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Frogger 2: Swampy’s Revenge

Score: 85%
ESRB: Everyone
Publisher: Hasbro Interactive
Developer: Blitz Games
Media: CD/1
Players: 1 - 4
Genre: Action/ Online

Graphics & Sound:

The graphics in Frogger 2: Swampy’s Revenge take the Spyro the Dragon approach -- minimal texturing, with lots of brightly Gouraud-shaded polygons. They look great, completely capturing the “retro” feel of the game while still looking nice. We’re not talking Unreal Tournament levels of polygon-pushing here, certainly, but they’re still quite nice. And the flat cars in the old-school bonus mode are hilarious. And there are some occasional moments of true graphical excellence, like the flamethrowers in one of the last levels and the space arenas.

The movies, while a little grainy, are nice as well. I had some sort of weird problems with playing the movies, and they tended to bomb out almost instantaneously, but I’m pretty sure that’s because I need a new computer and not any fault of the game itself.

The music is nice with suitable styles for each level. The mechanical levels sound electronic enough, and the Halloween levels have pleasantly spooky music. None of it is very serious, though, as befits this game. The sound effects are similar, with lots of croaks and rumbles and whatnot. The various evil machinery make nice deep thrumming sounds.

“Light” and “amusing” are perhaps two good words to describe Frogger 2’s graphics and sound.


Gameplay:

They also happen to be two good words to describe the gameplay. A little too short for its own good, Frogger 2 is nonetheless a quite enjoyable little romp through various themed levels, and an order of magnitude or two better than the weak original Frogger remake.

You control Frogger (and, in quite a few levels, a female version named Lillie), on a quest to save all the baby frogs from, I’d assume, Swampy. Each level has a theme, be it a Laboratory or a Jungle or whatever. And each level contains five baby frogs. By using some basic controls, you try to collect as many coins in each level as possible and rescue the babies, hopefully coming in under the “time to beat.”

Of course, not all of these are possible to do at once. You have to get all the frogs to beat the level, but as a general rule, the collecting of all the coins and the coming in under the time limit are mutually exclusive. Too many coins are placed in evil locations (at the end of moving streams, in semi-hidden areas, etc.) to be able to get them all -and- score a fast time. Getting the coins, however, opens up Retro levels and eventually new characters to play as. There are no differences between the characters, however, other than looks.

You can also play Frogger 2 multiplayer, which, while entertaining at first, isn’t going to draw any crowds. The game is definitely made for the single-player experience.

And the only real bad thing about Frogger 2 is its length. One long session and you can beat the entire title, although you probably won’t be able to collect all the coins in the levels. A few more sessions, though, and you’ll have that done too. While many of the levels are very cool in design (mmm... space...), others are merely mediocre, and don’t really warrant a second play.


Difficulty:

Easy. Frogger 2 shouldn’t take an experienced gamer more than a few hours to beat entirely, and even the lesser skilled should be able to do it in a weekend or so. There’s definite replay value, with the coins and the best times, but nothing to really draw you back in. Yes, the Retro levels are fun, but they’re also pretty one-shot.

Game Mechanics:

The main menu may take a minute or two to figure out, but it’s simple enough once you understand the concept (hopping between menu options). The controls are simple and are taught to you in the first level -- you’ve got superhop (and double-hop by tapping twice), your tongue to catch butterflies, and a “call” that shows you where frogs are. The latter is never really needed. There are power-ups in the game, such as Quick Hop, which makes you move a lot faster, but they usually just make the next area a little easier and are by no means absolutely necessary. There were a few issues with the camera not swinging around quite fast enough and therefore a double-hop not going where I wanted, but that was easy to get around (just wait a little longer).

While it doesn’t have any major flaws, Frogger 2: Swampy’s Revenge just falls a little short of perfection -- literally. It’s a wonderful ride while it lasts, but it just doesn’t hop quite far enough. It’s certainly still an enjoyable title, however, and worth the purchase if you’re a fan of the original or like the style of game. It’s simply a good game where it could have been great.


-Sunfall to-Ennien, GameVortex Communications
AKA Phil Bordelon

Minimum System Requirements:



Win9x, P200MMX, 32MB RAM, 70MB HD Space, 4X CD-ROM, 2MB Video Card, Sound Card
 

Test System:



AMD K6-III 450 running Windows 98, 256 MB RAM, 6X/24X DVD-ROM, Sound Blaster Live!, Creative Labs TNT2 Ultra w/32 MB RAM

Windows Evolva Windows Galaga: Destination Earth

 
Game Vortex :: PSIllustrated