Overview
Dog's Life is a comedic third-person action-adventure game developed by Frontier and published by SCEE for the PlayStation 2 in Europe on October 31, 2003. It was later released in both North America (by Hip on September 14, 2014), and Japan (by Success on May 26, 2005).
Players control an average dog named Jake as he travels through the rural United States to rescue his love interest (a Foxhound named Daisy) from dogcatchers Wayne and Dwayne (who are later revealed to be working for the owner of a crooked cat food company that processes live dogs for its product).
Along with product placement for the Pedigree brand of pet food, the game is known for holding the Guinness World Record for the most characters voiced by a single voice actor in one video game (as voice actor Kerry Shale voiced 32 characters in the game).
Gameplay
To advance through the game, Jake must find bones which can be obtained by digging them up, beating other dogs in a variety of challenges, completing challenges set by human characters or by collecting special smells.
The game is divided into three different areas:
- Clarksville, a rural town
- Lake Minniwahwah, a ski resort
Smellovision - Boom City
These locations are divided into even smaller areas such as farms and housing districts, each full of humans willing to give bones to Jake if he complete their missions. There are dangers in certain areas, with a dog catcher and a Doberman out to catch Jake.
Certain smells can be collected using the game's "Smellovision", which can activate challenges against other dogs. These missions include races, obedience trials, tug-of-war games and a territorial game where the player must run around urinating in marked areas to obtain territory. Once this dog has been beaten, the player can take control of this dog and use his/her abilities to find bones that Jake cannot reach by himself. The other two challenges include scent collection challenges, and a mini-game called the Doggy Do Challenge where the player must copy the moves of the local dog.
The player must also look after Jake by feeding him any of the food found around the area, or by begging from or growling at people in order to convince them to give him food, and cleaning him in the local salons, along with acquiring a new collar.
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