James Pond


Title		James Pond
Game Type	Platform
Players		1
Compatibility	All
Submission	Isaac Abraham

Review
 James Pond is a platform game in the Mario Bros mould. Well, not really,
but at least I think that`s how it was marketed when it came out. Most
mags gave it quite reasonable ratings, saying it wasn`t bad at all, quite
good in fact, but just lacked that something to make it special. I`d
pretty much stand by that now.
 The gameplay is especially simplistic. You are James Pond, a fish. Your
task is to stop the bad people of the world polluting the seas, by killing
the bad guys on the level, and more importantly, rescuing the baby things
that have been trapped in cages (I think that`s what it was, I haven`t
played the game for yonks). The control system is quite intuititive, like
with most platform games, and the graphics are quite bubbly, especially
considering the games` age. The difficulty level, too, is set quite
nicely, and practice will soon see you progressing on to later levels.
 Unfortunately, the proverbial fly in the ointment is the gameplay itself
: It just doesn`t really seem worth it. You swim about here and there, you
kill a few bad guys, rescue the other ones, yeah yeah yeah. But what`s
left? Nothing much, really. I`m not against simple games, IMHO they`ve
always been the classics, Asteroids, Space Invaders, I`ve whiled away
hours with those games trying to improve my high scores. Unfortunately,
this game just doesn`t have anything that grips you, the player, and makes
sure you hold on to it. It`s not as if there`s any glaring faults, it`s
all very polished, it`s just that it`s just a bit boring, really. A bit
like JP2, from what I`ve heard.
 Anyway, I suppose if you`re a real sucker for platform games, it might be
worth a whirl, but I suspect not, and besides, there are many, many,
better platform games out on the market, like, well, Flashback maybe, or
Rainbow Islands - now that was a classic.... I would write a review of it,
but I only had it on my C64 =)))  Angus!!!


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