Dog Man: Bark in Action is a superb new platformer with some not-too-complex puzzles along the way, bringing great action together with the cartoon characters created by Dav Pilkey.
Along the way, the game introduces additional characters from the cartoon series, including Li’l Petey and 80-HD, some of whom fare better than others in different situations, so you’ll often find yourself switching between the characters mid-level to make the best of things.
Additional friends can also be called upon to either help you bust through walls (Commander Cupcake), top up your hearts (Nurse Lady) or crack electronically-locked doors (Petey The Cat).
However, the struggle is real with a series of mini-bosses and final bosses, some of which feel impossible to beat without taking some damage, and ‘collect all of the bones’ mini-games, where trying to crack those in the time limit is a feat in itself, and even if you do, good luck getting maximum gold badges. I generally tried multiple times, but that bonus rather defeated me!
You’ll craft new items along the way as you battle Dr Scum’s minions, and play across 60 levels within the Dog Man universe, starting with the Robo-Time Industries. Also, if you have one of those ‘friends’ things, you can play in co-op mode!
Dog Man: Bark in Action gives you several hours of great entertainment, and some platformer challenges if you really want to 100% it, although frustation might get the better of you!
Check out the gameplay, below, and there’s more to come!
Dog Man: Bark in Action is out now on PC/Steam, plus the respective online stores for Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5 and Xbox.
Important info:
- Developer: Floor 84
- Publisher: Mindscape
- Players: Single-player, split-screen co-op
PC specs:
- CPU: AMD RYZEN 9 7950X3D
- Motherboard: MSI MPG X670E CARBON WIFI AMD X670 S AM5 DDR5 PCIe 5.0 4x M.2 2.5GbE AMD EXPO™ ATX
- RAM: 64GB (2x32GB) Corsair DDR5 Vengeance RGB PC5-44800 (5600Mhz)
- Graphics Card: Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 XTX NITRO+ 24GB GDDR6 Ray-Tracing RDNA3 6144 Streams
- 1st Storage Drive: 2TB Samsung 990 PRO M.2 (2280) PCIe 4.0 (x4) NVMe SSD TLC V-NAND 7450MB/s Read 6900MB/s
- 2nd Storage Drive: 2TB Samsung 870 QVO 2.5” SSD SATA III 6Gb/s MJX MLC V-NAND 2GB Cache Read 560MB/s Write 530MB/s 98k/88k IOPS
- 3rd Storage Drive: 2TB Samsung 870 QVO 2.5” SSD SATA III 6Gb/s MJX MLC V-NAND 2GB Cache Read 560MB/s Write 530MB/s 98k/88k IOPS
- 4th Storage Drive: Seagate IronWolf Pro 14TB NAS 3.5″ SATA HDD/Hard Drive
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.