Arcade Action Game Review: Frogger

 

Frogger is a successful and influential arcade game that was developed by Konami and distributed by Sega/Gremlin in the United States of America.

Like the best games of the 1980s, it is easy to pick up but difficult to master. The goal is to take frogs across a street, across a river, and then onto a lily pad. There are several obstacles in the way, including automobiles, tractor trailers, snakes, and alligators. The latter can also be used as objects to hop onto in the river, much like the logs. However, the gators open their mouths and become a danger to the frog if it comes into contact with the gaping maw. Once all of the lily pads are filled with frogs, the game jumps to the next level.

As the game goes on, the highways become more packed, the river becomes more populated with alligators, and the logs become more filled with snakes. The vehicles also become faster and the river gets quicker. The latter makes it more difficult to jump into lily pads without becoming gator food. The logs also are less able to be stood upon, as when the river takes them beyond the game playfield, the frog loses its life.

The game is packed full of sound. Beyond the bloop sound that is meant to represent the frog's jumps, there are 26 different song fragments played throughout five stages. After that, the stages loop back to the first, albeit much harder than before. The game has an opening jingle, as was common in arcade games of the early 1980s. But, from there, each stage contains music loops. There is also music for restarting a level after dying, completing a level, and getting a game over. Beyond that, there are a ton of songs that play when a frog has arrived home on a lily pad, with a total of 20 different song fragments used. This was definitely a very lively arcade game, and the variety of songs kept it from feeling too repetitive.

Frogger is a great arcade game that inspired many clones and competitors. It's also one of those games that stood the test of time. There are a ton of frogger clones on various app stores, showing the longevity of the concept. It's very easy to pick up, and super addictive. There's tons of music too, which helps the game remain fun way into the era of constant music in most video game soundtracks. It's likely you've at least come across a clone, but if you haven't played the original, you owe it to yourself to give Frogger a try.

Final Verdict:

5 out of 5

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio Boycott

Rock Paper Shotgun has a story about the contents of Yakuza Kiwami 3: Dark Ties that is frankly disgusting.

"Kanda, upon discovering he doesn’t have enough cash to buy time with a sex worker, grabs an unsuspecting woman in the street and drags her off to an alley. Mine finds him gripping the terrified woman by the wrists. As part of Kanda and Mine’s arrangement, the former tasks you with leading a PR campaign to boost his reputation in the community, via a minigame dubbed "Kanda Damage Control"."

I was going to delay buying Yakuza 3 Kiwami and play it ten years down the road for Dark Ties. But, I can't even stomach this. Not just as a woman who experienced sexual assault herself, but as a decent human being. 

This is more than tone deaf considering the controversy surrounding Teruyuki Kagawa. He sexually assaulted at least two hostesses. He admitted to the first and was caught on camera for the second. There has been a boycott for this game since Kagawa was announced to be playing Goh Hamazaki in Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Dies and Ryu Ga Gotoku and Sega have not handled it well. They have been limiting, filtering, and removing posts protesting the recasting, supporting the hostesses, and carrying the #REMOVEKAGAWA hashtag on social media.

There is a petition on change.org to replace Kagawa, but in light of the blood-curdling sick minigame it is just not enough.

I don't know why anyone would think this is OK. If this game goes out without any real backlash, I'm going to quit playing Ryu Ga Gotoku games altogether. I'm sure everyone here knows how big a fan of the series I am, but this is just beyond creepy and misogynistic - it makes me sick, metaphorically and literally. I'm sitting here with a pit in my stomach just typing this.

Arcade Maze Game Shoot 'Em Up Compilation Review: Namco 20 Year Reunion: Ms. Pac-Man / Galaga - Class of 1981

To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of two of their most popular games, Namco released a cabinet that combined both of them on one printed circuit board. However, like automobiles, it was released in the year before the date listed. It's the release from September 2000, Namco 20 Year Reunion: Ms. Pac-Man / Galaga: Class of 1981.

Both of the games are sequels to popular games that improved upon their predecessors and became classics in their own right. Galaga is the sequel to Galaxian. It featured colorful bug-shaped enemies which had multiple forms of formations as well as attacks. The most unique part of this game was the enemy type which would beam the player ship up and away from the game area. If the player successfully destroyed the enemy, the captured ship would join the current ship to become a double fighter or triple fighter, depending on the amount of ships combined.

Ms. Pac-Man is the first sequel of Namco's popular Pac-Man. It expanded upon the original by having different maze shapes rather than just different colors and bonus fruit that would bounce along the maze rather than just sit in the middle. It was designed by General Computer Corporation as a Pac-Man conversion kit named Crazy Otto. The designers pitched the game to the company that held the American distribution rights to Pac-Man, Midway Manufacturing. Midway liked the game, purchased the rights, and worked with Namco to rework the game into a proper Pac-Man sequel.

This arcade compilation has the dubious reputation of setting off a series of lawsuits relating to the rights of Ms. Pac-Man. GCC claimed they were not paid the residuals that they were stipulated to earn in their agreement with Midway Manufacturing back in the 1980s. This led to a complicated rights battle that would become even more complicated after GCC was disestablished in 2015 and AtGames bought its rights to residuals for the games the former designed for Midway.

Ms. Pac-Man is now no longer included in Namco Museum and Pac-Man compilations, and the character of Ms. Pac-Man is now portrayed by other Pac women, the latest of which is known as Pac Mom. Because GCC also created Jr. Pac-Man, that character has also been replaced by Pac Boy. Midway developed Baby Pac-Man, so that character is now replaced by Pac Sis. It's a really odd situation that has resulted in retro games being edited in re-releases and remakes.

Class of 1981 also includes an awesome easter egg. It's one that I always use when I find the cabinet out in the wild, as even though I prefer Ms. Pac-Man, its fun to play a game not noted on the marquee. If you use a specific combination of joystick moves. If you turn the joystick up, up, up, down, down, down, left, right, left, right, left at the game selection screen, the red ghost Blinky will change into the pink ghost Pinky. Selecting Ms. Pac-Man will now play the original Pac-Man instead.

Namco 20 Year Reunion: Ms. Pac-Man / Galaga: Class of 1981 is a fun compilation of Namco maze games and shoot 'em ups, including Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, and the hidden game Pac-Man. Arcade1Up also has a stand up machine and a countercade that has the name of this compilation, but it includes a different third game, or more in the case of the stand up cabinet because it does not include the Class of 1981 PCB. The games are classics that are still fun to play, and this is a great way to experience them if you ever come across the 20 Year Reunion arcade cabinet.

Final Verdict:

4½ out of 5

Choices-and-Consequences Management Simulator: Dispatch - Episode 2: Onboard Review

Dispatch: Episode 2 - Onboard was released with the first episode when Dispatch premiered. Whereas Pivot, the first episode, set up Robert's new position as a superhero dispatcher, Onboard is the episode where his job really starts going.

As a new dispatcher, Robert is given the Z-Team. It consists of the most volatile superpowered people, who are former criminals turned superheroes. The team consists of a literal bat man known as Sonar, a fire starter named Flambae who was one of the villains Robert took down as Mecha Man, a cynical woman with the power of invisibilty known as Invisigal, a strongman known as Punch Up, a female demon named Melevola, a monster made of clay named Golem, a woman who can control light waves named Prism, and a winged woman named Coupé.

As before, Robert sends these heroes out to stop crimes and help various people throughout the city, which advances their experience based on how well they handled the situation. The choices and consequences part of the game has to do with Robert's interactions with his team as well as the staff at the Superhero Dispatch Network.

The team members are an eclectic bunch that are voiced well by their respective voice actors. The team member that really get to shine this episode is Invisigal. Laura Bailey really nails her sardonic attitude. The returning characters also continue to be voiced excellently by their voice actors. Blonde Blazer and her boyfriend Phenomaman get their characters fleshed out more here, especially with the tension between the pair and Robert. There are two of my favorite new characters revealed in this episode. The first is Chase, a quickster prematurely aged by his powers who worked with Robert's dad and a young man applying to be a janitor named Waterboy. The former is a hilarious man whose personality is packed with snark and the latter is a nervous but eager young man who is always wet. It really brings sweating over an interview to a new level.

The other end of the aural experience is sound effects, which are once again fitting for each situation, and music. The latter continues to shine, with a soundtrack that really fits the superhero genre as well as the office comedy genre, in equal measures.

Onboard takes everything that the premiere episode did right and expands upon it. The management simulation aspect works well, but the choices and consequences part of the episode really shine. The characters have some great quirks and their voice actors all do a great job bringing out their personalities. The music also fits both the superhero and mundane parts of the episodes, but the story is where it really shines. The characters, as an eclectic batch of battle tested heroes and villains trying to reform lead to some interesting interactions. With this episode really turning up the heat, both metaphorically and literally, it will be great to see where future episodes take the game.

Final Verdict:

4½ out of 5

Happy February!

I can't believe it is already the 1st of February. But, even more than that, I can't believe that I actually managed to create a review for every day of January. Well, I made 32 reviews actually, since I when I reviewed Neuro-sama's Life music video, I felt that I should make a video game review that day as well.

I'm going to keep trying to make reviews for every day, at least until I burn out. Hopefully I don't, but we'll see.

On a better note, I started adding screenshots to my previous reviews. I can't say I'll update all of them, as I checked the reviews and surprised myself with how much I've made over the past 30 years. I still can't believe it's been that long. That's positively ancient in internet time.

Point-and-Click Adventure Game Review: King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow

King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow was the first game co-designed and co-written by Roberta Williams, the creator of King's Quest and the sole designer of the first four games in the series, and Jane Jensen, who previously co-designed EcoQuest: The Search for Cetus and finalized the script of Police Quest III: The Kindred.

The game retained all of the winks toward fairy tales that Roberta Williams brought to each game in the series and the script contained all of the hallmarks of the writing of Jane Jenson. This combination of the best of both worlds from two of the best female adventure game designers of the early 1990s, gave King's Quest VI one of the best scripts Sierra On-Line had ever produced.

The game takes place almost entirely outside of the usual setting of the series, the Kingdom of Daventry. It picks up from the end of the previous game, as Prince Alexander can't get Princess Cassima, the woman that helped King Graham save his wife Valanice, his son Alexander, and his daughter Rosella. After seeing a vision of her in the magic mirror found by his father in the original King's Quest, Alexander sails off to find Cassima.

He ends up shipwrecked in the Land of the Green Isles. This land, made up of several islands, allows Williams and Jensen room to spread out their wings in terms of myths and legends. The first island Alexander discovers is the Isle of the Crown, which is based on the middle eastern folktales collected in One Thousand and One Nights. Other islands feature homages of other famous literary works such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Beauty and the Beast, and mythology from the Greek, Roman, and Celtic cultures.

These settings allowed the artists to create some beautiful works of pixel art. The SCI engine allowed Sierra games to have detailed, realistic backgrounds and large sprites that rivaled those of LucasArts, Sierra's biggest competitor when it came to adventure games. The music, composed by Chris Bensen, included original music in a classical style, beautifully composed in the MIDI format used in games of the era. It was designed for the Roland Sound Canvas, but it sounded great even on a standard Sound Blaster or Adlib card. Lucky owners of the Roland MT32 got the richer, almost acoustic sound that this device produced when in the hands of skilled composers.

As with most Sierra adventure games, it includes deaths and dead ends, so saving often isn't just recommended, but is required for first time gamers. The latter is the biggest thing that ages it in comparison to most LucasArts adventures. Puzzles are mostly solvable with outside of the box thinking or trial and error, with the exception of the difficult cliff puzzle that I had to look up the solution when I first played through it as a little girl. Even today, I can't understand how that puzzle would be solved organically. 

King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow is arguably the best game in the series. From its dynamic duo of a writing team in Roberta Williams and Jane Jensen, it has the most creative mythic homages and is among the best written of the series. The only drawback of the game, beyond the typical "save early, save often" mantra of Sierra games that hasn't aged well, is the confusing cliff puzzle. However, this is mitigated by its beautiful realistic backgrounds which are among the best produced in the early era of the Sierra Creative Interpreter. That goes for all platforms the game is on, outside of the AmigaOS. Revolution Software ported the game to its own Virtual Theater engine for the Amiga port, but that's a review for another day. 

Final Verdict:

4 out of 5

Arcade Snake Game Review: Dominos

Dominos is a 1977 arcade game that is Atari's take on the snake genre that Gremlin started with Blockade the year prior. It brought a unique take on the snake game, but it ended up being no more popular than Gremlin's take.

In Dominos, either two or four players continually stack dominos in the same manner that blockades were set up in Gremlin's take on the genre. This differentiated it from its predecessor in giving it a premise that is more familiar to people in the United States. Not all kids could be expected to know what a blockade was, but all kids in the USA, especially children in the 1970s, knew how to set up dominos This helps make it simple to pick up and play.

Dominos are set up around a playing field, creating a wall that grows with each move. The opposing player, or players, are trying to do the same. The winner is the last remaining after the opponents crash into a wall of dominos a set number of times. The two-tone sound remains from the Gremlin original, which is still rather annoying.

The graphics are much the same as the simple lines and arrows that represent the direction of the front piece as Gremlin's game. Here, the graphics are even more simple. However, The premise of the game allows for a more satisfying finish.  The domino graphics may just be changing from straight to diagonal as they fall, but it works. The thing that makes the ending satisfying is the click clack, with the straight to diagonal graphics to match, of the opponent's dominos toppling.

Dominos is an example of a game that took the ball from the genre starter and ran with it to create something more instantly recognizable. Today, snake games are well known enough that nearly every gamer would know what to expect. In the 1970s, when the genre was still new, dominos would certainly give players a heads-up on what to expect. The graphics are still simple monochrome lines and the main sound is still an annoying two toned beep-boop. However, the concept and satisfying finish with the falling dominos and clacking sound to match, put it just a bit above the Gremlin arcade game that started it all.

Final Verdict:
3½ out of 5