Taking it way, WAY back in this review to a game that
most probably have heard of and yet few likely to have played, Frogger. A
small, single-screen game from Konami that has graced nearly every home
computer and been converted to almost every single game delivery system from
the Gameboy to the bigger consoles, PCs and Smartphone's and even being
resurrected on the Xbox Live systems and beyond. To say that Frogger has been
around a bit is quite the understatement.
But what do we get with Frogger? The premise is simple
enough, take five little speckled frogs, sat on a speckled log... No, not that
damn song again. Let's start over. Five frogs need to get home but in their way
are an assortment of difficulties, ranging from a Motorway and Fast Flowing
River as a start, to snakes, gators, more gators, turtles that duck under the
water while you're on them, the edges of the screen, beavers (assumedly) and
many, many more problems.
Frogger gives you three lives and you'll have to use the
joystick (and nothing else, nice and simple!) to navigate your way across the
road around the faster and faster moving traffic, onto the land midway, then
across the river using a combination of turtles and flowing logs while possibly
picking up another frog on the way for bonus points, then safely into the home
spots and maybe catching hold of a fly for even more points.
After the five homes are filled, a congratulatory jingle
plays and then you do it again but it's harder. Cars can be faster (and change
speed mid-level), alligators start to turn up and hunt in the homes so you need
to be more careful about jumping into the homes, some of the gators take the
place of logs and later levels throw more enemies like snakes and beavers into
the mix while removing more and more of the logs and turtles, adding more cars
and generally making the game tougher and tougher as you progress.
The music thankfully, changes after every jingle and
includes many ditties from an almost bygone era, but sadly does include the
"Five little speckled frogs" song as alluded to in the above
paragraphs. The jumping and noises of frogs moving grates eventually but isn't
too overbearing and almost fits in with the theme and tone of the game. While
the little bonus noises are suitable short and sweet and don't really detract
from the experience.
 |
| Well, it's Frogger... |
Short review, yes. Short game, yes. There's little to
expand upon here but there is a challenge and the difficulty does increase as
the game goes on. The problem is that after a few plays you'll likely see the
game and have a knowing little nod to yourself but you won't come back to it,
unless it's free on and the smart phones, play a few times then ignore forever
but sit knowing the flavour tasted of an older, almost historic flavour of
video gaming history.
