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Robocod aka. James Pond... ah the memories

Crowelle

By Crowelle
in Retro & Arcade Gaming

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JamesC

JamesC

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Posted

The Megadrive version of Robocod controls much better than the Amiga version and is by far my favourite of the versions I've tried (though the MS version is impressive). 

It remains a real favourite of mine and is one of the many classics I played through to completion over lockdown. 

It's easy to deride, having fairly unsophisticated gameplay and an art style that looks like something from a cheap 1980's birthday card, but it's just so much fun!

I find the whole thing incredibly pleasing. It's funny, silly, the tunes are super catchy and the stretch mechanic is still really satisfying to use. And to top it all off, it's all set in Santa's workshop. 

I think it's just lovely. 

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Protocol Penguin

Protocol Penguin

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3 hours ago, Rex Grossman said:

Plok has a lot more charm.

 

If you narrow it down to 16-bit computers you can remove Plok from the debate though.

I’ve always thought that Plok would’ve been loads better if the regular enemies didn’t take a near endless amount of shots to dispatch. Totally ruins the flow of the gameplay. The bosses are a difficulty spike nightmare too. 
 

(I suspect the existing game could be patched by modders with those balancing issues fixed, and it’d be easily and significantly improved game.)

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Rex Grossman

Rex Grossman

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9 hours ago, deKay said:


I wouldn’t call Out of this World a platformer.

 

I also wouldn’t call it Out of this World…

And Turrican is a run-and-gun port of a C64 game. Bubble Bobble is a single screen platform puzzler arcade game. 
Robocod is an Amiga platform game.

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DarhkFox

DarhkFox

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Mr Nutz ('hoppin mad)was also an amiga only game - I had a ton of fun playing through that game. 

 

It literally was a sonic clone with some pretty nifty "3d" levels.

 

 

 

Marvin's marvellous adventure was pretty fun too but overall a bit of a shallow experience.

 

 

 

Both games have some catchy music.

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PikaStu

PikaStu

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I remember the demo on a PC mag cover disk - either PC Review or PC Format - and they’d included the full game, presumably by accident. I quite liked it at the time, back when a lot of PC side scrolling games had terrible, jerky scrolling, Robocod was pretty smooth. 

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erhgiez

erhgiez

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Never played Robocod but had James Pond 3: Operation Starfish and found it one of my favourite platformers on the Megadrive, lots of variety, huge world map, cool gadgets etc. To those who have played both, how do they compare?

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Not Thread Owner

Not Thread Owner

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25 minutes ago, erhgiez said:

Never played Robocod but had James Pond 3: Operation Starfish and found it one of my favourite platformers on the Megadrive, lots of variety, huge world map, cool gadgets etc. To those who have played both, how do they compare?

 

James Pond 3 was OK, but a massive disappointment to me having loved Robocod. It was nowhere near as much fun.

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Rex Grossman

Rex Grossman

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56 minutes ago, deKay said:

 

image.png.a438719b40dcbe3049b53080c787c4da.png image.png.74cb1db40d7617b81925d44738e2992c.png image.png.59ae425873384437ffc81b411bf088a9.png image.png.439c810804d55174a3e0d4a744ee2b85.png

 

That video shows off the terrible jumping physics that plagues console-like computer platformers too. Why couldn't anyone get that right?


Weirdly, the Amiga game is totally different. It was going to be a conversion of the console games but became its own thing. It also had a subtitle: Hoppin’ Mad.

 

Ocean bought a game called Timet The Flying Squirrel and then basically reskinned it to use their Mr Nutz character. So it plays very differently.

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JamesC

JamesC

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1 hour ago, deKay said:

 

James Pond 3 was OK, but a massive disappointment to me having loved Robocod. It was nowhere near as much fun.

I absolutely love James Pond 3 too but it's not as accessible as Robocod. It takes a while to get used to the physics (they work well, they're just unusual and there's some weird gravity stuff going on due to it taking place on the moon) but there are some really imaginative level designs and some incredibly fun power-ups to use (spring shoes!). Also, the levels and the world are absoultely huge so I never completed it. There are tons of secrets and alternate routes too.
The biggest problem the game has is the lack of a battery save (I beleive EA were too cheap to include one) and so it utilises a rather long icon-based password system which is very difficult to write down. It works fine in the age of phone cameras though (if you're playing on original hardware). 

 

It's a shame they didn't put any of the James Pond games on the European version of the MD mini. They were quite iconic games for the system and reviewed really well (in the UK at least).

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DarhkFox

DarhkFox

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2 hours ago, deKay said:

 

image.png.a438719b40dcbe3049b53080c787c4da.png image.png.74cb1db40d7617b81925d44738e2992c.png image.png.59ae425873384437ffc81b411bf088a9.png image.png.439c810804d55174a3e0d4a744ee2b85.png

 

That video shows off the terrible jumping physics that plagues console-like computer platformers too. Why couldn't anyone get that right?

 

No , if you had done some research it's a completely different game to the other versions. 

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Protocol Penguin

Protocol Penguin

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1 hour ago, JamesC said:

The biggest problem the game has is the lack of a battery save (I beleive EA were too cheap to include one) and so it utilises a rather long icon-based password system which is very difficult to write down. It works fine in the age of phone cameras though (if you're playing on original hardware). 

I remember that Rolo to the Rescue, by the same developers and also published by EA, had that exact problem too, but it didn’t even have a password feature as a consolation.

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DarhkFox

DarhkFox

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2 hours ago, Rex Grossman said:

Ocean bought a game called Timet The Flying Squirrel and then basically reskinned it to use their Mr Nutz character. So it plays very differently.

 

I didn't know this - or at least I had forgotten about it. If I recall there was a megadrive version being developed too ( of Mr nutz) but I believe it got cancelled.

 

I loved the adventure aspect to it and that eery music that plays in the overworld map.

 

Explains a lot ...

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