Frogger
Year Of Release: 1981
Studio: Konami
Description
Frogger was developed by Konami and depending on where you lived in the world it was either released by Konami themselves or Sega. The game was a huge success and one of the most popular of the early 80’s that did not involve some kind of spaceship. As far as the arcade cabinet of Frogger goes it was available in both stand up and cocktail form. It used just a joystick for control and needed no “action” buttons.
The idea of Frogger was that you needed to help a family of frogs get back to their home. In order to do this though you were required to help them get across a busy road and also a river. The game was in two sections, but both were on the same screen. The first part would see you needing to navigate the frog across the busy road. Here numerous vehicles such as cars, busses and what looks like tractors can run you over. Once you make it across you need to then make your way across the river. You do this by jumping on logs and the backs of turtles. Timing is everything here as you need to time your jumps so that you do not land in the water or are eating by a crocodiles, snakes and otters. Once you get the frog across you need to get the rest of them over to complete the level.
Frogger is a very interesting game in that its very interesting to watch someone play it. You see it can be tempting to just go for broke and get the frogs across the road and river as quickly as possible. As well as the things that can kill the frogs you are also against the clocks. But really skilled players can take their time and collect bugs and even save a lady frog for extra points. Frogger is a game that is very easy to pick up and play, but very hard to master and get a high score.
Current High Score: 970,440 by Michael Smith
Related Titles
As it was a huge hit, Frogger was ported to pretty much anything that could run a video game. Frogger is a fascinating game when it comes to its home versions. First of all there were a multitude of knock of games, but the most interesting thing is that numerous companies had the rights to make Frogger for the home market. Some systems such as the Commodore 64 would get two totally legit versions of Frogger one by Parker Bros and the other Sierra. So we had Sega, Sierra and Parker Bros ports of Frogger for people to play in their homes.
Frogger II: Threee Deep! Was released for various home systems and computers in 1984 and would build upon what the first game did.
In 1997, Frogger would be remade and the game was a huge hit and brought the series to a whole new generation.
Since 2000 we have had a ton of games based on Frogger. While some have kept the same classic Frogger game play, others have kept the Frogger name, but totally changed the game such as Froggers Adventure series where were 3D action/platform games. In recent times, Frogger has been re-released on modern consoles and mobile devices as well.
