  Who'da thunk this is what a Frogger game would look like in 2005?
|
Well, hold on to your baseball caps, kiddies because Frogger's back and he's more hopped up than ever!
In Konami's new release, Frogger Ancient Shadow, the computerized frog must leave Firefly Swamp and explore new worlds to investigate strange goings ons or some such thing... Honestly, I didn't pay much attention to the story, because it was quite lame and didn't add anything to the game other than long video sequences I wasn't able to skip through. I often turned volume down on my television to mute Frogger's irritating voice.
This new Frogger is really just a throwback to the old scrolling fighter games, in a three-dimensional form, or perhaps more aptly, it uses a "hop and dodge style of gameplay," like box the says, considering you don't actually do much fighting, other than against the bosses at the end of each area. That's not to say the game isn't fun. It's actually quite refreshing to play something that isn't another rip-off of the Wolfenstein game engine, even if it is a rip-off of an earlier genre. It's quite challenging to get through the various courses and I quite enjoyed making Frogger swing around branches with his tongue.
The game has a practice level and then is divided into seven areas, each with four levels, for a total of 29 levels. After you complete an area, you unlock other mini games, such as a multi-player Frogger dodge ball, and the original 1981 Frogger arcade game. You can also redo any level you've completed in challenge mode, which times how long it takes you to get through.
The main problem with Frogger Ancient Shadow, however, is that's its too difficult to play. The controls take a little getting used to. Moving around a square at a time with the arrow keys, you use the other buttons to jump forward, jump straight up, stick your tongue out and turn around. Many a time Frogger would fall off a cliff because I hit an arrow key and jump a square to the left, when I merely meant to rotate him in that direction.
|
|
The layout of the game doesn't help either. The three-dimensional screen often makes it hard to see whether a platform is directly in front of Frogger or a square over to the left or right, which is especially taxing when you have to make him perform many different maneuvers in a short period of time, because certain platforms will collapse from his weight when he jumps on them. Also, like all scrolling-type games, you cannot control the view of the screen. So if you move Frogger behind an object that's in the foreground, as you often have to do to move blocks with your tongue and what not, he disappears and you have to guess where he is and what direction he's facing.
Personally, what aggravated me the most about the game is that you can't save your progress during a level, only after a level or at Frogger's house. If he, say, falls into the water and drowns, because, as the original game taught us 24 years ago, Frogger is the only amphibian in the history of the universe that doesn't know how to swim (in this game he can also be injured by bugs), he will lose a life point and be transported back to the closest checkpoint. As the game goes on and the levels get longer, these checkpoints seem to be fewer and farther between. And if Frogger loses all his life points, he dies and you must play the entire level over, which is quite frustrating if you constantly die right at the end of a level.
Considering the game has an E rating and the assumed target market is young kids, I imagine many players will quickly get stuck in the game and lose interest. But if you do like this type of game and you are, frankly, a better gamer than I am, you'll probably find Frogger Ancient Shadow quite entertaining.
WHAM! Rating: |
6.5 out of 10 |
ESRB Rating: |
E (Everyone) |
Official Web Site: |
|
|
