Game Reviews

Crossy Road Review

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Crossy Road Review
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| Crossy Road

Frogger is one of those games that I just didn't appreciate when I was growing up. It was too difficult for little uncoordinated ol' me, so I just avoided it. Some years later I tried it again and actually found it to be pretty fun.

And then Crossy Road comes along and turns my enjoyment into something bordering on obsession.

Why did the chicken...

Crossy Road is Frogger, but it's not. It's more like endless Frogger with a great visual style, an isometric perspective, tons of unlockable characters, and random terrain generation. There's not a single part of that sentence that I don't love.

The controls are simple enough. Tap to hop forward one space, and swipe left, right, or down to hop one space in that direction.

The challenge comes in getting through all those randomly-generated obstacles - and in passing your Game Center friends' high scores, which are displayed along the road at the appropriate distance.

Crossy Road also nails the whole "Wow that was tough but let me give it another shot" thing that's become quite popular with mobile games lately.

It's easy to make a mistake and get flattened (or snatched up by an eagle if you get too close to the bottom of the screen), but it's just as easy to dive right back in for another go.

Oh, wait, that's a zombie

I think Crossy Road's presentation helps quite a bit in that regard, too. It uses this very stylized, blocky, cartoony look that I can't help but love, and there are a lot of characters for you to unlock - from woodland creatures to movie monsters to cameos from other mobile titles.

These additional characters are all functionally the same, but it can be pretty funny to hop around as a zombie that literally loses its head when struck, or a celebrity that practically explodes into a cloud of money.

Unless you really, really hate games like Frogger, I can't think of a good reason to avoid Crossy Road. It's simple, addictive, and loads of fun. Sort of a perfect storm of mobile game fundamentals.

Crossy Road Review

Crossy Road might be based on an arcade classic, but it looks great and offers tons of replayability on top of simply being lots of fun
Score
Rob Rich
Rob Rich
Rob Rich is the editor of 148Apps.com