


James Pond 2: Robocod, by Millennium. Distributed in North America by BMD.
CD-32 format.

	I've never really cared too much about the James Pond series on the lesser systems and, therefore, was completely unprepared for how impressive the CD-32 version of James Pond 2: Robocod is. It has two fully animated, entertaining, saturday morningish cartoons on disk( even if they are extremely pixalized), utilizes the AGA chipset to produce some really nice in-game graphics and has a fantastically done CD soundtrack. The game itself is also fun.
	The plot has something to do with the evil Dr. Maybe taking over Santa's workshop in the north pole in order to turn all the toys into weapons and, thereby, take over the world. So, super F.I.5.H. agent, James Pond, complete with new Robotic stretch suit, is called in to stop Maybe's very bizarre plan. Despite the cover art and cartoons, James never carries a gun in the game. Instead, he squashes his enemies into submission by jumping on them. He can stretch indefinitely upwards, move along ceilings and jump quite high. Throughout the game, he'll gain wings, drive a car and rescue penguin hostages, among other things.
	The many levels in Robocod are as diverse as they are bizarre- which is to say, very. From huge desert toppings, caverns of cheese and giant kitchen utensils, James will travel through some of the weirdest zones every seen in a game. Psychedelically colored backgrounds are quite common and the many minions of Maybe are just as strange. Psychotic Gingerbread men, killer, card-winged butterflies and plenty of other now-hostile toys come to life await James in the vast levels of Santa's workshop.
	There are bosses in the game that lurk behind locked doors and some of these guys are absolutely huge. Character graphics and animation are all top notch in proper cartoony style. While the game saves top scores, it doesn't have any other sort of save or password feature, so, as with Oscar, you'll have to complete the game in one sitting.
	Robocod has plenty of hidden and hard to reach bonus areas, lots of different bonus items to get and is a pretty original take on the standard platform action game. I like this version much more then any of the previous versions and actually find myself looking forward to the next James Pond adventure, "Operation:Starfish" which should be much improved and much larger. In the meantime, if this is the type of game that you enjoy, then James Pond 2: Robocod is a good example of the genre- especially since there are only a few so far for the CD-32. It does utilize the CD capability somewhat with the two, blown up to full screen CDXL cartoons and the great soundtrack, along with the AGA graphics. The game itself, however, is essentially the same as the previous Sega versions.