Path: news.uh.edu!barrett From: bath0011@fh-karlsruhe.de (Thomas Baetzler) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: James Pond 3: Operation Starfish CD^32 Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.games Date: 2 Jul 1994 02:12:21 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 353 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <2v2ie5$efv@masala.cc.uh.edu> Reply-To: bath0011@fh-karlsruhe.de (Thomas Baetzler) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: game, platform, CD-ROM, commercial Originator: barrett@karazm.math.uh.edu PRODUCT NAME James Pond 3: Operation Starfish CD^32 BRIEF DESCRIPTION A cute "jump 'n run" game in the vein of console classics like Super Mario World or Sonic the Hedgehog, starring the well-known secret agent James Pond in his third adventure. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Millenium Interactive Ltd. Address: Quern House, Mill Court, Great Shelford, Cambridge CB2 5LD United Kingdom Telephone: ++44 (0)223 844894 ++44 (0)223 846023 (Customer Support) FAX: ++44 (0)223 844918 LIST PRICE The suggested retail price seems to be DM 89.- This is about $50 (US). SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE A CD^32. A comment in the startup-sequence of the game has the following to say about game compatibility: "If you're reading this and you've got an A1200 CD-ROM Drive, then perhaps you should know that I don't think the program will work with it.... "It definately [sic] won't work with a SCSI CD-ROM drive attached to an A1200 or A4000.... "And we don't know if it works with an FMV cart in either, because CBM never got round to giving us a version. How they expect FMV titles out there is beyond me, guv. "Have Fun!" SOFTWARE None. COPY PROTECTION Invisible. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING CD^32 (PAL version) REVIEW After "License to Gill" and "Codename: Robocod", the fishy underwater agent James Pond is back to battle it out with the evil Dr. Maybe for a third time in "Operation Starfish". This time, the F.I.5's arch-enemy has taken three of James Pond's fellow agents prisoner while they were trying to find out what's going on on the moon. Unlike most other CD^32 titles that I know, this game comes in its own cardboard box containing a plain jewel box with the CD-ROM, the game manual, and more than enough junk to make all the kids in the neighbourhood happy. After a short loading period, the game starts up with a cartoon-style CDXL animation that introduces James Pond as the underwater agent who's licensed to gill. Avid Robocod fans will notice that this animation was also the trailer for the second episode of Pond's adventures. While the idea of having a title animation is nice, it suffers from bad execution in this case. The movie looks like it was first created as a real animated cartoon, and then transferred to digital format by means of a rather cheap realtime digitizer, which would account for the fuzzy outlines, the pale colors and all the color noise. Anyways, once you have seen the animation yourself a couple of times, and shown it to all your friends, you can just skip over it by pressing the fire button. The game then proceeds to load and comments on this with messages like "Yup. Still loading..." on the display, until you get to the title screen, which looks rather drab and console-like, without fancy graphics or a nice tune playing in the background. If you wait long enough, you'll get to see a cartoon outline of the game's background, as well as a Star Wars-alike scrolling message detailing the story so far. By pressing a button, you move on to the Options screen. Here, you can start a new game, resume a previously saved game, or set some game options, such as whether you want to play in Easy or Normal mode, or whether you want the game commentary to be terse or verbose. The sound selection lets you choose between playing with only sound effects, only soundtrack, or both at once. There is no option that lets you modify the way James Pond is controlled. Pressing the red or green buttons while moving will always give him medium or maximum acceleration, pressing the yellow button will pick up or drop objects or fire a weapon, and pressing the blue button will let him jump. As you can see, there are lots of functions to be used. Using a joystick doesn't make sense if you don't have a keyboard attached to your CD^32 to control the additional functions. Upon starting the game for the first time, I had to fight a certain sense of deja vu: just like the Super Nintendo classic Super Mario World, Operation Starfish presents the player with a so-called world map, where each location represents one of the levels in the game. To progress on the paths beyond a certain location, Pond has to complete that particular level. By pressing virtually any button, Pond enters the level at the current location, and you find yourself transported to the familiar world of a two-dimensional, 8-way scrolling jump 'n run game. Pond has to navigate his way from his starting point to the exit beacon, which is hidden somewhere on the level, avoiding enemies and obstacles on the way. Each time he messes up, he loses one of the initially three energy stars, and finally one of his lives, or rather "chances" as the manual euphemistically terms it in places. Since "Codename: Robocod," the second part of the James Pond saga, our hero has lost his flexible body suit. Instead, he has now fancy magnetic moon boots which enable him to scale walls or walk on the ceiling. His jumping abilities haven't diminished, and he can still take out his opponents by a well-aimed drop on their head. If putting the boot in doesn't work, Pond can also resort to using one of the collectible extras like a rock, a gun, or explosives, if he happens to carry that particular item. The big problem is that he can only carry one item at a time, so that you can't create the all-powerful super-hero by just collecting everything that's to be found. Actually, carrying some items around can be quite dangerous: the dynamite for example ignites whenever Pond picks it up. After a few seconds, it just explodes. Too bad for James Pond if he still happens to be holding it. Actually, the collectibles in the game can be divided into three classes. First, there are the bonus objects which give extra points when collected. The most obvious of these are rings, which can be found almost everywhere. Collecting 1000 of these gives Pond an extra life. The others like coins, trophies and crowns are usually hidden from sight in remote locations, to make exploring worthwhile. The second class are the power-ups, which increase Pond's abilities like extra life, extra energy, temporary invincibility or weapon powerup. Usually, collecting more than what is feasible gives you bonus points. The last class have to be the genuine extras, of which Pond can only carry one at a time. These include a fruit gun, various fruit to throw at your enemies, an umbrella to float, a rocket glider, and last but not least, the powerful fruit suits that serve as additional armour. Most of the collectibles can be found only by bumping into bonus blocks, which are marked with an exclamation mark when visible. The pity is that most of them are invisible to start with, so that you have to bump into them to make them visible in the first place. A good place to look for them is in locations where you seem to be stuck without a way out or without the extra you need. If you don't get the extra you need, you can try and use the bonus block as a stepping stone to previously inaccessible regions. "How do I get out" puzzles like the one described above are one of the main challenges in Operation Starfish - besides surviving the environment and its inhabitants, that is. The key to solving these is usually the understanding of what you can do with your extras - like the knowledge that some objects can be stepped upon, and that an umbrella isn't just good for floating down below it. The game also offers most of the standard jump 'n run building blocks like moving platforms, switches to create and destroy objects or just your plain lethal scenery. Probably due to the limitations of the game engine, Operation Starfish is heavy on the switch stuff, and rather light on the moving objects side. "Limitations in the game engine? On a CD^32?" Yes, the limitations are there, and clearly visible at that. When just walking or running around, Operation Starfish scrolls as smoothly as any console jump 'n run game I might mention - in fact, better than some that I know, namely the poor conversions of the second Pond epic. However, when tackling the end-of-world meanies or a bunch of lesser enemies at a time, or when exploding things, the game speed decreases drastically. Besides this drawback, Pond and his adversaries are drawn and animated really well. The static background graphics in the game are a bit less colorful, and sometimes a bit repetitive, but this has to be expected of such a large game. The soundtrack and sound effects in the game are created using the normal Amiga chipset. The sound effects are digitized well, while the soundtrack consists of a set of jolly ditties which change for the various types of landscapes. All in all, you get what you would expect in a high-quality game. Playing Operation Starfish can be a hazard for jump 'n run addicts like myself. Once you have started playing, you just have to beat just the next level before you can stop, no matter what your schedule says you have to be doing. Luckily, there is a save feature that lets you checkpoint your progress every few levels, so that a well-meaning person can still switch off your CD^32 without incurring your everlasting wrath. DOCUMENTATION The game comes with a 34-page A5-sized manual, as well as a whole bunch of additional stuff that doesn't have to do anything with the game itself (see DISLIKES). Instructions are provided in English, French, German and Italian. While the main game instructions are presented in four separate chapters, the joypad and joystick controls are summarized on two pages right at the start of the manual. This part of the documentation seems to be a bit buggy, as the joypad control explanation texts all have pointers affixed that point out the various control elements on a joypad picture that just isn't there. Also, people who don't speak English might love the fact that the button names are only given in English. I found the explanations of the joypad controls a bit confusing, as the manual doesn't make quite clear that the red and green button don't do quite the same thing. To quote: "red/green button: hold for speed". Not a word mentioned that holding the red button gives medium, and holding down the green button gives you maximum speed. The main part of the manual is bearable if you just skim over it, but it's definitely not an in-depth description of the game. Don't worry, you'll learn most of what you need to know by just playing the game. LIKES I like the fact that Millenium didn't forget to put in a save function that lets me continue the game from a certain starting point whenever I like. DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS The title screen designates this game to be an AGA version, something you wouldn't guess just by looking at the screen. Somehow, I'm missing the candy-colored cheerfulness of James Pond 2 in this game. The graphics aren't exactly bad, but they are rather repetitive and boring in those parts that I have seen. A little bit of copper magic would have done it lots of good. Whenever there's a big explosion, or whenever there are more than three or four of Pond's foes on the screen at once, the game slows down considerably. OK, so the CD^32 isn't exactly a Cray YMP, but it should at least be able to do what a plain A500 has been doing for ages. Depending on size and layout of a level, loading times in between the level and world map displays varies from 10 to 20 seconds, which is in my opinion too much for a CD based game. Maybe a bit of organisation on the CD like creating subdirectories for the game data files would have helped. Another grudge is that there's way too much junk accompanying this game. While I have nothing against goodies accompanying a game, like in the old Infocom days, Millenium have probably gone wild with this one. Their "F.I.5.H. Briefing Dossier" map that comes with the game contains: o Four A6 pages of stickers labelled "Top Secret", "Do Not Enter", etc. o A "code ruler". o Two glossy four page A6 "handbooks". o A F.I.5.H. "Agent Code Book" printed on glossy cardboard. o A F.I.5.H. "Agent Identity Card" (to paste your photo in). o A cut-it-out cardboard James Pond Eye mask. o Four A5 "Mission Briefings". When they obviously have cash to burn for stuff like this, I can't understand why there was no money left to print a cover for the CD-ROM jewel box. If there's one thing I like about CD^32 games, it's the fact that they usually come in nice jewel boxes that can be shelved without taking up too much space. Oh well, it looks like I have to print my own covers for this one. And of course, I have to live with the notion that all those useless extras account for the higher than usual price of the game. Thank you, Millenium! COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS Maybe a comparison to Ocean's Mr. Nutz would also be appropriate. I really can't tell, since I don't own the game - in fact, I never will unless it's released either as a hard disk installable or CD-ROM version. If you want to do a comparison, please send it to me and I'll see that it gets included in this review. BUGS I have had the game crash twice on me in a two week testing period. At one time, it was displaying some kind of "seek error" message that suggested a media error. However, after a reboot, the game worked just fine. VENDOR SUPPORT Millenium has customer support for technical problems with the game. You can reach them by writing a letter to Millenium's address, attention Customer Service, or by calling the number provided under "Author/Company Information" in this review. I have not had occasion to make use of this service. WARRANTY Millenium warrants that the media containing the game are free from defective materials or workmanship for a period of 30 days after purchase. If the product proves faulty during this period, you have to send in the media and a proof of purchase in the warranty period, so that they can provide a replacement free of charge. After the warranty period, replacements can be had for UKL 5.-, which have to be send in as a cheque, postal order, or Eurocheque. CONCLUSIONS In my opinion, Operation Starfish is a great game, and probably one of the best out now for the CD^32. The playability is great, and the sheer size will keep you glued to it for days on end. If I have been a harsh critic in this review, it is because I feel that the game would have been even better if Millenium had paid more attention to it. Considering all things said, my overall rating for James Pond 3 is 3.5 stars out of 5, on account of the high price, missing support for AGA Amigas, and minor flaws like animation slowdown and longish loading periods in between levels. The fact that games like James Pond are coming out for the CD^32 makes me optimistic for the future of the machine. Now if we only had a decent shoot 'em up.... COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1994 Thomas Baetzler. All rights reserved. You can contact me at: bath0011@fh-karlsruhe.de (my "official" address for now) thb@mil.ka.sub.org (has become flaky as of late) Medic BSS, 2:2476/454.2@fidonet (fido, neither fast nor reliable) Thomas Baetzler, Herrenstr. 62, 76133 Karlsruhe, FRG Voice: ++49 (0)721 29872 Medic BBS: ++49 (0)721 496821 --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews