Frogger

[Melf]

Frogger has been making the rounds for almost two decades, and the little amphibian star has appeared on every console known to man. Majesco inexplicably decided on the classic title as the final official domestic release for the American Genesis, and we have a full review of that port, which no doubt taxes the Genesis hardware more than any game before it! Reeebit... I mean, read it for all the details.

[The Sports Guy]

You know, I first looked at this game and went "Oh! I didnt know they made Frogger for Sega." And then I popped it in.

Here is the jist of the game.

Opening Logo.
Game.


Thats it. Nothing else. Nothing to see here. Move along now, haha.

[Alvatron]

I like the game, but I guess the terms "high score" and "options" weren't in Majesco's vocabulary.

[CRV]

Interesting this review should come now. I recently dug out my Genesis 3 and have been playing it a lot.

Also, how many versions of this (the Genesis version) are there? My copy has a Konami copyright on the title screen (which is not seen on the screenshot in the review).

[TmEE]

The game got too high score...

[vintagegamecrazy]

I figured I'd get flamed for the score for this game but despite the lack of options and stuff like that I really love this game, the wife and I can play this for an hour at a time for high scores, what's here is really addictive so scoring it lower just seemed off to me. It makes sense if you guys don't like it that much and score it lower because if your not a fan of Frogger then there's not much here to see.

[Phantar]

Oh man, they really didn't work much on the graphics, did they?

Couldn't Majesco just update the graphics a LITTLE bit, and tack on that Arcade look as an extra? I mean, it looks like an 8-bit-game! Couldn't have taken than much Rom-space, could it?

[ceibant]

Frogger is cool. Just like Pac-Man. They're both simple, addicting, pick up and play games, why expect anything more? The game itself is what earned the score. I think the review was spot-on, and I highly recommend the game. If ya don't hate on Pac-Man, don't be hating on Frogger.

[Dirt Ball Gamer]

I love frogger and don't have issue with the score. Tis a shame they did not add a few extras but at least they didn't butcher it. I love the arcade graphics but maybe they could have offered an updated graphics version in the options. Either way I'm gonna throw it in right now and get hoppin

[bohokii]

i have it too



i like froggger 2 threedeep better

its a nostalgia game

kind of like how the origional pitfall game is in the pitfall game for the genesis

they should have snuck in the 2600 version of frogger 2

[scaryice]

This was one of those last few pointless releases. No point in playing this version of the game.

[Anthall]

I like the game Frogger.

The thing I don't like about this cart though is the fact that it is so bare to the bones. There is the game, and nothing else. It's not like Ms. Pacman in which you get plenty of additional options to make the gameplay keep fresh for a little while.

[chrisbid]

Oh man, they really didn't work much on the graphics, did they?

Couldn't Majesco just update the graphics a LITTLE bit, and tack on that Arcade look as an extra? I mean, it looks like an 8-bit-game! Couldn't have taken than much Rom-space, could it?

hell no! updated graphics on old arcade games suck. its no different than ted turner adding color to black and white movies

seeing how the genesis built its reputation as a machine that brought the arcade home, this nearly perfect port is a more fitting epitaph for the genesis than madden 98

[djshok]

I can't believe that this was the last Genesis release, and that it came out in 1998! That's crazy! Like the Saturn was basically done by that point and the Dreamcast was on it's way. Damn man, you learn something new everyday. I kinda want to buy it just for that reason

[CRV]

I've been talking to programmer Scott Marshall recently. He shared with me how Genesis Frogger was developed, if anyone's interested:

Matching the Genesis Frogger to the arcade version was a lot of work and a long story but I really enjoyed it. Here are a few details:

I started off with an arcade emulator of Frogger downloaded from the Internet, with images of the original ROM data. I ran the ROM images through a disassembler, printed them out, and studied them, also dumped them in hex and created a hex editor, and made videotapes of myself playing this emulator.

Although the Genesis has a complete Z80 system it seemed impractical to port the arcade's Z80 code to run on the Genesis Z80 because of the specific screen mapped display functions it used.

I did, however, locate the music and graphics data in the arcade image ROMS. The graphics were converted with a utility I wrote. The music sequence data was loaded directly into the Genesis version, and I wrote a sequencer in Genesis 6800 code to play it.

The game logic was controlled by a new program I wrote in 68000 assembly language. I was able to match the action by studying the video tapes and duplicating the positions, speeds, and sequences of all the sprites. Sometimes I was able to match motions of objects and rows by carefully timing them with a stop watch. Some functions were divined by studying the disassembled Z80 code from the arcade game. The sound of the frog jumping was duplicated by recording on tape the arcade sound, slowing the tape to half speed, figuring out the musical notes, then locating the sound chip register settings that played those notes.

I only had enough skill to play the first 5 or 10 levels of Arcade Frogger so I had to invent the patterns of the higher levels.

He developed it on the Genecyst emulator.