Frog, The Collector

Frog, the Collector is an old arcade-style Frogger clone with a twist.

The Graphics:

Super retro. The game doesn’t look much better than its age-old ancestor. This isn’t a bad thing, though, but rather adds to the experience of playing. There’s nostalgia in those old solid colors. My only gripe with the graphics was that the grass on the roadside was of a higher resolution than everything else, and that the lanes on the highway weren’t marked at all.

The Sound:

Not too bad. A nice confirmatory *ding* occurs every time you pick up a fruit, and the only other noise is you getting your froggy butt run flat. But, I can’t help but feel that a different sound would be better for the frog getting hit. It currently sounds like a rock slide, which would’ve made sense if the frog was the size of a deer or something. I think a big nasty *SQUISH* noise would be both more fitting and more entertaining.

The Music:

A bit strange. The game has a number of different tracks, but none of them are really fitting to the setting. Then again, the old Frogger games didn’t have a BGM at all. Even though the songs don’t really match what’s happening, I didn’t mind it much. It’s like turning down the sound on a game you’re playing and letting your media player run random songs instead. Or perhaps like listening to the radio in your car?

The Story:

You collect fruit to feed your poor froggy family. It’s so touching…

The Gameplay:

Very true to the classic. You control your frog (who I assume is small in spite of being the same size as a car) and hop your way across the highway. But this time, the goal isn’t merely to get across, but to collect the pieces of fruit that appear in the road. Yes, fruit. In the road. To feed to your frog family. There are four different fruits, and each is worth a different number of points. Collecting one causes another to appear someplace else. The stage advances when a certain score is reached. Of course, you have to watch out for the traffic and avoid getting squished the entire time. I was surprised to discover that the traffic changes patterns depending on the stage you’re in. At the start, the time of day is stated, and the speed and number of cars is reflective of that time.

The only problem I had with the gameplay was that you can’t tell exactly where the cars are and whether or not they’ll hit you. RM* is a bit weird with its hit detection, and the game is on a square by square setup. I think if there were traffic lines outlining the highway lanes (and square grid setup), this problem would be alleviated. As it is, the blackness is too vague for my liking.

This game is meant to be a minigame in Sore Losers, but it’s not too bad as it is. On it’s own, I have to give it a…

6/10