Classic Frogger fun on Android

Do you remember the good old days? Back when you had no responsibilities? Days spent cycling and playing. That summer when you seemed to scrape your knee every other day. No? Well, if that does not sound like how you spent your youth, then perhaps you were one of those pasty faced children who spent all their time indoors playing classic video games. Games such as Donkey Kong, Ms Pacman or Frogger.

Even if, like most of us, you fit somewhere on the scale in between the pasty faced kid and the child who only ever went indoors to sleep (if that), you may still have some memory of these classic games. In which case, you will no doubt be delighted to hear that Konami has released an official version of Frogger for Android. To be honest, if you don’t remember these games, then you missed out and need to catch up.

The idea behind the game is a very simple one.  You take your frog across various obstacles to a safe place on the other side of a river before your time runs out.  The frog will have to cross a very busy road before using logs and the backs of turtles to cross the river.  Get hit by a car and your frog is dead.  If your frog falls in the water then it is also dead.  Quite why a frog should have problem in water is not entirely clear, though. As you progress through the levels the danger increases.  Crocodiles appear in the river and snakes ride on some of the logs. The traffic on the roads increases in speed and density.

It is this gameplay that makes the game so appealing.  It is simple and yet very addictive.  Unfortunately, though, while the gameplay is fun, it’s pretty much all that is good about this game. The graphics are fine, but the general quality of the app is poor.  Clearly very little care has been taken in the development of the game – presumably in the hopes that the game’s reputation will be enough to sell it.

When you first launch the app you are presented with a number of buttons: New Game, Feint and Options. The trouble is that these buttons are very fiddly to press. This is particularly a problem because the game’s options don’t seem to “stick”.  If, for example, you switch the sound off you will find it back on when you return to the app later.  What is even more bizarre about this is that, upon returning to the options screen, the game will happily inform you that sound is off while blaring the music out of your device’s speaker. In order to turn it off again, you have to first turn it on, and then you can disable it again.  Until next time at least.

It is this kind of shoddy attention to detail that lets down what is, otherwise, a fabulous game.

The game also has certain features like allowing you to compare your current performance with your best one to date. Your high score game is represented by a translucent frog against whom you can compete. However, here we encounter another flaw in the app.  If you complete the first level whilst competing against the phantom frog, the game will crash.  No phantom, no problem. Again, this is unforgivable quality assurance.

The game is superb, the app it is packaged in is very poor.  If you are a big fan of the original game then it is probably worth your while getting the game, otherwise you might want to steer clear.  If only to avoid getting a poor idea of a brilliant classic.

Balancing the excellent gameplay against all the other flaws, I’m going to award Frogger a 6/10.

Frogger is available from the Android market in either free, ad supported or paid for, ad free.