Something fishy going on at the north pole!!! (Robocod)

Member Name: joeytomtom

Product:	Robocod
Date:	02/11/09 (13 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Bright and colourful, simplictic gameplay. Unhindered by complex controls or story.

Disadvantages: Can sometimes be a little frustrating as the difficulty level is quite high.

This time it's off to Santa's Workshop in the North Pole, where your evil nemesis Dr. Maybe has been up to no good again. Maybe's dastardly plan is to kidnap all of Santa's workers, namely penguins (or elves, depending on which system you have) who are in dire need of rescuing. Not being one to leave them out in the cold, you don your new robotic suit and answering to your new codename "Robocod" you set off to finally thwart your nemesis and restore order to Santa's workshop.

The game itself came, as did most on a 3.5 floppy disk on the Commodore Amiga system. Our fishy friend also made an appearance on other well known systems at the time (albeit sometimes under the name "Super James Pond 2") such as the PC, Atari ST, Commodore 64 and CD32 and Sega Megadrive. The game even graced more modern machines such as the Playstation 2 and most recently the Nintendo DS.

The game itself is a colourful splash of cutesy xmas-filled fun, with simple game play and genuinely well thought out level design. The levels themselves are accessed via a series of doors, each leading to a festive-themed level. Collecting all the kidnapped penguins (or elves) in each level, then finding the exit will open the next door and so on.

Robocod himself is a pretty robust character, with his new metal body allowing him the power to stretch vertically to almost any surface to allow greater access, or to allow him to make his way above enemies and then fall onto them with a resounding crunch. The enemies, although a seemingly happy bunch on the surface, soon discard their charm and remain constant obstacles, sometimes appearing suddenly to take away those precious three lives. The other obstacles in the game come in the form of spike traps, angry vehicles, flying cards, teddy bears and many other cuddly characters. All of them evil.

The graphics were among the very best for the time, and still today stand up and even surpass the best modern games of similar genre.

The sound, which was pretty much standard using the Amiga sound chip was of good quality, and for the most part as cutesy as the rest of the game (the developers even managed to make the main game theme a parody of the Robocop movie).

Overall, a beautifully balanced, if sometimes difficult game which is a great example of simple gameplay winning out. Can't recommend this one highly enough.

Summary: In a word, brilliant. A testament to why this title has graced so many systems over the years.