When it comes to this game the ESRB rating for T is not meant for anyone 13 and older, but rather anyone 13 and younger.
User Rating: 6.5 | Dog's Life PS2
The thing is, this game’s not all that great. Admittedly, I wasn’t expecting much when I played it and in the end it delivered. You play as a dog, of course, and while this is a neat idea and all, it’s just not enough to make up for the rest of the game’s short comings. You have a number of missions to complete in each town that, unfortunately are contrived and extremely formulaic. You’ll have to find a certain number of different color scents that will either unlock a bone or a mini-challenge. If you complete the mini-challenges successfully then, you guessed it, you get another bone. Additionally, though on paper some of the mini-challenges seem unique (peeing on multiple corners of a grid to mark more territory than another dog), they end up being bland and boring in terms of gameplay and when you couple them with having to do such things as race another dog again and again at horribly low speeds, the overall experience is far from unique or satisfying. Most of the voice acting is passable, I guess. But there were a few times when some of the supporting characters made me wince a time or two. The writing, however, is worse. Oh, how many times you’ll have to hear, “I feel the need…the need to feed,” and other similarly mundane phrases. The graphics are good enough. Nothing great. They get the job done. The dogs stand out as being the best artwork though and they animate pretty realistically. The sound is alright – the sounds of occasional barking and such. The music is bland at best. But its biggest problem ends up being there isn’t enough variety. You’ll hear the same music again and again. The control of the dog is okay, it’ll get the job done. But one of the problems here is that since you have to find so many different colored scents you’re forced into running around in a first-person perspective, where the control lessens, and worse, you end up losing the whole experience of being a dog. There is some enjoyment in farting, pooping and peeing, but once you’ve done it a couple times the novelty wears off. You can lift your leg and pee on people if you like and bark at a few chickens and cats, but ultimately you’ll probably only find yourself doing this because there isn’t any real fun to be had otherwise. I don’t know. I guess I was simply hoping for too much. I mean, if the developers were going to take on a project this unique (playing as a realistic dog with realistic abilities) you’d think they’d put more into the game than they did. Yet, sadly, in the end you have just another ho-hum game. In fact, if this game did not have you playing as a dog, but rather any other general videogame protagonist, I don’t think anyone would have even heard about it in the first place. It’s just that generic. Also, after playing it I really came away with the feeling that this game’s only demographic was the under thirteen crowd. And in fact, when this game is at its weakest, I wondered if it weren’t some junior high school project. Really, it’s that immature. And the thing of it is, it really didn’t have to be. Take a look at a ton of other “cute” games out there – Mario, Klonoa, etc. – they may look like a game only a kid would play, but in reality they are accessible to adults in many ways as well. Unfortunately, A Dog’s Life didn’t strive for this and though there is definitely an audience out there for this game, for those of us who desire more than just a generic experience, this isn’t a game really worth playing for more than a couple hours.
