Dogos is a top down shooter, in which you play a pilot that has to go from mission to mission to destroy and evil enemy, bent on destroying you. Your ship has the ability to destroy both air and ground targets with its targeting system.
General Gameplay
The game itself is a shoot to its heart. A top down shooter that puts you into the pilot seat of the main character as they are trying to fend off an enemy that has you outgunned and outnumbered at every turn. A good game for those that are looking for a space ship shooter. You play as a the pilot named Desmond and you are fighting the Zeetnuk and during your mission you run into Europa that helps you fix and upgrade your ship during the game.
Audio
The audio is decent, however the background stage music just repeats the same track over and over again. The game FX sounds are the typical laser blaster, bombs, missiles and other in game effects is where the game stands out. There is no surround sound support, or any type of language that would be offensive for any family member that is playing the game. Those that use a headset will not have any issues with the games sound or dialog what so ever.
Visuals
Dogos game visuals are on par with a shooter of this style. From the ship designs, to the animation of the flying to the bullets and weapons firing, it just to seem that it fits in this shooter. Being a “shmup” style of game the graphics are well suited, from the background design to enemies seem to flow within the game structure. There is no colorblind option, however because the game is vivid in its colors there is no issues that we have seen in our play tests to have any concerns for anyone to play this and have trouble seeing any of the visual colors.
Dogos is a classic Shmup that does not disappoint any fans of the genre. A great, laid back game to have in your digital library.
Controls
The controls for a game of this nature are well done, having the triggers as your primary guns and bombs, a button for your special weapon and also the right stick moving the fighter and the left stick as your momentum is done right. In our playtest, none of our gaming family had any issues playing the game or even navigating through the game. In shooters it is especially important to have good controls and Dogos got it right.
Delivery
Shmup shooters are a rare breed as of late in the industry, and it is refreshing to see that Dogos is going back to its roots. If you are looking for a shooter then Dogos is the game that you want for your digital library. With 14 levels, sub objectives and different levels of difficulty the game has something for everyone. We wish that there were more than 2 audio tracks for the game and more ships but the game has some longevity to it. We did see through our playtest that the game does get increasingly difficulty in later levels but with the option to play a “casual” mode it makes up for it as being a great relaxing game to play. Keep in mind that this is a single player game only. There is no online or multiplayer component to this.
Family Friendly
Being a space ship shooter, is it family friendly? Yes, there is no blood or extreme violence in the game that would make Dogos a game that would not be fully appropriate for the whole family. However in our playtest with our gaming family. Some of our younger gamers got bored of the game after an hour of playing. That being said our older gamers love the change of pace and played the game for hours (myself included) Dogos is a game in which member of your family will love it or get bored of it, but we would not recommend passing this game up as it is a fun laid back shooter. In our special needs gaming test, we did not run into any issues and our special needs family members actually enjoyed the game. That being said that Dogos is a fun game. We did wish that there were more ships to choose from and more background audio but these are just minor gripes from an old gamer :). Also the game has no multiplayer, online play, or even couch co-op so keep this in mind when picking up this game as it is a single player game.
Closing
Dogos is a good game that go back to the roots of shoot them ups, maybe not for everyone in your gaming family but a game that you do not want to miss 🙂
