Frogger - Review
Added August 1st, 2006 by Sallizar
Xbox Live Arcade Wednesdays kicked off with an oldie but goodie. Konami
is celebrating the 20th anniversary of Frogger by slapping on a new
coat of paint and tossing in online multiplayer. You’ve got to wonder
though, is it really worth $5 to play a twenty year old game on a $400
console?
The answer comes down to one yes and a few nos. Let’s start with the yes. Frogger for Xbox Live Arcade sets the beginning for retro revivals on the 360. Instead of just porting straight from the arcade (I’m looking at you, Galaga), Konami redid the graphics and added brand new online play options. These are both great things, but they come at a price. Additionally, the new graphics are something you’d expect to see on a SNES not the 360. They aren’t great but they’re better than the original.
Before I get to online play, which deserves a paragraph all its own, I want to talk about the gameplay. It seems badly off. Maybe it’s the game, maybe it’s the 360’s controller, but something doesn’t feel right. I constantly die on jumps I know I would have made in the original version. If Frogger was a fighting game or a shooter I’d say the hit boxes were wonky. It’s not that though, so I can’t quite figure out what’s going on. Needless to say I get frustrated on a regular basis with the gameplay mechanics/controls.
The answer comes down to one yes and a few nos. Let’s start with the yes. Frogger for Xbox Live Arcade sets the beginning for retro revivals on the 360. Instead of just porting straight from the arcade (I’m looking at you, Galaga), Konami redid the graphics and added brand new online play options. These are both great things, but they come at a price. Additionally, the new graphics are something you’d expect to see on a SNES not the 360. They aren’t great but they’re better than the original.
Before I get to online play, which deserves a paragraph all its own, I want to talk about the gameplay. It seems badly off. Maybe it’s the game, maybe it’s the 360’s controller, but something doesn’t feel right. I constantly die on jumps I know I would have made in the original version. If Frogger was a fighting game or a shooter I’d say the hit boxes were wonky. It’s not that though, so I can’t quite figure out what’s going on. Needless to say I get frustrated on a regular basis with the gameplay mechanics/controls.
Frogger’s online play is the surefire selling point for the Arcade version. For five bucks you can pick up plenty of other compilations for various systems that contain the game, but no other version has online play. The first thing you’ll notice when you attempt to “jump” on Live is that the Frogger lobby is a ghost town. After agonizing minutes of waiting I finally jumped into a versus game. I’d gotten my first frog about halfway across the street when I noticed the traffic jump forward just a touch. LAG! Frogger lags horribly. It’s almost impossible to play at high levels because the lag will turn a perfectly timed leap into squished frog nine times out of ten. If you decide you like torture though, there are several modes to play including co-op and an unlimited lives speed mode that declares the winner to be the first one to fill all the frog homes. It has great modes, but terrible net code.
Summary:
Frogger fits the casual gamer model that Microsoft is trying to target. It’s one of those, “Hey, I remember that from when I was your age!” kind of games. I enjoy playing it in short bursts. Short because if I try to play more than a few rounds I get increasingly annoyed by the bad hit detection and unresponsive controls. It’s defiantly a try before you buy title.
