasing it over and over again.

The odd thing is, anyone who remembers it clearly also recalls something else: it wasn't really all that good. It's much like the thankfully fading craze for releasing every half-baked children's show from the late '70s and early '80s, people buying them in a frenzy of nostalgic light-headedness, only to discover what a bunch of old arse they always were.

And as such, childhood memories of Robocod should not be trusted, as this remarkably loyal port demonstrates. Not loyal in the sense of recreating the exact same original game - this is in fact a port of 2003's slightly altered GBA version - but faithfully maintaining the same banality.

In case you're someone who might ruin my 100% recognition rate, Robocod was an early '90s platform game sequel to James Pond: Underwater Agent. It featured, and indeed features, a cartoon fish secret agent, who is charged with rescuing all of St. Claus' elves from the evil Dr. Maybe, who's trying to ruin Christmas by taking control of the North Pole central toy factory. Ho-hum. The platforming mechanic is predicated upon Pond's ability to stretch his robotic torso, and then cling on to the underside of platforms. Beyond this he simply runs and jumps at extreme speeds, and tucks up in his metal suit in a Mario-esque down-arrow attack for squishing bads. Or “meanies”, as the manual insists.

'James Pond: Codename Robocod' Screenshot 1

There's a car for James to drive. And booze for him to drink? VIDEOGAMES ARE DESTROYING OUR SOCIETY AGAIN!

The trouble is, the game then fails to do anything with that. Levels are not increasingly taxing challenges to be solved with Pond's set of abilities - they're sprawling, aimless scenes lacking in purpose. Run past the elves to “free” them, and then exit. Repeat until bored.

Every level is smothered in items to pick up. But it's only pick up, not collect. This is about high score generation. There are occasional ankhs offering extra lives, and the dubious advantage of some bonus items such as brief invincibility or an umbrella for floating slowly downward (which you almost never need to do), but beyond these the myriad rest offer nothing beyond score. There's no reward for collecting every item in a level, or for reaching certain score levels... With one exception: collect enough bells and you'll open a bonus level, in which you can collect more items for more points. But this only ever feels a hollow aim. It's never interesting enough, or intricately challenging enough, to make the score feel something worth having achieved.

Of course, it's currently 2006, calendar fans. So what does Robocod uniquely offer to the DS? Not a great deal. The graphics, shrunk down and presented on a flood-lit DS Lite look bright and cheery, for 2D cartoons. But the backgrounds and foregrounds are almost impossible to tell apart at times, with, ridiculously, platform shapes used as background decoration... You can do the maths.

'James Pond: Codename Robocod' Screenshot 2

This should ring some nostalgia bells. Remember climbing all the way to the to of the castle? To discover there was nothing there? Yeah.

The sound is horrific, the music lasting about two levels before I gladly quit and started over again, just so I could turn off the hateful noise. However, one nice improvement is the implementation of the second screen. It displays current targets and remaining health, or a map of the level, which is reasonably helpful. And the screens can be switched over, such that the main game screen appears on the bottom. Which means... oh dear.

Yes, there's been an attempt to implement touch screen controls. A nice gesture, certainly, but completely appalling. It seems to choose jump or stretch at its whim, and will abandon all notion of moving left or right at any critical moment. It's no surprise that the game defaults to the top screen. There's nothing wrong with the d-pad and buttons, as New Super Mario Bros. so wonderfully demonstrates, so you might as well stick with them.

And that brings us to our final nail: New Super Mario Bros. Robocod is a relic from the past that cannot hold a drip of dirty wax from an old burnt out candle to Mario's sublime latest. The complete lack of inspiration (beyond a 15 year-old titular pun) pales to translucence in comparison.

It's pretty much impossible to hate the game. You'd have to have some peculiar vendetta with aquatic robots - perhaps they killed your mum - and I'd venture that's not going to be a majority of players. But it's similarly implausible that anybody could find the energy to demonstrate any love for it. It's mediocrity, leaning lazily toward being poor. It passes idle time, and it's not offensive or faulty. But such faint-to-falling-unconscious praise is damnation indeed.

5 / 10

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About John Walker

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Comments (55) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • cyacomini #1 6 years ago

    First :)

    I want to see Alex Kidd in Miracle World....even though it was only 8bit, it was still miles better than this old tosh.

  • Carlo #2 6 years ago

    I skipped this game when it came out the first time around (too).

  • Blerk #3 6 years ago

    It was crap in the 90s, it'll be crap now. Crap!

  • IAmBatman #4 6 years ago

    Elves? Have the penguins gone?

  • Doobie #5 6 years ago

    I was never too keen on this game back then either, so won't be rushing out to buy it now.

  • Zomoniac #6 6 years ago

    I would like to point out some rather glaring arse-ups in this review:

    Firstly, it's been out for the best part of a year, so when it was actually a relevant new release, NSMB was not in any way a competitor.

    Secondly, the original was ace.

    And thirdly, if you remember the original so well as to dismiss it so much, how come you are seemingly oblivious to the fact that a) they've completely messed about with the music, b) changed the layouts of all the levels and c) completely done away with penguins and brought in elves? They've taken a great game and completely messed it up, and that's why it's crap, not because it was in '91, because it wasn't.

  • kalel #7 6 years ago

    I really liked it at the time, it had a really strong atmospheare. I dunno how long I could play it now for though.

  • el_pollo_diablo #8 6 years ago

    I want Zool!

  • Kafeen #9 6 years ago

    Elves? Have the penguins gone?

    The original game was sponsered by Penguin (the chocolate biscuits), they probably aren't sponsering this version so they were all removed.

    Just my guess.

  • Blerk #10 6 years ago

    I want Zool!

    Wash your mouth out, young man!

  • myiagros #11 6 years ago

    did anyone here ever play the Thames Water edition of James Pond??

    i played it at school (about 10 years ago), it was one of those semi educational games, but awsome all the same.
    Edited by 1 at 16/08/06 @ 10:00

  • fergal_oc #12 6 years ago

    Alex Kid seems like a good bet for Xbox Live Arcade to me.

  • PearOfAnguish #13 6 years ago

    My favourite thing about this game is that PC Format once unwittingly gave away the full version on a cover disc when it first came out on PC.

  • secombe #14 6 years ago

    Why not re-release some truely great games if they feel the need. Quackshot for example? Psycho Fox?

    In my opinion both pinnacles of their respective 'bit-age'.

    Or maybe something like World of Illusion, at least there is scope to include some interesting dual screen/touch screen support into that.

  • dbeamish #15 6 years ago

    good lord this franchise was shite 15 years ago and its not aged well!

  • Dark_Stranger #16 6 years ago

    What next? Wonderboy? arrrr fond memories.

    .
    Edited by 1 at 16/08/06 @ 12:48

  • Carlo #17 6 years ago

    Wonderboy would have been better IMO.

  • smelly #18 6 years ago

    I remember years back pc-format put a one level demo of this on their floppy coverdisk. What they didnt realise is that if you entered the cheat code in, you could access the entire game!

    Whoops!

  • Stupid_Fat_Hobbit #19 6 years ago

    Yep, crap then, crap now.

    Aquatic Games, on the other hand.... hours of amusement I had.

  • abigsmurf #20 6 years ago

    I loved James Pond Robocod. I remember the creative cheat system...

    Shame they don't convert the third one. It was a sonic rip off but it was a GOOD sonic rip off

  • theodg #21 6 years ago

    They should do the 3rd James Pond game. That was the best Mario clone on the Mega Drive

  • Doobie #22 6 years ago

    Alfred Chicken would have been pretty good. Better than JP at least...

  • Ignatius_Cheese #23 6 years ago

    I loved the jelly levels in Robocod... Tee hee

  • DDevil #24 6 years ago

    I've got the Amiga version's music stuck in my head now :-(

    Dum-de-dum-dum du-du-du-dum du-du-du-dum de-dum-te-dum.

  • chupachups #25 6 years ago

    "It was crap in the 90s, it'll be crap now. Crap!"

    I totally disagree, I thought Robocod was great at the time, and I seem to remember it got pretty good reviews too. I didn't like the first James Pond, but Robocod was wonderful!

    It had wonderful artwork too. Unfortunately the GBA/DS version has messed up the artwork by using the wrong sprites on the wrong levels.

    Mind you, I got this game legally for free along with tens of thousands of other people because PC Format accidentally gave it away on their cover disk. They were meant to give away just a demo of the first two levels but they actually included the whole game. The other levels were locked but the locks were removed if you used the famous unlocking cheat built into the game.
    Edited by 1 at 16/08/06 @ 11:39

  • Mr_Brown #26 6 years ago

    As a kid in the early ninties on the mega drive this game was awesome. But now, I don't have time for it. Still bring back memories.

  • smelly #27 6 years ago

    Isnt Robocod the name for "James Pond 2" anyhows?

  • Zero Beat #28 6 years ago

    Changing the music to Robocod's just wrong dude!

  • EmiliasHorse #29 6 years ago

    If this were released on XBLA it would cost about £5 and probably be worth 5/10. On DS at probably full price it's not worth 2/10.
    Besides the James pond series is one of my least fondly remembered Amiga series....How about Putty, now that was great.
    Edited by 2 at 16/08/06 @ 12:17

  • OnlyMe #30 6 years ago

    James Pond 2 and 3 was great on the Amiga. I've only tried the GBA version, but I it's pretty much the same story; messed up levels, messed up music and no penguins.

    And James Pond 3: Operation Starfish was actually pretty original. A lot more of a puzzle than a pure platformer.

    And how the hell does anyone compare this with Sonic? I just don't see the similarity, not in Zool, not in Robocod and not in Superfrog. I just can't see it at all. Besides, Sonic lacks something that these games don't. Playability. Sonic is not a platformer, it's a goddamn horizontal racing game.

  • tedster11 #31 6 years ago

    I used to love the Jelly level, the car and the plane but no doubt like you say if i were to give it another bash i'd be very, very bored...

    (like you say Ignatius_Cheese! posted before i read...)
    Edited by 1 at 16/08/06 @ 12:46

  • chupachups #32 6 years ago

    "They got rid of the penguins! How dare they! And this game was ace, but it sounds like it would be better to buy the original along with a master sytem off ebay if anyone wants to play it again."

    The Mega Drive version is probably a better bet, that had the proper 16-bit game on it. I think it was the first ever British Sega game too.

  • Retroid #33 6 years ago

    I'm impressed with the publisher's necromancy skills.

    That is all.

  • tenma #34 6 years ago

    It featured, and indeed features, a cartoon fish secret agent

    Oh, that's what he was? I could never figure it out!

  • Markusdragon #35 6 years ago

    The odd thing is, anyone who remembers it clearly also recalls something else: it wasn't really all that good.
    BLASPHEMY.

  • tenma #36 6 years ago

    JAMES POND: ROBOCOD FFS! :)

    Yeah, but he looks nothing of the sort! And maybe it's because I skipped the intro but I never figured out the correlation between fish and elasticity.

  • botherer #37 6 years ago

    No, it really wasn't very good back then!

    It was this: average.

    People's memories are this: rubbish.

    Try to remember how young you were when you thought it so wonderful, and then take a look at the music you thought was AMAZING then too.

  • Zero Beat #38 6 years ago

    You mean, CAR-VUP WAS TERRIBLE TOO?!?

    Actually, it was.

  • Zero Beat #39 6 years ago

    But, but, the character design doesn't make me want to hurt people like Cars' and the devil thing made a cool noise before appearing.

    DING-DANG-DONG!

  • smelly #40 6 years ago

    >How about Putty, now that was great.


    Putty sucked balls.

  • smelly #41 6 years ago

    If you want good old amiga games - "bills tomato game" is the best of the bunch.

    As it has tomatoes in it, and it was made by bill.

  • cawley1 #42 6 years ago

    Yes guys, stop talking shit - Robocop, in the words of uber-god Julian Rignall is;

    'the best platform game yet seen on the Megadrive. Yes - even better than Sonic and Mickey Mouse'

    So it must be great on the DS, I for one cannot wait for the Wii version.

    :-)))

  • tenma #43 6 years ago

    the best platform game yet seen on the Megadrive. Yes - even better than Sonic and Mickey Mouse

    Oh jeez, what were those kids smoking back then...

  • chupachups #44 6 years ago

    "I was 16, thought it was pretty good. Just played it on emu, still think its pretty good."

    Exactly, this is not a bad game.

    Maybe not everyone likes it, but it's totally wrong to have this "everyone should admit it's rubbish" attitude because it's just not true.

  • yagisencho #45 6 years ago

    Ocean Eurotrash. I didn't even give it the time of day when it was originally released on the Amiga. With contemporaries like Mario World on the Super Famicom and Sonic the Hedgehog on Megadrive, this warmed-over, me-too attempt at a platform game just didn't light my fire.

  • Rev.StuartCampbell #46 6 years ago

    I hated the Amiga version, but this is really good fun and John's just a big stupid wrong-head. I mean, he doesn't even like Magnetica, for goodness' sake!

  • secombe #47 6 years ago

    Why does everyone assume we haven't played these games since they were released? In the past week I've spent several hours on NHLPA 93, Aladdin and Micro Machines (all Mega Drive), I think I last played through Robocod about 6 months ago.

    I don't think this or any of the other games have aged that badly at all, in fact playing through Aladdin again for the first time in about 5 years was exactly how I remembered it the last time, and no different to back in 1994 when I first bought it. Quackshot is an even better example, if anything it looks better to me now than it ever did, seeing big gorgeous 2D graphics is rare these days and I was actually blown away by the attention to detail and animation once again. I've played through it at least 10 times in the past 14 or so years, and it has never failed to amaze me.

    As a side note, have the Penguin references been dropped from the updated Robocod? I assume licensing issues are the reason many things have changed since then.
    Edited by 1 at 16/08/06 @ 23:40

  • botherer #48 6 years ago

    Secombe, I think that you might be in quite a significant minority with your depth of replaying older games. Although I did play Micro Machines 2.0 the other day on my Megadrive : ) And then wept at the state of V4.

    And yes, there are no penguins. All the changes were made when the game was released on GBA a few years ago, and the DS version carries them over. Some clearly find the rearranging of the levels to have ruined it, others, like the good reverend, think it's better. I think they're equally mundane and aimless, and equally inoffensive and time-passing.

    I want someone to try and resurrect Fire & Ice next, and see if there's a band of people who want to stand up for that awful tripe.

  • Zero Beat #49 6 years ago

    Fire & Ice had one of the most annoying copy protection code thingies of all. I seem to remember it asking for codes between worlds even.

  • secombe #50 6 years ago

    "Secombe, I think that you might be in quite a significant minority with your depth of replaying older games."

    I suppose, although I know a huge number of people (both regular gamers and "casual" gamers alike) who still play NHLPA 93 on the Mega Drive to this day. It's not about recapturing our youth or joining some retro bandwagon to look cool, it's simply because it still hasn't been bettered in all this time and is absolutely brilliant to play with friends.

    I have similar feelings with 2D platformers, the whole genre has been pushed aside due to the advancements in graphical technology, yet the 3D games of a similar nature have rarely eclipsed the really good 2D efforts.

    In short, I don't play them because they are old, I play them because they haven't been bettered or simply aren't made anymore, and considering there are probably 500 great playable games from the 8/16-bit era, it seems silly to spend £40 per title on modern stuff when I haven't exhausted great games that cost under a fiver! Driving games are different for me, for that particular genre I welcome new technology and am happy to spend out on them.

  • Daikon #51 6 years ago

    This game scored 9/10 in just about every gaming magazine out there when it was released.

  • spongebob #52 6 years ago

    What I'd like to see on DS is a collection of Bitmap Brothers games. Compilation would be sweet, but I guess single games would be cool too, if the price was right.

  • OnlyMe #53 6 years ago

    secombe: I totally agree. For some people it seems a given that old games were bad games and it's only the faint memory of them that makes them good. That's simply not true. There are hundreds of great games out there, waiting to be rediscovered, and not just the most well-known. I was never really a Mario guy at all, didn't really "discover" it until recent years. I was an amiga-guy all the way back then. So James Pond 2 was a great game to me, and it scored highly in every magazine back then too, and not only Amiga mags. It's almost as if the whole world only remembers Mario and Sonic, and that's wrong imo, because first of all I don't like Sonic that much, but I love the so-called cheap copies of it, and second of all, there were more than two games worth playing.

    Just yesterday, I discovered another great platformer. Yo! Joe!. Played it for an hour on my amiga, I was rubbish at it, but I found out why a lot of people love this game. Before that I tried Alfred Chicken and... that wasn't very good at all. But Yo! Joe! was great.

    So, I think the naysayers are basically people who are either too young to remember, or someone who just haven't played these games for many many years and needs their memory kickstarted again.

  • captain-future #54 6 years ago

    I was a solid game then, and everybody played it for a reason, so I guess it should be a fun game now too.

  • JaysonG #55 5 years ago

    Cake
    Hammer
    Earth
    Apple
    Tap

    ?