Doofus

STORY / GAMEPLAY
Throught the 12 levels you have to shoot your way past bizarre-looking creatures, jump over ponds, avoid gaps, and generally do platformy things until you get to the end. Nothing really original here, except that this game introduces another character in the form of your trusty (but clumsy) little dog name Doofus, whom you must protect from the game-dwelling beasties. Doofus will copy your actions a few seconds behind. Lives are far too easy to lose because even the dog can do it for you! Should you or Doofus come in to contact with any of the strange creatures that roam the land, a life will be lost. Fortunately, shooting nasties gives the opportunity to collect coins, which can be used at certain sports in the level in the form of shops, to buy power-ups. The land is also littered with collectible goodies, some which award bonus points and others that bestow you with weird powers, some of them bad for you health (e.g. reversing the controls!), some others good (ability to blow everything up or make Doofus invisible).
Doofus is not an original, and in fact, although its nice lookings and sound, it makes more problems to the players. The difficulty level of the game is pretty tame, with most of the deaths being caused by you running into situations too quickly, leading your dog into some trap before you've really had a chance to see what is going on.
Doofus was a cute idea back then, that ultimately lacked any lasting appeal.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The graphics are colorful, sports more than 70 colors on screen, and there's even parallax background scrolling. To be honest, the graphics have too much color and detail making the screen look plain messy. Also sprites, although cute, are the kind that would look a bit lazy in production. The boy and the dog surely don't sport more than a dozen frames per animation between them. The creatures on each level are exactly the same as those on the previous one, some fly, some bounce and the others walk back and forth.
Sound effects are well matched to the game's atmosphere, offering a few high quality samples, while the soundtrack (although cute) is far from thrilling musical experience, and not the sort of music you leave playing loud while taking a bath.