Link: https://handheldhideout.neocities.org/articles/james-pond-2-robocod-recompiled-amiga-steam-deck.html

I've written a little article about Gary Riches' James Pond 2: Codename RoboCod Recompiled, an kinda interesting project that takes the original 1991 Amiga game and recompiles its code to run natively on modern hardware, including things like the Steam Deck, Android retro handhelds and even the (recently jailbroken!) PS5.

It brings things like proper widescreen support, smoother scrolling, save states and quite a few other improvements. One aspect that's proved pretty divisive is that Riches made extensive use of Claude during development, something he's been completely open about.

I know AI-assisted development is a contentious subject in retro gaming, and I understand why people have strong feelings about it. My own approach to writing about these projects, though, is to cover what's happening in the scene, regardless of whether AI was involved, and make sure that involvement is clearly disclosed. I'd rather give readers the information and let them decide whether something interests them than avoid reporting on certain developments altogether. There's some fascinating technical work here, alongside a rather unfortunate reaction from parts of the Amiga community. I enjoyed digging into this one!

I am very much not that knowledgeable about Amiga games, so the last few weeks I've been reading up on the history and the recent projects on those old games. And I've been having fun doing so!

As with the last few articles, this might be a niche-within-a-niche here, but I hope some of you like it!

I used to love these games on the Mega Drive. In particular I loved the third game and the spin off Aquatic Games which was a glorious button mashing fest ala Track and Field.

Using AI as a method of preserving old games is an amazing use of the tech. There are a few games I can think of I cant play that Id love to have a modernized version rewritten for new OSes