The Dig

LucasArts

Adventure

Minimum System Requirements:

• COMPUTER: IBM and 100% Compatibles.
• OPERATING SYSTEM: Microsoft DOS 6.0 or greater
• CPU: 486DX2/66 required minimum
• VIDEO CARD: 256-color VGA, VLB or PCI bus required
• CD-ROM DRIVE: Double-speed CD-ROM drive required; MPC LEVEL 2 REQUIRED
• MEMORY: 8MB RAM required minimum
• HARD DISK DRIVE: 1MB available space required for minimum install
• SOUND CARDS SUPPORTED: Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster 16, AWE 32, Pro Audio Spectrum, Ensoniq Soundscape, Gravis Ultrasound and 100% compatibles
• INPUT DEVICE: Microsoft 100% compatible mouse required. Joystick optional

Bad Mojo

Good old LucasArts has gifted us with another game of note. I won't even touch on the plot for fear I might give away one of its nicest points. The story, the concept, most of the puzzles and the total feel are great. The game is playable but due to the point and click interface and design, it is technically impossible to mess up, or lose the game. At least in Full Throttle you could die and start over, not in The Dig. The only other bad point I saw were the horribly done animated cut scenes. I didn't like them and they looked worse than the X-Men animated cartoon. Other than bad animated scenes and a plot you can't stray from, this game is more than exciting, it's new. The plot is something fascinating and it even boosts our human ego a bit as well. If you play this game and learn only one thing, remember the versatility of the shovel and how without it, humanity might be lost forever.

Quintin Stone

Really, I think of this game more as a 6.5, actually. It was very well-done game, but it did have some less desirable points to balance out its strengths.

Plot summary: A massive asteroid (nicknamed Atilla) is heading towards Earth. To stop the collision and still get the opporunity to check out this celestial body, the Earth government(s) have come up with a plan to use nuclear warheads to alter the asteroids course, making it another moon of Earth. A space shuttle is sent up with yourself (Boston Low) in charge of the mission. In addition, you are accompanied by Ludger Brink, a geologist (to provide an initial study the asteroid itself), and a journalist, Maggie Robbins, to cover the exciting story.

Let's just say that things don't go as planned.

One piece of advice: don't forget your shovel. It is, after all, The Dig.

Good points:

Great graphics. While the characters might look reminiscent of something out of the first Space Quest games, the backgrounds and rendered animations are simply first rate. Animation is delightfully smooth and the attention to detail in the landscaped backgrounds is quite satisfying.

Great story. The plot as a whole is interesting and makes for a good story. The history of the aliens is a new twist on an old perspective that I rather enjoyed.

Two endings? Yes, despite the very linear and rigid nature of this game, it does (sort of) have two possible endings. After I won the first time, I couldn't help myself, I had to replay the very ending, just to see the other option. It was hysterical. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, it has something to do with Maggie and the crystals.

Bad points:

Disappointing cut scenes. Not all of the cut scenes were disappointing. The ones of three-dimensionally rendered animation were rather impressive. But time and time again, the large-scale scenes with characters in them kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. It seemed that LucasArts was trying to move away from the cartoonish-style of Full Throttle, and more towards a realistic look, but the character cut-scenes for Full Throttle were simply better. Here, the characters just look pretty goofy, and don't even (in the case of Boston Low) really look like the normal character that you control. I simply didn't like the style in which character animation was done in this game's cut scenes. It could have been better.

Questionable actions. Brink (after being affected by an alien influence) betrays Low and physically assaults him on several occasions. Yet, your character continues to trust him and leave himself open to another assault. Low is a simple military man. I couldn't see him not caving in Brink's skull on multiple occasions. And Maggie, here on a possibly hostile world, millions (?) of miles from Earth, thinks she's safer alone then teaming up with you. I can see why the writers would want this (a lot easier to interface with a game when there are no other people around), but it just defied logic (even for a woman).

The puzzles. I enjoy problem solving. I seek out a good challenge. But I'm sorry to say that some of the puzzles in The Dig just seemed almost unguessable. The light bridges: I wasn't even sure if the game could tell the difference between a quick "click", and holding down the mouse button for an extended period of time. A quick click had an effect... how are you supposed to know that it's the wrong effect? And why did I have to go back to the Map Room, just to climb on the slab in the Tomb? The Map Room has really no connection to it, but it is vitally important in getting underground.

Too safe. You can't lose this game. You can't die, you can't lose some important object that is required during a later part. This just seemed to sap some of the challenge out of it. Where is the pressure when you know that nothing you do can have a bad effect? Pressure makes the game. It gets the adrenaline pumping. That's why I don't play Doom with cheat codes. It takes away all of the excitement. And this game did that too.

Conclusion:

Please don't get me wrong. I don't consider this a bad game. Well designed, well written, it was enjoyable to play. But I wouldn't play it twice, you see. Bioforge, an adventure-puzzle game along similar lines, I've played multiple times. I don't see myself playing The Dig again. It was good the first time, and that let all the magic out.