James Pond 3: Operation Starfish

mailman 2018-06-01
(8/10)
Maybe it is a Mega Drive port but it was made perfectly. The game is smooth, well animated, gives the player a free will of doing different things which does not happen often in a platformer. Nice graphics, though not squeezing all from AGA chipset, are enjoyable. Still the game, which I would mark as very good, has some sort of a let down - sometimes it gets a little boring...
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Dottor_Psycho 2016-07-31
(6/10)
James Pond 3 was not designed primarly on the Amiga so it's unsurprising that this version is graphically downgraded. It is a nice platform game but somewhat more generic and conventional than its predecessors (6/10).
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doc 2014-02-06
(7/10)
What a shame that this game didn't receive the same programming effort that got its predecessor... The parallax backgrounds of the Megadrive version were missing, as well as some animations. Being that there are no more than 32 colors on screen, and there is no parallax background (apart a simple star background that wouldn't be a problem to display on the old OCS hardware too) from a visual standpoint it could be an Amiga 500 game!
The A1200 could do better than that, but at that time the developer had no more interest in the Amiga platform itself.

Anyway, as it stands, it remains a very good and well designed platform, and one of the best on the AGA machines.
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Scrawffler 2008-09-16
(10/10)
James Pond was my childhood hero and this game was an epic to me.

I remember being given this game for my 7th birthday, and expected it to be much like Robocod. I was pleasantly surprised at the enhanced graphics, exciting musical soundtrack and fast-paced action. It was really cool how they gave Pond the abilities to punch and stomp to kill the baddies, along with objects you could throw at them. Usually in games like these, the character either uses weapons OR uses their fists, so it's refreshing to see a game in which you have a choice for once.

There are some hilarious sound effects in this game. I know that's a strange thing to pick up on, but I had a lot of memories about the sound effects for some weird reason.

And I LOVE the fact that you can save your game, especially since you can return to levels you have already completed at a later date. I love games like these, especially since there are some levels in this game I particularly enjoyed re-visiting.

The introduction of new agents was a nice touch, especially when it comes to being able to control Finnius Frog. Fun stuff!

There are many other games like this, such as Sonic or Mr Nutz. However, this was the one I got into. I tried other games of this genre, but in my 7-year-old heart it was James Pond who made this style great!
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Jams 2007-03-30
(8/10)
Gameplay is overrated anyway
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Nightbird 2007-01-26
(3/10)
VERY nice graphically and musically (with one of my favourite title themes of all-time) - but with some of the most annoying controls I've ever experienced, coupled with a strong sense of platforming deja vu, JP3 remains a firm 'meh' in my book.
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witchdoktor 2006-10-09
(10/10)
Incredibly good game for all aspects (music, graphics, playability etc). One of the most underrated games of all time. Very cool game!
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boomtisk 2006-08-20
I didn't play this game much but I really didn't care for the new art style with all the outlines around everything and felt the gameplay felt a tad too much like a cross between Sonic and Mario with a tad of extra stuff thrown in.
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Guybrush Threepwood 2006-01-10
(8/10)
Just like the other James Pond games, I did like this one as well it had nice colourful GFX & nice sound. Good platform game but nowt out of the ordinary
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