Greendog: The Beached Surfer Dude!

The Good
Greendog is a fun, single player action, platforming game that sort of fell by the commercial wayside, never getting the respect it deserved.

The game's early 1990s, 16-bit graphics, animation, music and sound effects are all cool and the game adds in some little nice touches to the standard side-scrolling, action platforming based genre.

Our young, hip, surfer hero is armed with an ancient flying disk that he can throw at enemies, bosses or us it unlock various hidden objects, contained in totem polls.

He also breaks up his standard side-scrolling action by riding a gyrocopter, skateboard or inline skates.

His international adventure to free himself from an curse, takes him to many tropical, rainforest locations, with some homages to Pitfall.

Along with the nice looking scenery, the game also features some nice calypso music.

The Bad
Greendog is easy to control and the level of difficulty never gets to be too unreasonable, but it does feel a tad bit too short. I would have liked to see more levels, with some secret rooms and items to possibly uncover.

The bosses in the game are a bit of a let down. They amount to a series of random tiki-like boss, with no central villain or even final boss at the end of the game.

Sega was clearly trying to develop Greendog into a possible mascot character, so why not actually get a bit more creative with the end of level bosses?

The initial story itself is not too bad, and the ending leaves things up for a sequel, but the game never develops any main enemy or villain in the game and could have done a few more things to develop the hero.

The Bottom Line
Greendog is a fun, platforming adventure with calypso-themed music and lush tropical jungle levels. Everything about the game reflects the creativity that Sega had in the early 1990s while it was creating its own armada of mascots to compete with Nintendo.

It is a shame that the game never got a sequel, because players will beat Greendog and find themselves wanting more.