James Bond Jr FI
1992

SNES A Day 91: James Bond Jr.

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Approximate Release Date: October 1, 1992
Genre: Action/platformer
Developer: Gray Matter
Publisher: THQ

I forgot that the show James Bond Jr. is based on even existed.

On a lark, I went on YouTube to check out clips from the James Bond Jr. cartoon. According to the show’s theme song, James Bond isn’t even this kid’s father! Does this even make sense? Can someone have the junior suffix from a different branch of the family tree? I know it can skip a generation, but I’ve never heard of this before.

I spent a lot of time thinking about the Bond family tree while playing James Bond Jr. I also thought about taxes, the various horrible conflicts going on throughout the world, what I’m going to have for breakfast tomorrow, my mortality, the terrible humidity outside, and how my socks felt at any given moment. Anything was better and more interesting than thinking about James Bond Jr. Anything except playing the game, I mean.

The controls are awful. For the on-foot parts, there seems to be a delay sometimes between pressing a movement direction and Junior actually completing the command. The best way to describe it is it’s like he has gum on his shoes or something. It’s not any better in the side-scrolling shooter parts, either. Tapping up or down will sometimes send you careening into a tree, or barely move your ship at all. And why does it go on for so long? I couldn’t get past the level. I’m sure the rest of James Bond Jr. is better!

Playing James Bond Jr. is actively unpleasant because nothing works and is just broken enough to make you think something is wrong with your controller or your hands. No, it’s the game being garbage.

Tomorrow: I’m pretty sure the true King of the Monsters is man. Or Godzilla.

Title screen
Password entry
IQ talks to Junior at length at the beginning of the game.
The bad guys
Jump!
An agent of SCUM
Pressing forward and the kick button causes you to do a vertical jump kick.
A shield power-up falls from the sky.
Crashed!
The little men on the ground will try to jump onto your helicopter.
The shield being used
Game over

5 thoughts on “SNES A Day 91: James Bond Jr.”

    1. I’m going to say James Bond Jr. The most vexing thing about the game is that the controls are just … off. I spent the first ten minutes or so thinking my controller was on its way out. It takes a specially bad game to make you think hardware failure is why the game is bad.

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  3. Like you I had completely forgotten about the show, but as soon as I read the title I could sing the theme song, virtually word for word.

    I can’t tell if that’s impressive or sad.

    Wait, yes I can – it’s sad.

    Thanks for the memories and the good write up! It’s crazy how bad the controls where.

    Reply

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