Shrimp-ly brilliant!
In their spare time, fishes like nothing more than to participate in various fishy-type sports! Yes, that includes James Pond, too!
In the latest outing for the Super NES, The Aquatic Games is re-titled James Pond's Crazy Sports. The game, however, remains just the same.
Cod it be possible?
There are six main fun-packed events for the player to take part in, with an additional two sub-
games.
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Plaice your baits
It's not just James Pond that's the main star of the game - some events require one of the other watery creatures. Freddy Frog (any relation to Finius Frog, Millennium?), Ceceelia Seal and S. Tarfish also take part in the fishy frolics.
Shell out those squids
Rather than just the usual 'press the button repeatedly until either your joypad or arm breaks' procedure, Millennium added an extra twist to their game (oh, and by the way, the Super NES version is licensed to Storm, not Millennium who wrote the original versions) - for example, although some of the events require button-pummelling, others are slightly more novel. The 'stop the seals from waking up' requires you to use your nose to bounce away the unwanted beach balls, so as to stop the other seals from waking up (or something); while Mr. Starfish (see the picture upper-right) has to keep feeding the fishes sweeties (er, hooray!), otherwise the fish will grab the bait from the fisherman, which is exactly what you do not want. Er... yes...
The 'triple jump' requires quite a fair amount of skill - if you don't want
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to get electrified by the electric eels, that is!
Another level, sorry, event, is the 100 metre splash. This is probably the most simplistic of the lot, and simply requires you to keep tapping the buttons as fast as you can. Not very original, I know, but at least it features some nice mountainous backdrops.
Other events, and sub-events include the hurdles (again, good timing is essential), and the bouncy castle level, which involves James Pond.
We've awaited it with bait-ed breath...
James Pond's Crazy Sports should be out in the shops as you read this.
It's great fun to play, especially with friends, and is certainly a breath of fresh air in the wake of sport sims. featuring "Over 1000 unique layers of multi-million coloured multiple parallax layers!" and "Real life digitised footage for amazing gameplay on YOUR system!"
However, although JPCS IS fun, there doesn't appear to be enough in the game. I suppose you could make some clever joke about the game being 'shallow', but seeing as I've littered this page with enough puns already, I'm not going to use it. Pity, that, as I believe it would have worked out quite nicely.
JPCS is out now by Storm for around £40.
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CAPCOM - The CAPtain of COMpanies (sorry)
Capcom is arguably the greatest console game manufacturer in the world. They are mainly renowned for their beat 'em ups, but can produce a decent platform/ shooting game, or two.
The latest releases:
Recently, Capcom have kept MegaDrive, or rather - Mega-CD - owners happy. They've released Final Fight CD, you see, and although the game is quite dated, it still plays as well as it ever has. You know the idea by now - choose between Haggar, Guy, or Cody, and clean up the city with your wide range of moves. Yes! At last, you can actually choose Guy - something you couldn't do on the Super NES version, unless you bought the separate FF Guy cartridge! The reason being, of course, that the power of CD can cope with more characters (and more everything, basically). But it doesn't end there... Oh no! There's even a 2-player thrown in, which is a great laugh - that's another one-up over the SNES; and just when things couldn't get much better, Mega-CD owners get all the levels to boot. Now how about that, eh?
FFCD could well be the game that detours Final Fight fanatics away from the SNES and into Mega-CD territory...
Now there's a sequel to the sequel to the sequel to Street Fighter...
Er, yes... SF2 Turbo: Hyper Fighting (the title goes something like that, anyway...) has been launched in arcades around the
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globe, and more recently, the Super NES.
The game now features a reworked colour scheme - Sagat, for example, has changed from blue to white.
The other characters' colours have changed, too, but most are silvery/grey and blue. The background graphics have been altered slightly, and now sport new palettes.
SF2:Turbo features many new moves; the most original being Dhalsim's ability to disappear, and then reappear elsewhere on screen.
SF2 Turbo is a simply breathtaking game. It's been out for quite some time on import, and should be on sale in your local computer shop by the time you read this.
... And now there's a sequel to that!...
Yes, Super Street Fighter should be in your local arcade, and we'd advise you to play it.
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The game features four new characters, four new backdrops (inevitably) and improved aesthetics.
Also coming soon (ish) from Capcom, is (yes!) Street Fighter 3. Not much is known about this potential smash, but there are rumours suggesting the game will fit into a 32-Megabit cartridge. Watch out for it.
And look out for our massive MegaDrive SF2 Turbo review next issue.
And what about the rest?
Well, there's Goof Troop on the SNES - a fun puzzle game starring Goofy and his chums.
Mention Breath of Fire to the average UK owner, and he'll probably reply with: "Had too much curry for supper, then?" In Japan, however, this new game's on everyone's lips. It's a massive RPG, a bit like Zelda with an isometric view, and it's brilliant. Shame its UK release seems unlikely, then. Sob.
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