Dog's Life is developed by Frontier Development, directed by David Braben (the man behind legendary space trading/combat epic ELITE), and is their second platform adventure in quick succession (the other being the rather good Wallace & Gromit in Project Zoo) so we were naturally keen to see what it would be like to see the world through the eyes of a dog…

You play Jake in this platform action adventure, a playful young doggie who gets dognapped along with his favourite bitch Daisy. Luckily Jake's cage falls off the back of his capturer's truck and he escapes, and so you (Jake that is) set out to try and find the lovely Daisy and get involved in a tense and sinister plot that... naah - I'm telling you too much and that would spoil it all, safe to say that Jake has to look for stuff, help people and other dogs in order to get help and bones from them.

Bones? - yep, you see bones are the Dog's Life equivalent of cash or kudos, and the more you have, the further you can progress and the easier tasks will be. You can find bones in bins, buried in the ground or win them from other dogs - you'll also get rewarded for helping humans with bones. Dog's Life initially paints such a pleasurable picture of small town USA and that makes it dead easy to get into and playing it is a real chill-out experience compared to many other recent games. Clearly aimed at kids as far as the difficulty setting goes, it never becomes annoyingly difficult or over-taxing, and Frontier squeezed plenty of farting and pussy "jokes" in to amuse the elders. This is the epitome of the thoughtful 'play-along-with-the-kid-game' that seemed to be popular for a while, completely disappeared and is now thankfully returning - gaming Mum's and Dad's will know what I'm talking about.

   

You can make Jake do just about anything that a dog can do (hey, I did say you could play it with the kids), and this includes running and jumping around like a loon, chasing cats, sheep, hens, rats and skunks, playing with other dogs, digging, peeing, pooing, sniffing… Yeah, there's lots of sniffing. Being a dog with an incredibly sensitive nose, there are scents everywhere on the levels, and by pressing triangle you go into "smellovision" first person (make that first dog) mode. In this view the colour gets slightly bleached from everything, but smells stand out as various coloured plumes that look like smoke flares - you collect a certain number to earn a bone or trigger an event. You can also smell (see) footprints and track people and other dogs. The freedom within the levels is wonderful, and Jake is free to wander the huge environments at his leisure trying out his canine abilities and only when you're ready are mission type races, platforming sections etc. introduced. As well as mongrel Jake you get to interact and control over 20 breeds of dog, all of which have their own special abilities, for instance a Chihuahua can fit through a cat-flap and a Doberman is good for intimidating someone who isn't scared of Jake. If intimidation doesn't work then maybe begging will, and Jake can also learn different begging techniques from various other dogs that can be performed with various button combinations.

   

It isn't all wine and roses though, as I said earlier there's a sinister plot afoot and you also have to keep Jake well fed and groomed or he'll get lethargic and miserable - and watch out what he eats or he'll get an upset stomach and start farting like a foghorn.

Other than the usual third person game camera problems (this often rears its ugly head on stairs and the like), and the varied music that'll sometimes remind you of the excellent Due South TV series and at other times have you searching for the sound options, overall Dog' Life was a pleasure to play, not too long, not too short and just about right as far as ease of play goes. There are a few missions and races that you won't win first time but this is definitely one that's perfect for the kids (or the gaming inept like me).