Russian Subway Dogs Is a Timeless Tale of Animals and Food
Not every game ages well. Graphics grow outdated, and stories can easily reveal their age with old jokes or references. But somehow, there are games that transcend their creation date and find themselves enjoyable no matter the month or year. I predict Russian Subway Dogs will be one of those games.
Russian Subway Dogs is a fun, fast-paced arcade game about stray dogs who enter the subway in search of food. The hungry dogs must bark at unsuspecting travelers to get them to drop whatever treats they might be holding onto. The game is inspired by the real-life stray dogs that actually use Moscow’s subway system to traverse the city on their own. It’s no surprise that animals are smart; cats rescue little children from dangerous animals, pigeons learn how to cross the street, and rats carry pizza down a set of stairs. Finally, we have a game that honors the tenacity and courage of the animal kingdom.
But Russian Subway Dogs isn’t good just because of its street-smart animals. It’s a great game because of its simplicity. It follows the arcade game genre perfectly, starting off with one enemy and one incentive, and gradually increasing the risk and reward with each new subway stop. The character designs are repetitive in the classic arcade way. The screen can be riddled with the same fur coat-wearing, shawarma-eating commuters and I’d never tire of them, because each commuter is another chance to get a long chain in eating food and dodging explosive vodka and aggressive subway bears.
