stop_rebel_scum

Phew.. I thought my 7800 was screwing up when solvalou started shooting both at once. Also, I didn't know it had difficulty switches... I'm gonna go look for those now. Ok... Sneaky buggers. Now is left position expert and right novice, like the 2600? Do these switches even have a function in most games, since many games have a difficulty selectable with the joystick or select button?

This runs in issue No. 2 of my zine. I might be off a little on dates and technicalities, which i'm somewhat interested in correcting. Enjoy. Most people have played the popular video game Frogger, but few have considered what the game has to say about ourselves and our world. Adapted by Parker Brothers for the Atari 2600 VCS in 1982 from a Sega arcade hit, the game pits a defenseless little frog against a host of hostilities and obstacles. At first, this seems to be some innocent fun, but core truths about humanity are set out plainly in the game. When you first insert the cartridge and power up the system (for those who don't have an Atari but do own a home computer system, see appendix A) , you are shown a microcosm of earth. There is a green planet with significant water coverage, quite a bit of human development as well as the presence of other species. Surrounded by the green earth, the trees that pump oxygen into our air and clean it of pollutants, there are two narrow yellow strips forming the boundaries of human development. Within these, a deep black asphalt surface is constantly traveled in five lanes by differing vehicles. Past the yellow strip at the top of this lane is the deep, fast river where lily pads and logs offer you a dangerous crossing to your home. You are a frog. You are not a frog because it's cute, you are a frog because frogs have much to teach us about who we are. In any environment where they live, frogs are the barometer of the health of that system. Their thin, absorbent skin takes on the character of their habitat. When polluting factors begin to enter that habitat, frogs are the first animal to show traces of the chemicals. They are among the first to be affected, some frogs dying, growing extra legs or eyes, or even becoming gender-neutral or hermaphroditic. In this century, polluting factors in human society and our physical world are stressing the biosphere of the earth to the point of toxicity. As the depleted ozone layer poisons us with cancers, acid rain eats our crops and industrial air pollution brings pulmonary and respiratory diseases to our children, it's clear that humanity has become the very frog that now faces an uncertain future. The reason for us to cross the road is a paradox in a way; for although our reasoning is to return home or to find love and create a new home, the journey always begins again at the next level. This blind but sometimes beneficial obedience to instinct is what drives all animals. While the yellow median of childhood will protect us from the oncoming cars of the world, it's clear that the small black bar is slowly ticking away our lives and that we cannot stay safe forever. When one leaves the safety of their life as a child, the world is seen as a threatening maze of obstacles. The black tar of the Road represents the physical and social challenges the world will face you with. You need to navigate them with utmost care, but be as swift as you can within the overall scheme of safety. These challenges are represented as cars, which has some significance as an aside. Cars very well may be the challenge of the twenty-first century as oil prices rise and supplies dwindle. Will our societies be able to adjust to an economy without cars and their petroleum market? Chillingly, cars are quickly becoming popular in China where they have had little penetration for so long. This representative significance could be coincidental, as the cars have more meaning when classified according to make and color. The first car is small and reddish orange. This is obviously the beating heart of the mother and young child; the child's needs and how they are fulfilled. In a childhood full of love and understanding, the child will grow to become a whole and secure person. Without these benefits, trust and other important attributes will be compromised, leading to a stunted development. If you successfully pass this first hurdle, you're confronted with the purple auto. Purple is traditionally the color of passion, and this represents gaining control over your emotions and mentality. Even if you have a satisfied childhood, you still must become the master of your self. The purple car mostly covers the teen years of development and includes early sexual awakening. Beyond that lies the middle of the physical road, covered by the Green car. While bearing some incidental resemblance to yourself as a frog, the car represents both money and social currency as well as personal resources. In this stage, the young human is finding their place in the job market, trying to come up in the world. Beyond the job market is the pink automobile - Love. The search for lasting love is a strong motivation for most people and has great meaning in life. Once that search is completed, there is only the fading grey hair of the white car - age and death. In many levels, this is not a car, but a truck. It's the truck you never got the number of after it hit you. However, the dichotomy of the road and river is not purely chronological, but parrallel in some ways. Just as the cars and road represent both physical and social challenges, the river represents both personal/emotional/mental challenges bridging with the social ones. It would be a misrepresentation to show the challenges of the external life preceding the challenges of the internal world, as the game seems to do, but it is not meant to be wholly chronological. This weak point is perhaps caused by the poor ROM storage space afforded in many atari carts - Frogger is likely a 4k ROM, literally a tiny fraction of the now familiar megabyte. To return to topic, the frog is now faced with a model of the internal conscious and the subconscious. Freud tells us that water, particularly deep water, is representative of the subconscious and dream-state mind. This river is navigable only intermittently through the use of several objects - lily pads, logs, and alligators. It's hard to speculate the exact meaning of each of these as we've entered a more nebulous realm, but some basics can be laid down. The lily pads are inconstant - blinking out of existence after a short warning. These are ill-held convictions, thoughts or relationships that can help someone through a short stage in their life but lacking enough weight to carry you through. You pass from these early mental constructions of self and others into more concrete stages - shown by the logs. These are the principles and people who will see you through your life, whatever they may be. For some people religion of a kind or other is a raft to ride safely, where as others trust in the benevolence of hope and love in general or specific relationships. Some of these logs contain another animal: A white frog or a green snake. The logs containing the white frog are emotional and sexual relationships with a loving partner. While it seems the white frog is swallowed up by the green, this is again only because the system was incapable of representing both of them journeying to their eventual home. "Just hop Frogger close enough to her so she'll jump onto his back. You'll hear a high-pitched sound when she does. Now, try to get Frogger - and the lady frog - home to safety." (Frogger Instruction manual, Parker Brothers)The logs with a snake represent toxic relationships which can stall your journey through life. When these snakes enter the yellow median in later levels, this represents the unfortunate incidence of toxicity with the home. The final (again, chronological order is not important in the inconcrete subconscious mind) step is on the back of a very dangerous creature! You may ride the alligator's tail or back safely, but one step towards his jaws and your journey is cut short. The alligator is somewhat of an enigma. For some people, he is coming to face with your own mortality and finite existence - an important step in late-stage self development. For others, he represents the danger of personal coagulation, when opinions solidify into a rigid and unlearning heart and mind. To quote Tony Crisp, "In ancient Egypt the crocodile was worshipped as the god Sebek. It possibly represented the destructive forces of the unconscious, although it was also seen as a creative force through the observation of the crocodile emerging from hidden depths to lay its eggs on the river bank. In this sense the crocodile or alligator in some dreams represents a personal confrontation with eternity. Depending upon the dream, the crocodile may well depict fear of being swallowed up by eternity or the cosmic mind." Riding the back of the alligator is the acceptance of death inside of life and this carries you to your final home: the green paradise of the river's edge. There's only one leap left to secure your place in things, happily ensconced in your destination. Sometimes there is the added bonus of a fly, sometimes the final danger of the alligator in the home - perhaps the birth of a child or a premature death in your burgeoning family. Once the race is run, you find yourself again at the beginning! Yet, you are not the same frog, as you can see your former self happy at the top of the screen, basking in his self-realization and emotional maturity. You are indentical to him, of him.. because we are all human. Compassion and love ultimately flow from the knowledge that others are like us and know more or less what things feel like to us; and our own knowledge of pain and pleasure can lead us to learning to live with others. In this way, Frogger offers a message of love and hope: given a little effort, we can all find our way to the promised land. This is not the vague and far off heaven of the deistic religions, but a small piece of human comfort and the knowledge that we will be remembered by those who come after us. It will require attention to our society and the technology it spawns, the effects of that technology on the environment and our own selves. This is a maze that must be carefully navigated, and the clock is ticking. If we can rise to the challenge, a brighter future is ours - this is the word of Frogger. Next: River Raid and the rise of the Nazi Party Appendices: A. Emulation: For those of you who have an internet connection but no Atari, emulator programs will allow you to try out Atari games on your computer. One of the best for the Atari 2600 is Stella. A google search for Stella or Atari emulator will direct you to the program while Frogger, Atari 2600 and ROM are some keywords that will show you to the game file. If you do not own a copy of the game, you are not legally allowed to keep the ROM. But everybody does and damn sure will continue to. It's a frickin Atari game. B. Frogger Hints: A good joystick is a must for this game - the Atari standard isn't bad, but you might want something with a little more click on the contact points to register your movements. Watch out for the backs of cars.. it's easy to accidentally run yourself into the back of a car that's moving away from you, and the squish is just as effective. Don't worry about timing until about the fourth or so screen. White lilypads are usually about to fade away, but in some later levels are about to fade in. When the white frog appears, she'll always be on the leftmost of the first set of small logs (sometimes two, sometimes three) and you'll be able to tell she's there a split second before you see her because the logs go flickery. This is also true of the larger log when it contains a snake in later levels. Both the snake and white frog will dissappear when the logs go through the side of the screen. The Atari difficulty switch controls your ability to move through the side of the screen as well: if it's on expert, you will get splatted for staying on a pad, log or gator when you hit the edge. This makes it particularly hard to get to the very first home bay and will require some fast jumps. In easy mode, you can drift right back to the first one at you leisure. Getting a fly is much harder than the white frog. Scoring: (From Manual) Successfully jumping Frogger forward . . 1 point Successfully jumping Frogger home . . . . 5 points Successfully jumping 5 frogs home . . . . 100 points Taking a lady frog home . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 points Eating a fly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 points Extra points for time left . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 points per remaining second A bug submitted to a game site: Stryker82 (jeff_wuz_here@hotmail.com) Set the difficulty level to allow your frog to move off the screen while on a turtle or log. Begin game play and jump on a log that moves to the right, and ride off the screen. Jump left immediately after your frog appears on the left side of the screen to re-appear in the center. C. Errata: the game manual claims the lilypads are Turtles. I disagree, but either way, my logic stands.

I'm just missing beamrider and cosmic commuter now. I was very disappointed with rampage, but I guess I shouldn't have expected much. I think my favorites are pitfall 2 and hero. I also love the much-maligned plaque attack. I'm getting decent at double dragon and kung-fu master. The trick in double dragon seems to be "stand still and only use kick", because I can't do anything else without getting whupped in a hurry. How are beamrider and cosmic commuter? I don't emulate much and have never played them. Also, hi. I'm new. How many people tend to post here? What percentage of them are knowledgeable or programmers?