Developer: LucasArts
Publisher: LucasArts
Rrp: £6.99
Released: 1st November 1995
Available on Steam and gog.com
The Dig is a sci-fi point and click adventure game from the heyday of the genre, for a long time it was considered abandonware since no machine would run it (at least not without code wizardry) and LucasArts didn’t seem willing to either give it away or sell it. Then miraculously it appeared on Steam and more recently on Gog.com.
With the original concept being written by Steven Spielberg this game is incredibly narratively driven. Of course being a point and click adventure game it’s pace is fairly slow (unless your particularly good at them). But the narrative never bores, it’s kept interesting and the world your in feels unexplored, dangerous and much bigger than what you see.
The dialog feels natural and well done, even in a game where it’s all mystery and suspense it still manages to find little moments of humor.
There’s also the art style, this game may be from the mid ninety’s but it’s visuals are still beautiful and detailed, especially for pixel art. While the cutscenes certainly do look dated they are totally outshines by the emotion the world invokes. So many areas gave me a real feeling of loneliness or sorrow.
This is all helped along nicely by the highly atmospheric soundtrack, and sound effects. These are used to great effect throughout the game, some of the changes are quite subtle.
Being a point and click game there are a great many puzzles populating it, most I found quite easy even as a kid but toward the end this game cranks up the difficulty. It’s by no means unfair, and nor does it expect you to make huge leaps in logic, everything can be solved of a little thought it put in and the areas are fully explored.
If you enjoy point and click games you should get this. I can promise you won’t leave disappointed.
