Jump to content
IGNORED

Retro Gamer Magazine can't help with Frogger


Recommended Posts

Living in the US, I get Retro Gamer magazine about 6-8 weeks late. I just got the one with the NES on the cover and was really excited to find out they had a full story on the complete history of Frogger in all its incarnations. After reading the chapter devoted to this game in Steven Levy's book "Hackers" and the "Many Faces of..." article in RetroGaming Times I was really hoping to get a little more back-story about how/why/when multiple Atari 800 versions were produced by multiple programmers.

 

Now I know RG magazine is UK-centric, but the magazine article not only didn't shed any light on these questions, but it didn't even acknowledge the Sierra versions of Frogger at all! The whole article was fairly low caliber. That magazine is starting to dissapoint lately.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now I know RG magazine is UK-centric, but the magazine article not only didn't shed any light on these questions, but it didn't even acknowledge the Sierra versions of Frogger at all! The whole article was fairly low caliber. That magazine is starting to dissapoint lately.

 

It definitely has gone downhill. I haven't renewed my subscription this time as I wasn't really getting any useful information from it. The seem to only ever cover the C64, Spectrum and Amstrad. Everything else gets a token mention.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It definitely has gone downhill. I haven't renewed my subscription this time as I wasn't really getting any useful information from it. The seem to only ever cover the C64, Spectrum and Amstrad. Everything else gets a token mention.

Thing is , at the end of the day RG is a UK mag , and there the Atari 8bit didnt sell as well as the three lines of machines mentioned, if they didnt concentrate on the "big three" they wouldnt sell as many copies.The same way a US retro mag wouldnt have much other than the odd token mention of the Spectrum.They're giving the Atari a bit more "love" in the next few issues apparantly though.

I liked the article myself, but if you fancy letting the author know what you think he has a forum over at http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/

Edited by dr_bob
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Living in the US, I get Retro Gamer magazine about 6-8 weeks late. I just got the one with the NES on the cover and was really excited to find out they had a full story on the complete history of Frogger in all its incarnations. After reading the chapter devoted to this game in Steven Levy's book "Hackers" and the "Many Faces of..." article in RetroGaming Times I was really hoping to get a little more back-story about how/why/when multiple Atari 800 versions were produced by multiple programmers.

 

Now I know RG magazine is UK-centric, but the magazine article not only didn't shed any light on these questions, but it didn't even acknowledge the Sierra versions of Frogger at all! The whole article was fairly low caliber. That magazine is starting to dissapoint lately.

Actually this was brought up on the RG forum(and "Hackers" is mentioned there)

Words from writer here:

http://www.retrogamer.net/forum/viewtopic....ighlight=#99148

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And he couldn't spell 'Frogger II: Threeedeep!' properly (in the magazine: Threedeep)

 

Anyway, to answer your question: Parker had the cartridge rights, Sierra the magnetic rights for computer, Starpath had the magnetic rights for console.

 

I forgot about the supercharger version. I don't think it was mentioned in that article either.

 

Really the reason I bring this up is because I have a cassette version of Frogger and both the packaging and cassette say "Chuck Benton" on them. Atarimania has assured me that I am sitting on the common John Harris version of the game, as the Chuck Benton version was never produced. The packaging said Chuck Benton before Sierra went with the John Harris version, but I don't know the back-story as to why the Benton version was not used. The book Hackers fills in a little of this puzzle. It sounds like Harris lost his Frogger code and Sierra was hedging their bets by having another programmer work on a conversion in parallel.

 

I understand Harris was a household name in the day, so maybe that explains why the Harris version was used. Did Benton port his version to other platforms?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually this was brought up on the RG forum(and "Hackers" is mentioned there)

Words from writer here:

http://www.retrogamer.net/forum/viewtopic....ighlight=#99148

 

Okay read that. He says that there's noting remarkable or in scope for the article about the game conversion itself, just the back-story is interesting.

 

I wonder, If he were doing a story on the "Definitive Grand Theft Auto" if he would leave out the part about the Hot Coffee mod because it was just back-story and not actually relevant to a "definitive" genealogy article.

 

Anyway - Retro Gamer does serve an important purpose. It's the only way I can read about retro gaming during that 15 minutes at the beginning and the end of a flight when they make you turn your laptop off.

Seriously - this is the only reason I buy it. The alternative is SkyMall :razz:

 

*edit* SkyMall deserves an emoticon.

Edited by FastRobPlus
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Update! It appears the 1981 game by Chuck Benton WAS released, at least on disk :o

 

Actually, this rarity was found on side B of an Apple version of Frogger (an early production run?). We still need proper information that this was an official release and not some sort of preliminary promotional effort or market test.

 

Anybody have an original Apple disk of Frogger?

 

--

Atari Frog

http://www.atarimania.com

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have actually been lucky enough to get into contact with Mr. Benton. It appears that he still leads the military and scientific technology solutions provider that he founded more than 20 years ago.

He offered the following information about Sierra’s Frogger.

------

Sierra licensed the disk version for the Atari computers. John Harris did the first version, which was quite successful and marketed for about 2 years I believe. For business reasons Sierra decided to do a second version that included a dual player mode, I did that version… it replaced the original Harris version in Sierra’s line up. That was immediately followed by a similar version I wrote for the C64, which was a blast to write because the tech manual was an early 3 ring binder version from Commodore… it was one the first titles released for that platform…

 

Hope that answers the question!

 

Chuck

------

So it would appear that while the Chuck Benton version of Frogger seems older, it was actually released after the John Harris version. Of course it could have been made as early as 1981 and simply held until a contract with Mr. Harris ran out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...