Doug Hates His Job [Xbox]
Developed by Super Villain Games (not to be confused with the similarly named Super Villain Studios), Doug Hates His Job is a game that sees you take on the role of Doug, who - you guessed it - hates his job. Theres tonnes of different gameplay elements, with levels based on Beat ‘Em Up style games, on-the-rails shooters, Trivia games and more. The issue this puts out is that Doug Hates His Job quickly becomes obvious as a Jack of all Trades, Master of None type deal in that maybe the game would have turned out better had it focused on one area of gameplay and perfected it, instead of mashing multiple into the one game and hoping for the best. It’s a shame really, as - done well - having a variety of gameplay styles could have been a massive draw for people. I’m sure that aspect does attract the attention of fans of all manner of genres - after all, it’s one of the reasons we were really interested in playing - but sadly it fell short and left us feeling disappointed in how god awful it is.
On first glance, the art style of Doug Hates His Job seems quirky, but decent enough but something just felt a bit too recognisable. The city and park elements (as seen below) are the same as from the likes of Hole.io, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing to use pre-rendered graphics but if the gameplay is suffering, and it’s not because the art-style is taking the bulk of the developers’ attention - then what is? And with minimal sound effects and fairly bland music, this further hits this home. There is a decent bit of humour here, and whilst not every joke lands well - this helps to elevate things slightly from being totally boring throughout. I’ve tried to make a game before, but gave up when I realised I just did not have the skill nor patience to get right the way through the long process, so I do appreciate the effort they have went into and it’s hard to be so critical - but at the end of the day, if you’re going to charge money for a game, it needs to provide some level of enjoyment.
Overall, Doug Hates His Job tries to dip its fingers into too many pies, tainting them all in the process. At £5.79 on the Xbox Store, it’s not an overly expensive title by any means - but it’s not enough to easily justify when there is such a vast library of titles for the same price or less. It’s a short game at just around an hour in total to 100% complete, so after finishing it we uninstalled, as there’s absolutely nothing to get you to go back for any additional playtime. The controls feel janky and lacklustre throughout, which could be a byproduct of jamming so many different play styles into the game, but no segment of the game feels enjoyable. Even the beat-em-up sections, which are the bulk of the gameplay, felt stiff and awkward which meant that hitting enemies just felt really unsatisfying. I really wanted to like it and there’s a lot of potential here with Super Villain’s ideas but as it stands, sadly I just can’t say it was worth the time spent with it.
In the end, we decided to give Doug Hates His Job the Collecting Asylum rating of 3/10.
Have you played Doug Hates His Job yet? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to Super Villain Games for the Doug Hates His Job Xbox review code!
