Classic Arcade Games

The game was originally going to be titled "Highway Crossing Frog," but the executives at Sega felt it did not capture the true nature of the game and was changed simply to "Frogger".[citation needed] In addition to inspiring numerous clones, this game inspired an unofficial sequel by Sega in 1991 called Ribbit which featured improved graphics and simultaneous two-player action.

Frogger is regarded as one of the "Top 10 Videogames" of all time by the Killer List of Videogames (KLOV).

Like many games of the early 1980s, Frogger was ported to a wide variety of home systems for personal use. In the United States, Frogger was licensed by Sega to multiple companies for conversion: Parker Brothers held ROM-cartridge rights, while Sierra On-Line held magnetic-media rights. Several platforms were capable of accepting both ROM cartridges and magnetic media, thus these systems received multiple versions of the game. Sierra also sublicensed their magnetic-media rights to developers who published for systems not normally supported by Sierra; because of this, even the Atari 2600 received multiple releases: a cartridge from Parker Bros. and a cassette for the Supercharger from Starpath.

play free games online

In addition to these official releases, there have been numerous unofficial clones including Froggy for the ZX Spectrum released by DJL Software in 1984, Acornsoft's Hopper (1983) for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron, A&F Software's Frogger (1983) for BBC Micro and ZX Spectrum, Solo Software's Frogger for the Sharp MZ-700 in the UK in 1984, and a version for the NewBrain under the name Leap Frog.

Hasbro Interactive released a new version for Microsoft Windows and the PlayStation in 1997 (in this one, Frogger is green with an orange stripe). The port to the Mega Drive/Genesis in 1998 was the last game released for that system. It was also the last official North American release for the Super NES in 1998. The prototype developed for the Sega Game Gear was never released, presumably due to legal issues between Sega and Konami. A Java port of the game is currently available for compatible mobile phones.

In 2005, InfoSpace teamed up with Konami Digital Entertainment to create the mobile game Frogger for Prizes,[1] in which players across the U.S. compete in multiplayer tournaments to win daily and weekly prizes. Frogger was released on the Xbox Live Arcade for the Xbox 360 on July 12, 2006.

The 1981 Atari 2600 game Freeway is often considered a clone of Frogger, but both games were developed independently of the other, and both were released in 1981. Interestingly, Freeway, too, had a similar working title as well, "Bloody Human Freeway".

Frogger in popular culture

[edit] In film and television In 1983, Frogger made its animated television debut as a segment on CBS' Saturday Supercade cartoon lineup. On the series, Frogger was voiced by Bob Sarlatte. After only one season, Frogger and the Pitfall Harry segment were replaced by Kangaroo and Space Ace. Saturday Supercade has never been officially released on VHS or DVD.[citation needed]

The game was featured in the Seinfeld episode "The Frogger".[4] Jerry and George visit a soon-to-be-closed restaurant they frequented as teenagers and discover the Frogger machine still in place, with George's decades-old high score still recorded. He buys the machine and tries to get it home without letting it lose power, which would erase the score with his initials "GLC" (in reality, Frogger does not actually let players enter their initials). After rigging the machine up with batteries, his attempt to navigate it across a busy New York street is a direct parody of the game (which uses the same sound effects and is shown from a top down view) and ends with a "smashing" defeat. George's score was 863,050 points, even though the current world record on an actual Frogger arcade machine is 698,850.

In the MTV Movie Awards 2003 sketch, "The MTV Movie Awards Reloaded" has the Architect (Will Ferrell) saying that, while having created Q*bert and Dig Dug, he did not create Frogger but he came up with the name for it because it was going to be called "Highway Crossing Frog". The last half of the joke is actually a true fact - "Highway Crossing Frog" was the working title for Frogger.[5]

Robot Chicken parodied Frogger which looks like an enhanced version but it turns out to be a joke; Frogger crosses the road and a truck crashes into a car and explodes while people are yelling at each other. He then tells the other frogs it's time to cross the street.

In season 12's last episode of Fifth Gear, Johnny Smith's Frogger self contained unit is put into an armored vehicle, to test its construction.[citation needed]

[edit] In music

In 1982, Buckner & Garcia recorded a song called "Froggy's Lament", using sound effects from the game, and released it on the album Pac-Man Fever. The song begins:

Froggy takes one step at a time
The way that he moves has no reason or rhyme
He hops and jumps, dodges and ducks
Cars and buses, vans and trucks.

Bad Religion has also recorded a song called "Frogger" about the traffic in Los Angeles, in which the singer claims to be "playing Frogger with my life".

[edit] Other

In 2006, a group in Austin, Texas used a modified Roomba dressed as Frogger to play a real-life version of the game. Although the group expected the Bluetooth controlled machine to be crushed on its first time across, the modified Roomba was able to get across the street 10 times (40 lanes) and survive for 15 minutes before it was "killed" by an SUV.[6]