James Pond: Underwater Agent

"Help! Roger Moore's a fish!"

OK, you’re sitting in your mum’s room and look through a list of games using an emulator on your Dreamcast. You come across one – James Pond. What’s that I say? You soon find out when you press Start on the name…then…

ROAR!! That’s not Bond, it’s a…

FISH!!! Yes, you play as a small orange fish that wears a green tuxedo and blows bubbles to kill. He was quite well known in the early 90’s, starring in four games on about 13 formats such as the Mega Drive and Amiga, and being involved with Thames Water and Penguin (biscuit company). But we’re not talking about Robocod yet, were talking about the first game, Underwater Agent.

Twelve missions await our little Jimmy which involve saving seals from getting culled and taking golden bars to a boat etc. I’ll give you the first few missions:

‘Licensed to Bubble’ – Find keys and free the lobsters before the get captured by divers.

‘From 3 Mile Island with Love’ – Guide the fish to safety before they become mutated through radiation poisoning.

‘A View To A Spill’ – Blow up the bases of an oil refinery with dynamite.

‘The Fish With The Golden Bar’ – take the Gold bars to a boat. That’s it, no more mission name’s – you find those for yourself.

Now back to the review. I like this game. And if you like the James Bond movies like me, you’d probably would too (or vice versa!). The controls are pretty simple, and allow you to move James freely, but at the first level, you may not be able to grab the first key at first. You’ll get that quick though.

One neat feature is that you can go home – to James’ house, maybe to recuperate from his wounds or to pick up a much needed item, such as the Top hat (that’s funny) and view letters that spell something that you see right on the screen (no, not Scooter) while playing. But as if he lives near the Titanic for **** sake.

You ought to hear the music. The music to the first level sounds like you wanna sample it or sing another song over it. It gives you the James Bond feel. However, this and another song repeat, so you’re better off whacking something fast and trancey in your stereo.

In-game graphics are OK. The background could use some more detail, but it’s the title screen and sub-title screen you wanna look at. There’s a pic of him taking the mick out of the MGM lion, and another where he’s getting all loved up by two girl fish (there’s no sex in a game for everyone!)

I give it….(drum roll) 8 out of 10! That is all.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/12/02, Updated 08/12/02