Games section

5. Review: Superfrog

"Superfrog? Is that a new game?", some Amiga users might ask themselves. This question can be answered with a clear No, because Superfrog is just a game, which was alread published quite successfully by Team 17 in 1994. Now, Islona Entertainment made a new edition on CD-ROM. But you can forget the word 'new', because this release is nearly the same as the old one. I am lucky, that I own the original Team 17 release (it was for the CD-32) and compared both versions. So here are the differences of both versions in short: The new version offers in opposition to the old one a manual, which is squeezed on the inlay and the CD-ROM is black, now. In addition there is a small script, named 'Assign CD', which makes it possible to play this version on non-CD32 system. And last not least the manual is also present as text file. The levelcodes were put as PowerPacker crunched text file on the CD. The game itself is exactly the same as the CD32 version was.

The story, well, it is nearly a fairy tale is about a prince and his beloved princess, who live happily and in peace, until the bad witch kidnapped the princess. But not just that: The prince was turned into a little frog. At the riverside, his new home a bottle with Lucozade, that was drunk by the frog and so he mutated to a superfrog. Now he starts to get his princess back.

On the CD-ROM you find various icons: You can choose between Quickstart, Superfrog, AssignCD, Manual and Superfrog.doc. First you should select AssignCD, because this script prepares the CD for use. Manual is the original manual of Team 17, that offers a graphical interface. Due to the fact that this does not run on any Amiga, Isolna Entertainment converted the manual as text and saved it as Superfrog.doc on the CD. Quickstart starts the game directly without showing the intro. But you should not avoid it, because the 3-minute intro, drawn by Eric Schwartz is really cool. After the intro ended you find yourself in the main menu and you notice the fine music and graphics. You can set various preferences like the number of lives, the level or the levelcode. Now, just click on 'Start Game' and on it goes!

Alltogether there are 5 worlds (forest, castle, circus, pyramids and north pole) with 3 levels each. Because I played the whole game I can tell you, that there are some cool extra levels (e.g. ProjectX-Frog), you should not miss. It starts in the forest: Superfrog plays fine with joystick or joypad. In each level you have to collect a certain numbers of coins to make the target to open. After that you can gamble away the coins with the slot machine, but you can also improve your utilities. You beat opponents by jumping on them or with a tiny additional tool, you have to pick up, first.

Conclusion: Superfrog is an old, but very good jump 'n' run game. The comic graphics are gay and created with much love to the detail. As good as the graphics is the music, which was created by the well known musician Allister Brimble. Even after 5 years Superfrog is not boring, because there is much to discover. Team 17 brought many extras to Superfrog, that make it to a real adventure. To those, who like jump 'n' run games and still do not know Superfrog, it is recommended. This is the evaluation: