Who would have thought that the dark subway system that is the Moscow Metro would prove to be a setting exceedingly apt to stage a comedy in? Developer and publisher Spooky Squid Games hit it out of the park with their newest arcade-style simulation game, Russian Subway Dogs. Russian Subway Dogs makes a claustrophobic environment a breeding ground for comedy.
Russian Subway Dogs certainly isn’t the first attempt to depict the Moscow Metro in a video game. In fact, there exist extremely high-quality console games like 4A Games’ atmospheric, post-apocalyptic first-person shooters Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light. Those games adeptly harness the apprehension that being in a dimly-lit, foreboding, and seemingly sinister subway station well below ground-level can induce in players.
However, Russian Subway Dogs takes matters in an entirely opposite direction. Spooky Squid Games flips the proverbial switch, making the Moscow Metro a perfectly comedic venue. It feels refreshing to see an environment that at first glance appears destined to be utilized solely in somber video games be fashioned such that it can make an appearance as the locale of a comedy.
Russian Subway Dogs has players control a fictionalized and pixelated dog that lives and scavenges for food in the Moscow Metro. This idea was inspired by the fact that homeless dogs in Moscow live and scavenge in the Moscow Metro. As Russian Subway Dogs’ story goes, players’ dogs travel in a cross-species pack with three kittens and, in a not-so-subtle nod to the Karl Marx, a cat that calls itself ‘The Proletaricat.’ The five get their food by barking at the Russian passerby who board and depart the multiplicity of trains that go through specific subway stations and fight off other packs of animals to survive.
This premise translates very well to actual gameplay. The game’s controls are extremely simple: players can have their dogs jump, move left and right, and bark at people. While these controls don’t take a long time to get accustomed to, they do take a while to master. Players are situated in a subway station and need to rack up combos by collecting shawarma (the preferred meal of many a Russian, according to the game) in the air and manipulating people into throwing their exploding vodka bottles into other canines and the occasional bear.
Players need to make sure that they catch enough shawarma, vegetables, and other victuals to ensure that their dogs don’t die of starvation, which is judged by a meter on the bottom of the screen. The pace is frenetic, which really adds to the enjoyment that a player can have while manipulating their dogs.
Players can engage in this type of gameplay in Russian Subway Dogs’ two modes: an Endless Mode and a Campaign Mode. While the Endless Mode has players competing to get as high a score as possible and continues on until the player’s dog dies, the Campaign Mode has players complete dozens of unique levels. In the campaign, players unlock new subway station to scour for food by meeting a certain threshold in previous levels in terms of their scores. Each level also has a set of three mini-challenges, which adds to each level’s replayability.
Russian Subway Dogs is a fun arcade-style game to indulge in. The storyline is very topical, but Spooky Squid Games does well at pixelating the Moscow Metro and creating a very comical game. Another success from the people behind They Bled Pixels.
Rating: 9/10
Check Out the Russian Subway Dogs Launch Trailer:
Russian Subway Dogs is available for PC and Mac via Steam and itch.io for $14.99. The game is slated to release on PlayStation 4, Vita, and Xbox One in the Fall.
Mac Review
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Overall Score - 9/109/10
I'm a recent graduate of Columbia University. Gaming has been a passion of mine my entire life; I enjoy everything from RPGs and FPSs to stealth and narrative-driven games. I love the deeply immersive quality that good video games inherently possess, and am looking forward to highlighting games worthy of acclaim. When I'm not studying or reading, you can catch me playing games like Uncharted, Dishonored, The Witcher 3, and Far Cry.
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