James Pond 2 (Recompile) - A platforming classic from the 90's goes ultrawide

Gary Riches has published a ground-up native recompile of the 1991 Amiga classic James Pond 2: Codename RoboCod on GitHub. Rather than relying on traditional emulation, this project translates the original game's 68000 assembly code directly into native C++. This shift allows the aquatic secret agent to flip and stretch natively across Windows, macOS, Linux, and Steam Deck. The modern overhaul introduces a suite of features the Amiga original could only dream of, including true widescreen support for ultrawide monitors, smooth performance synced to contemporary display refresh rates, and standard quality-of-life additions like controller rumble, a CRT filter, a level select screen, and a pause menu complete with a save system.

Originally launched in 1991 by Millennium for the Amiga, Atari ST, and Sega Genesis across three separate publishers, James Pond 2 quickly became a ubiquitous multi-platform hit. Over the decades, it flooded nearly every major ecosystem you could think of, jumping to the Amiga AGA, CD32, Game Gear, Commodore 64, Master System, MS-DOS, Acorn Archimedes, Game Boy, and the Super NES (wiki). As the industry evolved, the beloved title was redeveloped as a budget staple for the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, PlayStation, and PlayStation 2, eventually finding its way onto the PlayStation Network for the PSP and PS3, and most recently, the Nintendo Switch. Riches’ new native PC execution ensures that no matter how much technology moves forward, RoboCod's legacy remains perfectly preserved and highly accessible to anyone of any age.

Features : 

• Widescreen. The game is redrawn wider from its own state: scenery, background, enemies and items, not stretched. The score and lives move to the corners of the screen. Turn it off for the original 4:3 picture.
• Smooth motion. The game still thinks at the Amiga's 50 frames a second; the picture in between is drawn at your display's own rate (60, 90, 120 Hz or more), so scrolling is smooth.
• Picture. Crisp, pixel perfect, soft or CRT (curved glass, glow and the fine colour stripes of a television's screen), with optional scanlines.
• Amiga sound. The four sound channels go through a model of the Amiga 500's output filter (or the Amiga 1200's, or none), with stereo you can narrow for headphones. Sounds the game cut off abruptly can fade out instead.
• Saves. A quick save on one button, three save slots with pictures, and on your next start an offer to carry on where you left off.
• Level select. Play any level of any world from the menu.
• Cheats. The game's own: invincibility, infinite lives, wings and skip to the exit, without typing the secret word.
• Rumble. A buzz when Robocod is hit or loses a life, a thump with each explosion and a shake when the screen shakes, at the strength you choose.
• Controllers. Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo and Steam Deck buttons are shown as they appear on your controller.

You will need james_pond_2_robocod_skid_row.adf file which can be found via EAB FTP server (linked here) and under "/Collection/Compilation/curtcool/My_Danish_Collection_06/Jeppe/"

( This was my personal choice to write up, as I loved James Pond 2 on the Amiga, and now  I can enjoy it on my OLED HDR ultrawide )

Links :1) Source