The Dig

The Good
The Dig features impressive graphics and sound that not only put the player inside the alien world, but help to create a real sense of isolation and suspense. The science fiction storyline could easily be made into a feature film, and represents some of the darkest themes seen on a Lucas Arts Adventure game.

The Bad
The Dig has developed its own cottage industry of conspiracy theories due, in part, to the fact that the game was essentially in a "development hell" since 1989 and went through several drastic revisions before being released. For better or for the worse, one of these changes was to tone down the level of violence and gore. Needless to say, "family friendly" and "dark science fiction" do not really go well together. Not only does the game seem unsure of its core identity, several of the puzzles are incredibly difficult to complete. Be prepared for lots of abstract, Myst-inspired puzzles that require a grueling process of trial and error or going online to find the solution.

The Bottom Line
The Dig offers an original graphic adventure storyline with cool graphics, sound and a talented cast of voice actors. The storyline suffers from trying to be both family friendly and dark science fiction. The game play suffers from some abstract and difficult shape manipulation based puzzles that seem more at place on Myst then Monkey Island. If you can get beyond these flaws, then you will find a classic Lucas Arts adventure game.

The Good
I played a demo for this way back when I first got my sound card and it blew me away (the demo ended just when things were getting interesting). A few months later, I picked up a LucasArts value pack that had this game and a few others in it. I did my typical thing -- I played 'em for awhile, then put 'em back in the box and moved on.

Then a couple days ago, I played Full Throttle through to the end. It was awesome, so I figured I'd give 'The Dig' a whirl.

To appreciate the game, you have to put your brain into retro-mode -- the graphics are VGA (or maybe SVGA), so you're gonna see pixels the size of golf balls. It's an old game, made when Voodoo was still a religion.

Once your brain learns to adapt to the the pixel signals that your eyeballs are sending it (hey, it happens...) you'll see that the graphics are actually pretty cool, and the cut-scenes ain't bad either.

The characters in the story are sort of two-dimensional, but I really liked the main character -- he's a regular joe like me. He's no genius, and some of the things he says in the game are just laugh-out-loud funny (click on the dead guard beasts in the tomb and you'll see what I mean ^_^).

As far as gameplay goes, the interface is pretty basic and doesn't get in the way of the game. And then there's the music -- a great cinematic score that really set the mood for a great game.

BUT.....

The Bad
....Even though things started out pretty interesting, it got to a point where I had to revisit some of the areas over and over again. And again. And again. And again. To be honest, I ended up printing out a walkthrough of the game just so I could find out where to go next instead of searching the whole place. Again.

Most of the puzzles weren't too hard to figure out, but there were a few that turned the game into a full-scale clickfest when trying to figure out what object to use with what area. Then there were a few that were too hard for my tiny little mind to process. But then again, I had my handy little walkthrough.... heh heh.

The worst thing about 'The Dig', though, was the lack of suspense. There was no sense of urgency, and nothing that really drove me to keep playing other than hoping that something would happen. Nothing did.... not really.

There really was no plot, no big surprises, no interesting twists. The only goal was to get pixel-boy and his buddies back home.

I found a couple of possible bugs -- sometimes (well, a lot of times) I had to double-click on things since the game didn't register the first click for some reason. And I had to save, quit, and restart the game a few times when the game slowed wa-a-ay down. Maybe it was just my machine.

The Bottom Line
Bottom line, huh? Bo-o-oring. Pass it up unless you don't have anything better to do... and get a walkthrough.

The Good
This was a pretty good game, if for no other reason than the story and the setting. And while it had its humorous moments, it was not nearly as silly as other Lucasarts games.

The graphics weren't spectacular, but were nice for a game of its time. It used the cartoonish animation style that Lucasarts had been using in its other games, but it was a bit more "realistic".

The voice acting and music was superb, in my opinion.

Also, there were two endings to this game - both were a success, but one is "good" and "not so good", depending on your actions in the final scene.

The Bad
Some of the puzzles were insane; I think everyone's least favorite must be the turtle skeleton puzzle. On the plus side, it was a bit amusing when you would reassemble the turtle in almost the right order ... the first time. The next five or ten times, it isn't so funny.

The inventory puzzles were just as bad; I swear, if I hear "I can't use these things together" one more time...

The Bottom Line
A fun story, up until you get about halfway through it, and hit some of the more frustrating puzzles. At that point, you can probably guess how the game would end.