James Pond 3: Operation Starfish
Vectordean of the U.K. converted their 1993 Genesis version of James Pond 3: Operation Starfish to Amiga AGA in 1994. James Pond 3 is a 50-FPS scrolling platformer and successor to James Pond 2 of 1991.
In James Pond 3 players control the secret agent mudskipper known as James Pond, who is licenced to gill. James Pond can walk or run left and right, jump, crouch, climb, punch left and right and throw as well as pick up, drop and use items. For example, pick up a bomb, take it to a block and drop the bomb on the block to destroy it and reveal a secret room. Pond can also walk on the ceilings of caves.
James Pond 3 will probably annoy many players within the first 30 seconds of play. James Pond 3 has a terribly designed first 30 seconds. Also, you can tell in the first 5 seconds from the controls and audiovisuals -- especially from the colorless palette -- that James Pond 3 is a Genesis-first game and that the Amiga version is just a direct port. James Pond 3 has no soul in comparison to the original James Pond of 1990. In addition, jumping from slopes is clunky and momentum is unrealistic as well: coming off a steep slope to flat ground Pond suddenly returns to a slo-mo jog even though logic dictates that his momentum would be maintained. I found myself fighting with the controls of James Pond 3 rather than enjoying it.
In conclusion, I'm glad I dodged this one back in the day.
- 2x difficulty levels: Easy & Normal
- 100+ levels & 60+ enemies
- 9x equipment-types, 10x pickup-types & 6x bonus-types
- 3x endings
- Smooth 50 FPS multi-directional and variable-rate parallax screen-scrolling
- Screen-shaking effect
- Toggleable between music, sound effects and music & sound effects
- Toggleable Information Boxes
- Overland Map screen
- Stat-tracking: Enemy Fatalities, Energy Remaining, Moons & Teacups Collected
Amiga James Pond 3 was programmed by Alan McCarthy, drawn by Chris Sorrell, Leavon Archer and Sean Nicholls, and composed by Richard Joseph.
James Pond 3 was distributed on 3x 3.5" 880 kB diskettes.
Indexes:
- History of Computer Platform Games (Chronological platform game coverage)
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- The First REAL Amiga Game
- Best Amiga Games
- History of Computer Games 1976-2024 (Master Index)
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