Frogger

The Good
Frogger is a game that was created in the 80's, and it has a simple objective. The player controls a frog that needs to make its way across heavy traffic to get to the median strip. Then, it must cross a river, stepping on logs and turtles, while avoiding snakes, alligators, and diving turtles to reach one of his five homes. Do this five times to proceed to the next round. You lose a life when you touch a hazard, or fall into the water. If you are keen, you can rescue a lady frog stranded on a log and doesn't know how to get home.

And you do all this within a strict time limit, which only applies when getting a frog into its home, not for the whole round. In earlier rounds, this is easy as the time expires rather slowly, but as you get onto further rounds, the time limit speeds up, and you have to get your frog into its home in record time. This means that you are likely to screw up, whether you are being squashed, fall into the water, or come into contact with the hazards. Vehicles, logs, and hazards also speed up.

The controls are simple to use. One push of the joystick in a direction moves you frog horizontally or vertically. You can't fire at hazards (frogs don't shoot), nor can you stick out your tongue and catch flies. Unlike the games that were made around the time, Frogger offers more ways to die. One example is getting squashed by the traffic, while another is climbing onto a log and let it float off-screen. One thing I like about the frog getting killed is that when he does, he turns into a skull-and-crossbones.

The C64 version is a more-than-average port of the original game. Everything is ported to the game correctly, with the same type of graphics and same music. The river looks indeed like a river, and not like an endless pit, like in the coin-op original. Also, you can see the frog leaping from one place to another, and the animation of the leaping is smooth.

The Bad
I can't think of anything bad about this game. It is a straight-forward port, that captures the look and feel of the game.

The Bottom Line
Obviously, Konami failed to realized that frogs are amphibians meaning that they can live and breathe under water, and programmed the game in such a way that falling into the river means loss of life. Don't let that stop you from enjoying a simple, addictive game that retains the look and feel of the original game as possible. The game is so successful that it has inspired several games that still retains the Frogger name.

The Good
The gameplay was at least similar to the arcade version of Frogger.

The Bad
The graphics and sound in the Apple II version of Frogger were ugly and annoying. Your frog looked like a pawn in a chess set (it was white not green), and the other sprites and backgrounds were not nearly as colorful as the arcade game. The music consisted of crude beeping.

The Bottom Line
The Apple version of Frogger was a mistake. Ugly graphics and grating sound effects ruined an arcade classic.

The Good
Back in the early Eighties, people were used to games such as Space Invaders and Galaxian, where they moved their laser left or right across the screen while shooting aliens swooping down at them. Then Konami’s Frogger appeared out of nowhere, and players suddenly found themselves controlling a frog, and they could move up - not just left or right - toward their five homes on the other side within a time limit.

To reach these homes, however, they must cross a busy highway to a median strip, and from there negotiate a river full of logs and diving turtles, and finally into all of their five homes. Fifty points are awarded to the player for reaching one home, but more points are awarded for bringing their lady frog along with them and gobbling an insect. The game starts off easy, allowing players to get used to the game. It eventually gets harder, with the game introducing snakes, alligators, and otters into the mix. The level design also differs slightly and everything is sped up, requiring them to time their moves carefully.

Besides the gameplay itself, Frogger was innovative in two other ways. There are more ways you can die, such as being run over by a vehicle, letting the timer expire, staying on a diving turtle, missing the homes, being eaten, and falling into the river. The gameplay is complemented by well-composed music. As well as the standard songs, the US version of the game has “Yankee Doodle” thrown in for good measure. The animations are brilliant; I like how the skull and crossbones are formed when a life has been lost. The game also has that “just one more go” vibe to it.

The Bad
I can’t find any flaws to this timeless classic.

The Bottom Line
Frogger is a refreshing change from the shooters that dominated the arcades way back in the early Eighties, and it contained many innovative features such as the use of background music and the number of ways you can die. The graphics and sound are excellent, and the game’s addictive nature will keep you coming back for more. Two thumbs up, way up!