Frogger

I think it's a bit of a joke that classic arcade games like Pac Man, Arkandoid, and Frogger are being offered on the Android Market at top tier prices. Some of my problem with that revolves around the fact that I've purchased these games many times before on other platforms. I was there buying Pac Man on the Atari 2600 (although, was that really Pac Man?) the day J.C. Penny got their first shipment. Next, I bought it on my Atari 400... then NES... Playstation (as part of Namco Museum)... etc. You get the idea. The other part of it is that these are games being milked while other, more current games that take far better advantage of what my Android device is capable of are $.99. Which one is the better value?

So, I was please to see that Frogger finally hit my price point. Well, $.99 may have been my price point, but at free it is even better and a welcome surprise from Konami. Frogger's popularity stems from the fact that it, along with games like Pac Man, we friendly to the fairer sex. They weren't about blowing up anything that moves... and then, once that's done, every that doesn't move. It is also really simple... a 4 way joystick and no extra buttons. In Frogger you guide a frog across five lanes of traffic, a river, and into little frog beds on the other side. Fill up the frog beds and the next level is faster and more difficult. Add some nice, peppy music to the mix and it's a nice, simple, and cute little game.

Frogger on Android replicates most of this, but, in order to be a freebie, adds ads to the mix. Ads are placed at the top of the screen which is innoncent enough I suppose. The game is controlled via the touchscreen with swipes across the screen and that works just fine although it would be nice if I could use my familiar DPad. Unfortunately, the game plays in portrait mode so that wouldn't work too well. Ok, the swipes work well and are accurate enough such that it's not a problem. Musically the game is a step backwards from it's arcade parent. And would you believe this game consumes almost 10 meg of storage? What was the original... like 32k if that? But the biggest problem is speed. The game seems to suffer from the occasional stutter here and there and that means disaster for an arcade game that relies on twitch arcade reflexes. I guess my Android just isn't powerful enough to keep up with this complex game from 30 years ago? A deal breaker it is not... the game is playable on my Droid. I try to think of this as a feature that makes the game just that much more difficult.

Frogger is worth trying now that it's $.00, but it could have been better. The upgraded graphics do little to improve the game and I really loved the original's music. At 10 meg (with no App2SD) this isn't going to earn a permanent place on my phone's storage. I suspect playing Frogger on my Nintendo emulator would be more satisfying as I would regain the comfort and familiarity of my trusty DPad controller and cut out the occasional slow down. Had I paid $2.99 or $4.99 I would have been upset, though and people that did pay that have reason to be disappointed. As for me I give this 3/5 stars and am grateful I'm not out any cash.