I'm not all that experienced in platform gaming and perhaps my inexperience
partly explains my poor performances at this game. But perhaps
not.
James moves around his confined environments in pretty much the way
you would expect. The A button (on the Gameboy Advance SP) makes him jump and
the right shoulder button makes him duck. His fairly unique move is that he
stretches up from the ground, when B is held, for an infinite distance and if he
reaches a ceiling he will grab it and cling on and when B is released he
contracts and is left hanging. He can then shimmy left and right and drop where
you want him to.
As he goes about his business, James collects food and
drink items which are transformed into points. He encounters various enemies
including what looks like duck with playing cards for wings and a cross between
a Michelin Man and a policeman, either of which have to be bounced on twice to
be defeated, and a car which requires four bounces. Sometimes he gets his own
car to drive and that can destroy an enemy car with a single head on
collision.
If James does especially well in a level he gets a short
period to explore an area which is a smorgasbord of points to be won without
enemies to trouble him.
When you die for the last time, you are not shown
how many points you got! You start again from the same place and play through
the same levels in the same order.
The trouble with Agent Pond is that he
was a bit historical even when he came out (2004). When I recently bought a
Gameboy Advance SP on eBay I got five free games including this one plus Sonic
Advance and Rayman Tenth Anniversary and James Pond does not stand up as their
contemporary. Sonic moves quickly and has more subtle mechanics. Rayman is
infinitely better graphically.
Sorry, James. I'm afraid you're the
Timothy Dalton of platformers.
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