In a surprisingly frank interview, the creator of James Pond slams the latest attempt at a sequel – as well as its developer.
There were several attempts to create a mascot character for the Amiga, who could rival the likes of Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog, back in the day. None of them succeeded, but the most fondly remembered of the lot is probably James Pond.
They still couldn’t compete with the best from Nintendo or Sega (none of them made our top 20 Amiga games list), but their graphics were definitely impressive for the time. The second game, 1991’s James Pond 2 – Codename: RoboCod was the best and popular enough to keep getting ported, even securing a Nintendo Switch version in 2019. That we admit we’ve never heard of till now.
Now, we’ve learned that no less than two new James Pond games are in the works, but only because the series creator, Chris Sorrell, has publicly slammed the new developer and distanced himself from the IP entirely.
The two games in question – entitled James Pond: Rogue AI and James Pond: A Bit Of A Stretch – are being made for mobile devices and, according to developer Gameware Europe, are slated to launch later this year.
If you’ve never heard of Gameware Europe, we don’t blame you. Neither had we until now and a quick glance at its website shows that while it has a history of releasing mobile games, none of them are recognisable, with a good chunk of them being generic looking puzzle games.
What’s far more noticeable, though, is that Gameware Europe’s website is filled with AI generated art and videos to promote their games. The art it uses for the two James Pond titles don’t even feature the title character, just some bespectacled human children.
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A teaser trailer for James Pond: Rogue AI went up last month, and while there’s no clear use of AI art in the game itself, it is only a teaser.
Sorell has an unambiguously sour opinion of Gameware, telling Time Extension, ‘I hate almost everything they do with a passion.’
He also laments how he allowed the studio to attach his name to a ‘shambolic’ Kickstarter campaign for a new James Pond game back in 2013; one that failed to even raise a fifth of its goal: ‘I stupidly allowed my name to become associated with their bottom-feeding enterprise.’
Sorell does admit the aforementioned gameplay teaser looks like it could be fun, if it’s ‘in the hands of a capable level designer,’ but that’s where the positives end.
‘Everything else they’ve shown seems far more expected: yet another warmed over rehash of a 34-year-old game that somehow makes it look like 30 years of tech progress never happened,’ Sorell continues.
‘And of course, the fact that they’re promoting it with lazy, AI-generated bulls*** – well, what could be more on brand?!’
Sorell thinks the James Pond name has become so ‘degraded’ that he doesn’t want to be associated with it anymore, admitting he’s been turning down James Pond related interviews for years.
General fan reactions on YouTube aren’t any better. Aside from the fact that there’s only a small handful of comments, they’re unanimously negative and judging by the date of their posting, have all been written after Sorell drew attention to the new game.
‘I was a big fan of James Pond 2 and 3 growing [up], sad to see the series reduced to a lame cash in using crap generated AI assets,’ reads one, while another bluntly drops this obvious pun: ‘This is cod awful.’
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