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Prior to playing Mission Impawsible, I was not aware of Dog Man, but it seems to be a series of books by Dav Pilkey, focusing on a dog superhero – and not a man who dresses up as a dog. Calling himself the Bark Knight, he is joined by his two Supa Buddies on a series of silly adventures. I say silly, but I imagine I’m not the target audience!
Anyway, what this is leading up to is the launch of a game based on the Dog Man universe, going by the name of Dog Man: Mission Impawsible, put together by Floor 84 Studio and Mindscape. Taking the form of a traditional platformer, Dog Man: Mission Impawsible is a game that seems to be aimed firmly at the younger gamer demographic, and while I’m no longer young, I like to think that I’m young at heart…
Dog Man: Mission Impawsible’s story is somewhat silly, but it is in keeping with the universe of Dog Man, so that all ties in nicely. It appears that the key to the city has fallen into the hands of a “supa bad guy” and that this particular key, instead of being merely a civic honour, has the power to unlock all the prison doors across the city! With a tide of evil baddies thus released, the only one who can save the day is Dog Man and his Supa Buddies. Can we put the wrongdoers back in jail and recover the key?
Looking at the presentation of the game, and this is a classic side-on platformer, where, as usual, we start at the left hand edge of the screen and have to overcome various obstacles on our way to the waiting press at the right hand side of the screen. Between us and them are various jumping puzzles, and also a few enemies to overcome.
The enemies are a silly bunch, with things such as a gang of hot dogs roaming around, and mailboxes that fire letters at our heroes. The design of the heroes and the enemies seems to be as if someone cut out a series of characters from a piece of paper and glued them onto a backdrop, lacking depth, running in 2D, much like the design and implementation of the Paper Mario series of games. This works very well, and adds to the style of the game.
The sound is also as you’d expect, with all the platform gaming tropes – bouncing, jumping and so on – all present and correct. There’s nothing to complain about here apart from a slight lack of originality, but if that was a criteria for reviewing games we might as well all give up and go home now!
Gameplay is also straight out of the Mario playbook, with various nods to the Nintendo franchise plainly visible. To defeat an enemy, for instance, you have to jump on their heads. This doesn’t kill them, however, and it merely stuns them for a small amount of time before they shake it off and carry on doing whatever they were doing. Not being able to finally kill run of the mill enemies seems a bit weird at first, but Dog Man obviously works on the same principles as Batman, so we’ll let it slide.
One area where there is a bit of originality is in the characters that we can play as, and the various powers they can find.
We start off with only Dog Man at our disposal, and he is very much a jack of all trades, able to jump (but not too high) and generally bimble his way through levels. Next we unlock a small cat, going by the name of L’il Petey, and his alter ego is Cat Kid. Petey is a much smaller character, so can’t jump very well (as we all know, cats aren’t known for their jumping abilities) but, being short of stature, he can go where Dog Man won’t fit, strolling through little gaps. Finally, we also get access to 80-HD; a big robot that has a high jump ability, allowing him to access areas that Dog Man can’t reach. The downside to 80-HD is that his metal body weighs a lot, so he will fall through breakable platforms straight away, whereas the other two won’t.
As you can see from this brief overview, choosing the right Supa Buddies at the right time is a key part of the game, and this becomes even more critical when they gain their extra powers. Dog Man gains the ability to dig holes when he finds some pants, for instance, and this can be used to progress in certain areas. I’ll leave you to find out what the other two can do, but the finding out is all part of the fun, so you’re welcome!
In conclusion, Dog Man: Mission Impawsible is clearly aimed at the younger player, and as such it fulfils its brief admirably. It isn’t too taxing, although the jumping controls are quite inaccurate, with a weird kind of slide taking place when the characters land. This often slid me off the platform I was trying to get to, which caused a few moments of frustration. It is possible to adjust though, and from there on out, it is pretty smooth sailing.
For the fans of the books, Dog Man: Mission Impawsible is an easy sell. But for everyone else, there are better platformers out there.
Dog Man: Mission Impawsible Unleashes Hilarious Heroics on Consoles and PC – https://www.thexboxhub.com/dog-man-mission-impawsible-unleashes-hilarious-heroics-on-consoles-and-pc/
Buy Dog Man: Mission Impawsible on Xbox – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/dog-man-mission-impawsible/9pljvq31jzt1