Zapper is one wicked cricket. It's right there in the title.

There are few games I have as much nostalgia for, and am completely unable to view objectively, as Frogger 2: Swampy’s Revenge. I bought that game through the Scholastic Book Club as a kid, and played it until I had mastered it. I finished it countless times – nabbing every coin and unlocking everything.

Zapper is Blitz Games’ spiritual sequel to their grid-based platforming masterpiece. It is Frogger 2... 2. It is Swampy’s Revenge strikes back. It is... inferior in just about every way.

Zapper is a simple game. You hop through the linear levels to collect 6 eggs. There are also 100 glowing orbs to find. Each hop requires a tap of the control pad, and you can rotate Zapper on the spot with the shoulder buttons. It is essentially a grid where you must navigate the obstacle course and avoid enemies that follow predetermined paths. A single hit and you are dead, and you’ll start back at the previous checkpoint. You begin the game with 20 lives, and if you run out you’ll restart the level. It isn’t a punishing game. It's a simple game for kids.

It is colorful and cartoonish like its predecessor, but the lack of the Frogger license makes it less appealing. Instead of chasing down Swampy the frog-napping crocodile, you’ll be chasing Maggie the magpie, who has kidnapped your brother Zipper and left an egg in his place. Because of this you spend the game collecting eggs instead of rescuing adorable frogs. Some of these eggs now have protruding legs, or have hatched to reveal gross hatchlings, that you will have to ZAP to stun, so that you can collect them.

The ability to ZAP your enemies with your antennae is what separates Zapper from Frogger. This allows you to stun enemies, or dissolve others entirely, often revealing glowing orbs. You also use it to break boxes, ignite fuses and burn through ropes. It’s a nice idea that suggests a version of this game with a greater emphasis on puzzle-solving and environmental interaction. You can also supercharge your antennae for a larger ZAP (I really like capitalizing the word ZAP) to break boxes marked with a lightning symbol. Because supercharging your ZAP is only possible at certain locations, but lightning boxes are scattered throughout the level, it will require a lot of backtracking if you want to collect all the orbs. In other words, I quickly abandoned the idea of collecting all the orbs, because backtracking (often multiple times) throughout a linear level is not very fun.

Another nice touch – you will come across a cluster of orbs, one of which is glowing brightly. This indicates that you must collect these orbs in a specific order, turning it into a minor platforming challenge. Doing this with give you a firefly companion that will help you access a secret area where you will find more orbs and maybe an extra life.

The levels themselves are fine. The progression of environments feels less logical than F2, but they are colorful and feature some enemy variety. My favorite was hopping along the roof of a train, avoiding fire-spewing pumpkins, and the grasping claws of raptors from within. Eventually you get to the front of the train to see this:

So... uh... 5 stars I guess