PAW Patrol The Movie: Adventure City Calls

I bought this for my kids who are 4 and under. Lucky for my kids, that I was looking for games designed for little kids. It’s pawsome! Super sick that my 4 year old daughter can play this with an unlocked frame rate and on ultra settings. I swear I don't play this, it's for my kids! Alright I play too. It gets the job done but it is a bad game. woof woof ruff ruff RUFF bark bark grrr bark bark wooif woof ;) Truth is my wife recently got herself a boyfriend, and between the insults and verbal abuse this game has been a beacon of shining hope despite how bad it is. Recently this has been my only passion and obsession, I even spent our savings on a life sized model of Chase as he is my spirit animal. I mean what else was I supposed to do? It’s been two years on my own now and each day gets harder but I power on day after day, minute by minute not because of my kids, but thanks to being able to play with my favourite pupper in this game. Paw Patrol the movie, I thank you, you are a truly blessed gift for a now lonesome man. Well, it's awful, isn'it? There is very little this game does right, except for having some dogs looking at you with freakishly unnerving eyes as someone waves or dances around in the end-of-mission still. Your kid though(unless you've faked what they've said to you in a review) won't care about all the cut corners or shameless lack of effort, they'll just go "Haha, Marshall fell over again!" when he appears. But really, let me elaborate… Do not Buy Paw Patrol The Movie: Adventure City Calls. It's sloppy, poorly designed and full of bugs. My daughter really enjoys Paw Patrol On A Roll, and I've proselytized for it several times when people asked for good games for kids. "On A Roll" I continue to think is the gold standard for kid's games. It's simple, it challenges without punishes, and gives kids many opportunities to succeed and build skills from level to level. The level designs are fun and engaging for kids while being largely repetitive to allow them to reuse learned skills. And the missions are fun and funny (my daughter particularly likes "Save the Stinky Monkeys" for example). But Adventure City manages to get all of these things wrong. My daughter was particularly excited for the ability to play with me as we control a pair of pups, and the execution could be really fun, but it's so buggy it ruins the experience. First, let's talk about those character models. They updated the look of the pups to closer to the models from the film. That'd be great, but they kept the exact same low-res backgrounds and cartoony level looks. The juxtaposition is jarring. The pups look very out of place. Honestly, the previous models look way, way better. Also, Ryder looks like some kind of ghoul. My daughter immediately asked "What's wrong with Ryder, why does he look so weird". There are also a lot of missing pups. Hope your kid doesn't like Everest, Tracker or Rex because they are nowhere to be found (not like there are an abundance of female pups, so the decision to exclude Everest makes them lose any points they might get for the inclusion of the new girl pup Liberty). About those levels, sadly they all look the same. Gone are the jungles, volcanoes, harbors, snowy mountains, etc that they had in previous games. Yes, I get the game is set in "Adventure City" like the movie is, but that's no excuse for literally exactly the same street level design every single mission. It's not like they don't have any reason to mix it up. For instance, in one mission the plot is to unsnarl a traffic jam caused by a thunder storm. But the problem is there is no storm. When you get in the level its sunny and clear just like every other one. And speaking of levels, that load time. Wow. I've clocked load times of over 5 minutes for a single level on my Steam Deck. This is not a game pushing the Steam Deck to it's limits. There is no reason for load times like that. Now let's talk about the actual game experience. The game makes the incredibly questionable decision to expand the number of "Pup Treats" needed to be collected in each level from 200 to at least 600 (often 800). They bloat the numbers by just cramming more pup treats into the same amount of space. What's the point? There's no sense of accomplishment for getting more than the 200 from On A Roll because it's just the case where they would have put 3 before they put 9 or 10 (often by putting in "cookie" treats worth 5 normal treats). It just makes it easier to miss a single one for a kid which prevents them from getting the achievement. Speaking of missing a single treat, the game expands on the place I think On A Roll struggles for kids, which is non-repeatable mini-games. On A Roll has a few and they can be a real challenge for kids (like Sky's flying levels or Zuma's swimming) and in On A Roll they are the only part of the game that requires quick reflexes. On A Roll is pretty forgiving, but Adventure City is not. The controls are finicky, even I have trouble getting all of them, not because it's legitimately hard, but because the controls are not very responsive. Also the fact that you can't repeat the races means that once you miss one, you have to restart the level if you're going for full completion, the only time the game punishes failure. It's a real frustration point for my daughter, mostly because she feels its not fair when she misses one due to dodgy controls (and she's right!). Speaking of restarting, I can't go without mentioning the biggest problem in the game: the bugs. This game is horrifically plauged by bugs. It could be the best Paw Patrol game on Steam (it's not) and I'd still not recommend it based on the bugs. It took us four tries to get past the second level! The AI for the following pup is horrible. It gets stuck on geometry constantly. If you leave it behind you risk it falling through the floor and becoming unrecoverable. You have to restart the level. So most of the challenge is fighting the horrible AI and avoiding game-breaking bugs. But avoiding leaving your back-up pup behind isn't the only time bugs appear! In the mini-challenges (like aiming Chase's grappling hook or zipline) the game routinely bugs. Sometimes the controls just flat out stop responding and you can't complete the challenge. You have to restart the game. Sometimes your backup pup doesn't get moved forward after the cut-scene (even if there is a second player controlling them) meaning they fall through the floor. Again, have to restart the level. I will re-emphasize: IT TOOK US FOUR TIMES TO GET PAST LEVEL 2 SOLELY BECAUSE OF BUGS. That's unforgivable. In conclusion, the game is just bad. Level design is lazy, lots of popular pups are missing, animations are jerky, load times are abysmal, controls are wonky, and multiple game crashing bugs will frustrate your kid. This one is a hard avoid. It's a shame because the same studio has made really good kid's games. Maybe they can improve it in patches, but I'm guessing they grab their movie tie-in cash and try to make the next one better. Honestly I’m really dismayed. First Cyberpunk now Paw Patrol why has god forsaken me. I swear this industry's gone down the sh*tter So well... if It was between this and Diablo IV for your next game with your kid, I guess your choice is made. However the new Peppa pig game is fire. F**k the pawlice! 2/10