Shoot em ups are ten a penny these days thanks to a renewed interest and publisher initiatives like Microsoft's ID@XBOX programme. So when a new title appears it has to grip you straight away and DOGOS by OPQAM succeeds initially.
DOGOS takes place in mazes, canyons and wide open areas and it's these changes of pace that really add to the game's playability. You'll constantly find yourself adapting from one enthronement to the next whilst taking on various objectives so you can progress further. My initial impression was completely thrown by the game's perspective. It's a top down view where your ship is pretty much centre of the screen but you rotate the world around you. It took a lot of getting use to and at one point I nearly gave up but I stuck with it and after a few levels it became natural and in the open area sections it's a God send. So kudos to OPQAM for taking a different approach to how you manoeuvre the ship around the screen. This freedom of movement changes how you approach the game's enemies. Strafing soon becomes second nature and DOGOS soon becomes a glorious twin stick shooter.
There are multiple difficulty levels to choose from which is handy for someone like me whose reflexes have dampened over time and as with most Shoot Em Ups DOGOS takes no prisoners and unfortunately this very quickly becomes its downfall. The majority of games in this genre encourage and reward you for being aggressive in your approach but DOGOS seems to go out of its way to punish you for playing it that way. Enemies attacks seem to be random and very erratic which totally changes the way you approach each level. Dying over and over again can test the patience of anyone and certain boss fights become almost unbearable. One boss fight in particular shoots at such a fast pace it becomes impossible to avoid as the screen becomes envelope with bullets and swarms of enemies. This really comes to a head during the last few stages where the number of enemies on screen increase tenfold and you have to navigate through force fields which also require shooting so you can pass through safely. These sections really tested my patience and in the end they broke me and I only finished the game out of stubbornness.
Unusually for a Shoot Em Up there are a few on-the-rails sections which require you to fly at break neck speed through a series of canyons to escape. Sounds great in theory and it could offer a nice change in pace but it's terribly executed. The camera angle you have spent all game getting use to changes and zooms in above your ship. I have no idea why but it does and this seriously impacts your field of view. When these escape sections start you fly off at a ridiculous speed and if you're unprepared you will crash instantly into a canyon wall with no warning whatsoever. The turns you're expected to make are so tight and precise you really have to be on top form. One section is particular still brings me out in sweats. While hurtling through this particular canyon you have to shoot down bombs and navigate your way out of a maze with no clue in which direction you should be taking. God knows how many times I went round in circles trying to find the exit and couple that with the already ridiculous speed, hairpin corners, shooting and it's a recipe for disaster.
Visually DOGOS looks good but towards the end everything just became a mess because of the amount of enemies and bullets flying around the screen at once. In the game's later levels it impedes your progress because you can't make anything out. The bright bullets blend in with the very bright backdrops. Add in ground enemies that also meld into the backdrops and it just becomes a nightmare with bullets seemingly coming from nowhere. This issue makes targeting flying enemies difficult but it makes tracking down ground targets virtually impossible at times.
I enjoyed DOGOS in short bursts but it's difficulty spikes far too quickly which resulted in me becoming extremely frustrated very quickly. Throwing wave after wave of ever increasingly difficult enemies at you is not the way to encourage you to carry on playing.
