Zapper: One Wicked Cricket

2002 Infogrames

Theres an electrifying new personality in town. In this interesting new take on the Frogger style of game play, you play the role of Zapper, a cricket whose brother gets kidnapped.

Throughout the games four interactive worlds, Zapper must use his various skills (such as electrical zaps from his antenna, or super jumping) to defeat enemies and collect eggs that are scattered around the landscape.

With a combination of timing, zapping, and jumping, you move Zapper throughout the world and eventually to the final battle with Maggie to retrieve your Larvae brother.

Features:
Four interactive worlds, eighteen levels.
Intuitive control system
Increasingly complex levels
Multiplayer games for up to four players


Dean Bergmann: Alright, being someone who isnt the arcade buff that other gamers may be, I rarely have the opportunity to play games of arcade nature (with the exception of Mortal Kombat).

Zapper is almost a new generation of Frogger instead of crossing streets with cars; you must cross streams and evade baddies with super jumps and your zapping capabilities.

This game opens with what seems to be a great cinematic and storyline, totally fluid and a good first impression of this third party title. The music is great, the intro is funny, and you want to actually save Zappers lil bro.

Then, you get into the game. Now, being a third party title it has that PC-look with a touch of GameCube rendering to it. Still, a nice looking game.

This game is very linear; you go from point A to point B with hidden areas that arent very well hidden. The controls are quite difficult to figure out at first as well, if facing one direction, to turn around you must move one block, most gamers (including myself) will overlook the change direction capability of the Y button.

Aside from the controls being a little bit rough, Zapper is quite an enjoyable game. The menu music is something that I found very catchy it made me wish there were variations of that theme in the game (sadly, there wasnt). If you were a big fan of Frogger, youll enjoy this game immensely, if youre someone looking for a puzzle game, this is for you too. In addition to timed jumps and some interesting moves, youll find yourself dying more often then you might think.

My verdict? A definite renter for a rainy day, and if you have a Frogger-Fanatic as a friend, this game would be an excellent gift.