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1988-1989
It's 1988, and the Nintendo Entertainment System is far and away the
most dominat videogaming platform in the US (and the rest of the
world, in varying degrees). The Great Videogame Crash of 1983/84 is
now a distant memory and third party publishers are raking in huge
profits from their games for the NES. So why in the heck did a
newcomer like Froggo insist on supporting the 2600 and 7800, two
dead platforms that had no chance of competing? Give up? So do we.
The Tramiels had noticed the revitalization of the videogame industry
by this time, and their plan was to re-introduce the 2600 and 7800
machines in an effort to grab a piece of the pie. What they didn't
realize was that gamers were interested in the Mega Mans, Super Mario
Bros., Zelda, Castlevania and Metroids of the world, not Asteroids,
Centipede, Pole Position II, and Karateka. Apparently, neither did
Froggo.
Their games didn't help matters any, either. Water Ski
and Tank Command for the 7800 were poor efforts even
by 1983 standards, and Karate for the 2600 was such a
horrendous game that not even Ultravision was stupid enough to release
the same game back in 1983. Similarly, Sea Hawk,
Cruise Missile and the rest of the Froggo lineup
were pathetic excuses for a videogame, and even had the 2600 and 7800
flourished in their second go-round, it's doubtful that Froggo would
have succeeded as a game publisher.
One other note: The games released by Froggo really weren't theirs.
Virtually every single game in their repetoire were ripoffs of games
created by other companies. And the games which they copied could
just about comprise a "Worst of Atari 2600 games" compendium. Most
games were originally made from Panda while Spiderdroid
was Parker Bros.' Amidar with different sprites and
Task Force was identical to Gangster Alley
by Spectravision.
Three games -- UFO, Pyromania and
Night of the Ninja -- were announced by Froggo in an ad
in the Atarian magazine, but (thankfully) the company went under before
yet another trio of god awful games were able to stink up the
discount bins.
SOFTWARE LIST
2600
- Cruise Missile
- Karate
- Sea Hawk
- Sea Hunt
- Spider Droid
- Task Force
7800
- Night of the Ninja (not released)
- Pyromania (not released)
- Tank Command
- UFO (not released)
- Water Ski
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