Finding release on the PC, XBOX and of course the 360, Dog Tag is a squad based shooter in which you play as a four man fire team who have been dispatched into Africa to find out what happened to a missing group of highly trained marines. As the adventure unfolds the fire team you play as discover that they are being attacked by the marines they were set out to rescue. Cue 15 missions of squad based action. Graphically the game is already looking very sharp at such an early stage in development. The quality of the environments textures are rendered in an extremely high resolution taking advantage of the XBOX 360’s superior graphical specs. The soldiers also do not disappoint as all their attributes are rendered to the highest quality. This game is not an all out guns blazing title, the game relies heavily on using the available cover which is placed throughout the levels you play in. Virtually every object within the game will be available to be used as cover, but the game boasts a highly interactive explosions system, meaning as grenades, bombs and rockets are fired, the environment will destroy with it, thus it is likely you will have your cover blown from right underneath you. This game relies heavily on its single player mode, and as your squad is only four people strong you will need to get to know each of your teams members as well as possible. As you might expect each of the characters provides their own personality and each character will need to be handled differently. You can talk to the characters by using a number of streamlined commands by using the buttons on the 360 pad. A nice feature in this game, however, is the ability to be able to jump into any one of your four characters shoes at any point. This means you have full command of the whole team. Very little is known about the possibility of Live play in Dogtag as of yet, however the developers have confirmed that the game will have a “four to a 360” multiplayer mode. An XBOX Live mode would be expected though – with some kind of four on four team combat play and modes such as capture the flag. Dog Tag looks like it is shaping up to be a nice game. The “backs to the wall” style gameplay will provide a challenging game overall, however it will be interesting to see how the developers deal with the frustration that may be caused by a game like this. The game is expected to launch next year on the XBOX 360, a few months after it comes out on the XBOX and PC.
