Frogger - Arcade

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.

Konami 88

It's Konami, in 1988... No really, it is.

Following from the success of Track and Field and Hyper Olympics, Konami came back in 1988 with the originally named, Konami '88. 88 minutes of pure Konami goodness... No it's just Track and Field with a graphical overhaul and was released in 1988. Having said that however, it's quite the overhaul and makes for an entertaining game.

So many toys!

For those in the know, you can skip this paragraph. For those that don't, Konami '88 hails from the world of "Wiggle Joystick" controls. You wiggle the joystick (or tap buttons) to build up speed and then hit an action button to determine a function whether it's the angle of jump in Long Jump, or the angle of throw in Javelin, or passing on the baton in the relay. As such, there's a multitude of various events including 100m Dash, Long Jump, 400m Relay, Skeet Shooting, Archery, 110m Hurdles, Javelin, and a replay of the 400m Relay as a final event of the round.

I prefer the original Track N Field

Each round in Konami '88 has a qualifying quota, in that you must get at least that time/distance/score in order to progress to the next event. Getting further/faster/higher gives you more points in case you're in competition with other players or playing for the big score. As such, the game gets harder if you beat every round by starting over and raising the bar (sometimes literally) and having the player require a higher amount of points, faster time, long distance etc.

Celebrate, with your multi-ethinic rainbow of groupies!

Timing is key in Konami '88, whether it's hitting the takeoff and getting the angle for the jumps, or the throws, or the hand over in the relay, or even the loosening off a bow from the string, timing is essential to getting a good score but even consistent timing will not guarantee things. There's more than a few niggling issues with the game.

Similar events to earlier games, just boosted up the graphics a bit

In particular, the run up and take off for the high jump isn't clear because of the game's insistence on using sprite transformation in a pseudo-3D manner, which results in over complicating issues. Archery is a bitch if only because your very first shot will be a range finder as you'll have no idea when to time the shot based upon the almost utter random cross wind and while the game also forces that 45 degrees is optimum for most events, around 25 degrees is your best shot in Archery for Konami '88. The worst is that the controls for the Skeet Shooting do not match up with any other control in the game and the buttons will force you to quickly forget and form new muscle memories just for this one event.

Regardless, it's wiggle joystick and hit buttons.

The game is certainly a huge improvement over Track 'n' Field and Hyper Sports though, the game is a lot more friendly to users, it has clearer objectives and uses of controls (except in Skeet Shooting...) and while it showcases a higher bit level of graphics, makes use of the potential with clear, colourful and clever use of sprites. What it falls short on, is that the game doesn't really convey distance and speed all that well with the rate of change in sizes during the additional scenes. It's a minor point really but the game does stand well as a competitive game assuming both players have a rudimentary grasp of control and timing.

It's like Darts, you're not really an athlete.

Sounds within Konami '88 are quite crisp, while the synthesised voices are a little easier to understand compared to the original and are a markedly nice nod back to the original/source of the series. The music however is few and far between and little of value to really comment upon, it serves its purpose and moves onto the next event with little to no issue or memorable composition while actual events are silent save for the effects and to be honest, it needs to be in order to prevent players reacting to the rhythm of the music rather than the pace of the game.

....oops

With all said and done on Konami '88, I find that it's a worthy game for a play around but there's something missing in its delivery that the original has, whether the pace or the overall presentation is up for debate but on its own it is an OK game but nothing truly wonderful that sets it aside within its own series.

Contra - Arcade

Enough crap, it's Arnie and Sly.

 

Some will argue this is one of the hardest games out there in the Run and Gun category of gaming. I however, feel that the follow up game to this one is FAR harder but that's for a later review, possibly. That being said, it is still a very tough game and the arbitrary limit of continues on the machine itself is just only a small part of that problem. Though it's not a very big problem as it's great to see games that have that one thing that a lot of games nowadays are missing, challenge!

It's an odd perspective/ratio and keeps you from seeing too far ahead.

Contra follows that lovely idea of starting from the left and running you rightwards (usually, more in a second) where you'll be jumping platforms and hammering the shoot button to fire in as many directions as possible at the limitless spawning enemies, the set-piece enemies and all the way until you meet the boss of the level and have to blow it up. There's no back-story mentioned in the game and to be fair, it's really not needed as the premise is simple, "Run, Gun, Kill, Win" though that last part is a little bit of a challenge.

"We really wanted to be Aliens" is all this game screams.

You've your usual spectrum of weapons in Contra, gun, machinegun, fireball thrower (avoid this like the plague), laser, Spread/Scatter gun and the rarely found, occasionally picked up, Barrier which makes you invincible to everything except falling off the bottom of the screen. The guns have their uses, machinegun negates the need to press the button but lacks the stopping power of the bigger guns. Laser is highly powerful but requires a lot of accuracy which isn't that easy in this game as there's a sort of sweeping direction movement going on with the aim rather than the arbitrary key 8 directional points. Spread/Scatter gun is great for clearing out waves of enemies but only does heavy damage when up close so that all shots hit at once. Fireball thrower... Well, the less said, the better. There's enough variety there for those that like it and a weapon for everyone's preference. (Mine's the spread gun, stay off it)

Mix it up with some pseudo-first person fighting

The controls in Contra are an odd bunch at times. They're less precise and more fluid than the home console versions of the game and by that I mean that you can shoot in angles between the 8 key directions (Up, down, left, right and all 4 diagonals) as the game takes a sort of turning momentum when you're pointing to consecutive directions, but if you change suddenly from Left to Right, you'll switch immediately, however in turning from Left to Up/Left and Up, you'll spray in multiple directions while the aim turns towards the new directions. Going from Left to Up with a slight pause though, will switch the direction immediately, this tends to catch most people out when trying to aim for something that's going to kill you and needs to be shot, as it's usually miniscule in size and very fast.

Some of the bosses offer quite the challenge. Others offer a HEAVY challenge.

There's plenty to hear in Contra, ranging from the pops and squeaks of dying enemies, explosions from bosses, klaxons going off as bosses are damaged and near death/destruction while there's the semi-synonymous noise of dying that seems to have carried from most games across the series, they're clear and precise and don't strictly interfere with the music which is another bonus point in favour of the game. Konami seems to have nailed it perfectly with Contra in that the levels, challenges and bosses in the game are punctuated with suitably appropriate music and most key boss music really sets the adrenaline going, especially after the tunnel levels.

It's not a boss, it takes about as much damage as one.

Graphically, Konami looks stunning. The action and motion is fluid as you traverse the levels and the gameplay is never overwhelmed by what's going on but the looks and appearance of the mechanical structures, odd alien-esque biomechanics (Though I feel Geiger might have been more than a slight inspiration here...) and even the ice levels, jungles and underground tunnels are lavishly designed and realised through the artistic merit of the game.

Space American Football Player Boss... The what now?

It is a tough game though, while there may be several camps of people decrying it as either IS or IS NOT the toughest game of the genre before we start looking at games like I Wanna Be The Guy or platform bullet-hell games, it's difficult but not the toughest. That said there are some issues regarding jumping and shooting accurately especially when trying to aim for diagonal shots but these were ironed out in the console releases (Which have far more levels too).

Laser, Scatter/Spread, rapid fire. All good weapons, just don't get the fireball gun. It's crap.

Play Contra if you can in the arcades, it's quite different from the NES version of the game and will have enough surprises and similarities that would interest and keep a steady gamer curious as to what changes there are. Just remember there's a credit limit before it's an auto-game over and there's no 30 lives cheat for this one.