App review: Frogger

review by Eric Nguyen


Frogger is one of the oldest video games out there, so it makes sense that there’s an official version for iPhone in the App Store. There aren’t any fancy features like 3-D to be found here; it’s pretty much the original Frogger with better graphics and iPhone-friendly controls.

The objective of the game is simple: get a frog from one side of a road and river to the other without dying. Unfortunately for the frog, there’s a lot of stuff in the way—cars, trucks, water, crocodiles, and all kinds of other moving things. Since the game involves a top-down view, the frog can move left, right, up, and down. Through careful timing it’s possible to weave between cars and over logs in the river, making it to slots on the other side of the screen safely. If the frog goes through its five lives, the game is over. Even for those who have never played Frogger before, the game is simple enough to figure out in a few minutes.

There are five slots on the far side of the screen, and you have to move the frog over to each of them in order to get to the next level, adding new obstacles and challenges. While this is a good way to extend the game, it can also be frustrating trying to fill them all, especially the upstream-most slot. Since the only way to reach it is to jump to a log right as it passes by, it’s almost entirely a matter of luck whether your frog makes it or has to begin again.

The game manages to take full advantages of the iPhone, including three ways to control your frog. The default control is ‘slide,’ which is pretty self-explanatory: slide your finger in the direction you want the frog to move. Another is ‘tap,’ where you tap the corner of the screen where you want the frog to move. Last is ’tilt,’ where you tilt the entire iPhone in the direction that you want the frog to move. I found that this is the least effective option, since it’s hard to guess the threshold at which the frog moves.

Music-wise this game could be improved. Much like the gameplay itself is very similar to the original Frogger, the music and sound effects sound like they could have come from a mid-90′s MIDI sequencer. While that sounds like a bad thing, it’s not necessarily so (although depending on your skill level, the game over sound might get old quickly). The music actually fits the game rather well, considering its cartoon-like graphics.

In terms of replay value Frogger doesn’t rank all that high. After all, it’s pretty much the same short game over and over again with small variations on each level. However, this game works great in small chunks, as a short diversion. A few minutes waiting for the bus is a perfect amount of time to finish off a couple levels of frog-hopping action, and since it’s been very well optimized for the iPhone, it’s very good at that task.

Frogger is available for 99 cents in the App Store.