Who needs a souped-up Frogger?

A commenter on my post about new (old) Xbox Live Arcade games points out, correctly, that the games are getting a makeover. I downloaded the trial of Frogger (the only one released so far), and it is updated.

I still don’t think it’s worth $5, since the “update” basically just makes it look like a Super Nintendo versi0n of Frogger and adds cheesy music. But beyond the price, it seems silly that they’ve updated it at all.

The whole point of old-school games is the nostalgia. It’s fun to relive arcade moments; it’s neat to see how much could be done with minimal graphics and a one-note idea. If I want to play Frogger, I want to play Frogger. It’s a boring game, but that’s ok. Trying to put a sheen on it just emphasizes how simplistic the game is. It’s not worthy of any kind of advanced graphics, even if it’sjust a 1991 kind of advance. Whatever it cost to update Frogger (and really, it can’t be much), they shouldn’t have paid it — and I certainly don’t want to bear the costs of that unnecessary update. Just give me plain old Frogger, or Pac-Man, or whatever. Get it all out there, without the bells and whistles, and charge what it’s worth — which isn’t much.

— July 17, 2006