L2AGO #15
More or less the spiritual successor to Frogger 2: Swampy's Revenge, Zapper: One Wicked Cricket has you playing as this leapy electric cricket hopping through various ecosystems and environments to get his other buggy friend back so he can watch TV after his friend was kidnapped by a vulture or something... I think there's a plot to this whole game. Anyways, my friend Silverhand's more or less covered the main flaws so I won't go into too much detail regarding that; my favorite parts would have to be the simple yet satisfying laser puzzle solving in one of the end game levels (in general, adding the wrinkle of an electric attack to break down obstacles was a nice touch) as well as the entire purpose of the right joystick serving as a twirly antenna controller, reminiscent of the quack button in Duck Game. Speaking of which, I appreciate that there's this layer of satire that's taken farther than Frogger 2 through dumb enemies (the "ghost" enemies with a sheet and two cut-out eyeholes + red sneakers got me good) and exaggerated deaths; Zapper gets fucked up like Crash Bandicoot when he meets his demise, and it's all in great fun. There's also a late game level that's very similar to those 3D tunnel snowboarding minigames from the Sonic franchise, which was a nice diversion though I do wonder why there's only one of those levels, and plopped at the end to boot. I think the only other complaint I'd have to add onto is that you will need to be using the antenna detector a fair bit to make sure you're not missing the often hidden eggs, otherwise backtracking to previous sections when you often can't scroll the camera to see what's behind you is pretty obnoxious; this also applies to needing to backtrack after getting charges from collecting fireflies to open up blue boxes, though fortunately you don't need to care too much about that unless you want to unlock special cheats. Overall, I enjoyed my sparse time with Zapper as a pretty organic follow-up to Swampy's Revenge and would love to see more of these goofy kinds of sweet & short action adventure traversal games with light puzzle elements.
More or less the spiritual successor to Frogger 2: Swampy's Revenge, Zapper: One Wicked Cricket has you playing as this leapy electric cricket hopping through various ecosystems and environments to get his other buggy friend back so he can watch TV after his friend was kidnapped by a vulture or something... I think there's a plot to this whole game. Anyways, my friend Silverhand's more or less covered the main flaws so I won't go into too much detail regarding that; my favorite parts would have to be the simple yet satisfying laser puzzle solving in one of the end game levels (in general, adding the wrinkle of an electric attack to break down obstacles was a nice touch) as well as the entire purpose of the right joystick serving as a twirly antenna controller, reminiscent of the quack button in Duck Game. Speaking of which, I appreciate that there's this layer of satire that's taken farther than Frogger 2 through dumb enemies (the "ghost" enemies with a sheet and two cut-out eyeholes + red sneakers got me good) and exaggerated deaths; Zapper gets fucked up like Crash Bandicoot when he meets his demise, and it's all in great fun. There's also a late game level that's very similar to those 3D tunnel snowboarding minigames from the Sonic franchise, which was a nice diversion though I do wonder why there's only one of those levels, and plopped at the end to boot. I think the only other complaint I'd have to add onto is that you will need to be using the antenna detector a fair bit to make sure you're not missing the often hidden eggs, otherwise backtracking to previous sections when you often can't scroll the camera to see what's behind you is pretty obnoxious; this also applies to needing to backtrack after getting charges from collecting fireflies to open up blue boxes, though fortunately you don't need to care too much about that unless you want to unlock special cheats. Overall, I enjoyed my sparse time with Zapper as a pretty organic follow-up to Swampy's Revenge and would love to see more of these goofy kinds of sweet & short action adventure traversal games with light puzzle elements.
6 Comments
I had Swampy's Revenge as a kid but I didn't get far in it lol. This approach to Frogger always interested me though, so I might have to try this or one of the other games. Would you recommend I just play this or one of the Frogger games?
@DeltaWDunn: Hmm, I think Zapper is a solid alternative, but I'd still recommend playing through Swampy's Revenge first just so you can see how Blitz Games evolved from that to Zapper. I think Swampy's Revenge is a bit more straightforward too (not quite as much confusing platforming iirc), which might be for the best since you're looking to get your feet wet with some classic console Frogger. That said, I'd definitely recommend keeping Zapper in mind if you're looking for more material after that!
@Drax Alright, I'll definitely try it eventually.
I played Frogger 2, it was a very good game. Thanks for the rec.
@DeltaWDunn: Hell yeah, glad you liked Frogger 2! Happy to have been of service.
megster3000
9 months ago