Inside Social Games

Frogger is an action/arcade adaptation of the iconic 80s game. Unlike other adaptations of early video game icons (like Mario Bros), Frogger was really enjoyed by an age group that is now markedly older than the generation associated with Facebook (students). So this is actually a riskier adaptation than the childhood icons of say, Mario, Contra, or Zelda (speaking of which, can someone make a good port of Contra or Zelda? Pretty please?).

Frogger demands that you navigate a little frog across a street populated by moving cars, bulldozers, and trucks that can run you over. If that wasn’t enough, our little green-pixilated hero must then jump on various logs to get home to his lily pad. I could probably write in great detail about the subtle commentary of a game like frogger - a game that demands you avoid symbols of man’s destruction of nature (cars, trucks, logging) in order to endure - but it’s late so we’ll cut to the chase.

The graphics are what you’d expect of a port of an 80’ss game and aren’t jazzed up much. I’m fine with that and it gives the game some “cred” in the experienced gamer circles. The controls are as stiff as the original, which is expected, and the game is challenging and as addictive as ever. It hasn’t aged as well as some games, and Frogger doesn’t have the same following Mario does, but the developers get credit for trying it out.

The Facebook version of Frogger is a faithful adaptation that does little to expand on the original. You can challenge your friends, you can invite people, and you can unlock new features (right now, that means you can pause the game) after you earn credits. The developers don’t make much of an effort to adapt the game to the social networking capabilities of Facebook, but I’m going to cut the game some slack and assume it’s just a beta. This froggy is just a tadpole, so we’ll see how it grows.

Gameplay: 6

Developers: 4

Difficulty: 8