Bio-Gun PC Preview

Bio-Gun is a platform shooter developed by Dapper Dog Digital. The game’s fast-paced action is similar to that found in the Metroid series. Players take control of Bek, a pig-shaped vaccine injected into the pet dog of radical scientist DocX. Bek must travel deep into the womb, battle diseases, and ensure that the next generation of dogs is highly immune. Otherwise, canines may go completely extinct.
 

 

Bek has a few but easy to understand actions. The main starting weapon is the Cyto Blaster, a gun that rapidly fires with the left mouse button. The blaster is one of the few guns that have infinite ammo. Other weapons require the use of Atomic Energy, a resource found around stages or slowly gained when killing enemies. However, Bek can also save up Atomic Energy to instead heal by holding Q - a full hold is needed, and any interruption from attacking or letting go wastes the energy.

Movement is very fluid in Bio-Gun, with Bek able to jump very far as well as quickly dash over ledges. One oddity is that the jump animation is deceptively short, with Bek landing jumps that visually look like a miss. But when a true miss happens, it can often be hard to recover. In some instances the dash will propel Bek far enough to get caught in a repeating tendril trap, retracting and extending in just the right rhythm to be inescapable.
 

 

Bek can also collect currency from enemies, used to buy items at various shops. These stores are a means of getting both cosmetic items and improving performance. The main item is CHIPs, which are further means of customizing Bek. This can include more damage dealt, additional bullets with each attack, or long-distance attacks. Other direct boosts to health or energy are gained at story intervals, mostly destroying bosses of a mission.

Players will explore the interior body of the pet dog, going from one section to the next shooting down small viruses until reaching boss encounters. Many of these are less a straight-up fight, and more a puzzle platformer. Bek will often need to dodge attacks and traverse to a certain perch, but once there can easily deal a huge amount of damage securely. Though after a few hits, the boss may throw out an attack that will cause players to retreat or suffer damage.
 

 

These safe vantages are welcome as sub menus do not pause the game (though there is an outright pause). This can make things a little hectic if one wants to further switch weapons or find out where they are. While there is a small map on the upper right of the screen, players may often need to look at the larger sub menu map to keep from getting lost.

Keyboard and mouse controls function fine, but it is clear that the game was intended for controllers. Movement and shooting feel even more fluid when using twin sticks commonly on Xbox 360 and PlayStation controllers. Additionally, some keyboard controls are never explained and only show direct controller input. This includes showing playtime with the \ key, the sub menus with Tab key, and more quickly switching guns.
 

 

Another oddity are the checkpoints, with some of them being very generous right before a hard fight or challenge, and others being far too punishingly far. Additionally, it becomes unclear how autosaves work - there are bath stations placed around but it is never explained that they are saving the game. One could easily reload their data and find out a boss fight or item did not record. To be safe, players should always manually save at bathes found along the way and never quit out during long sequences.

Bio-Gun is very well produced with an eye-popping color scheme, good art, and fantastic music for every encounter. The tone and jokes are a bit odd. It seems very likely that the virus storyline is inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic, but catered instead for dogs and other animals. It might result in Bio-Gun seeming dated down the lines. Additionally, DocX is the only character who outright speaks voiced English lines; all other characters, including Bek, use short phrases of Greek, Latin, or outright gibberish. DocX’s extreme humor feels extremely forced, even if he really cares about his pet dog.
 

 

There is currently a demo for Bio-Gun on Steam, with a planned release date later in 2022. The gameplay so far is solid, and the full game only needs some quality-of-life improvements. Lovers of platform shooters should try it out. But whether the game is worthy of a full purchase will depend on if changes are made and the final price.
 

Kurtis Seid, NoobFeed
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