A DEEP SPACE ADVENTURE BY SEAN CLARK IN COLLABORATION WITH FILMMAKER STEVEN SPIELBERG
An asteroid the size of a small moon is on a crash course toward Earth, and only NASA veteran Boston Low has the expertise to stop it. Along for the ride are award-winning journalist Maggie Robbins and internation...
A DEEP SPACE ADVENTURE BY SEAN CLARK IN COLLABORATION WITH FILMMAKER STEVEN SPIELBERG
An asteroid the size of a small moon is on a crash course toward Earth, and only NASA veteran Boston Low has the expertise to stop it. Along for the ride are award-winning journalist Maggie Robbins and internationally renowned geologist Ludger Brink.
Once the wayward asteroid is nuked into a safe orbit, the trio conducts a routine examination of the rocky surface.
What they uncover is anything but routine.
Low, Brink and Robbins unwittingly trigger a mechanism that transforms the asteroid into a crystal-like spacecraft. The team is hurtled across the galaxy to a planet so desolate, Brink is moved to name it Cocytus, after the 9th circle of Hell in Dante’s inferno. The bleak landscape was obviously once home to a highly evolved civilization, with remnants of sophisticated architecture, advanced technology and an intricate network of underground tunnels.
But no Cocytans.
Who were the original inhabitants of this once rich empire-turned-wasteland? What are those apparitions that mysteriously appear from time to time? Why have Low, Robbins, and Brink been brought to this place? And how can Low keep his team from unraveling in the face of such uncertainty? To return to Earth, they must dig for answers, both on the planet’s surface and deep within themselves.
From the combined talents of LucasArts and legendary Steven Spielberg comes an epic adventure that plunges headlong into the very core of the unknown. And takes you with it.
Nearly 200 locations and hundreds of puzzles
Robert Patrick of T2 as the voice of Boston Low
Special effects contributed by Industrial Light & Magic
Dialogue contributed by award-winning sci-fi writer Orson Scott Card
Alluring Wagnerian musical score sets the epic tone
I remember this game coming out, but never got a chance to play until recently. Unlike a number of classic point and click games of this era, The Dig is very much of its time - the entire game seems to be a showcase for the technology. Game-play takes a definite backseat to the "atmospheric". I ended up getting out the walkthrough to avoid endless journeys from one side of the map to the other.
Only recommended for those who wish to engage in nostalgia.
‘The Dig’ is one of the lesser known LucasArts adventure game for a reason – it’s not very good. But I’ll say this: this game establishes its setting very well. The alien planet in which the game is set is beautifully imagined and drawn. For the most part, the terrain, technology, and logic behind how some things work are unusual enough that you’ll believe you’re exploring a new world.
It’s a shame then that ‘The Dig’ is generally devoid of life and interesting things to do. The planet is barren, and you’ll spend much of your time finding items and solving many puzzles that require much trial and error. While those may be in line with the characters guessing their way around an alien planet, they don’t make an adventure game fun.
I often found myself not sure of what to do next, or how to if I happened to know. That’s because the game rarely presents puzzles in ways that you’ll know what you’re working with, or gives you sufficient context to figure it out. Solutions can be frustratingly inelegant, too.
You’d think that with three characters stranded on the planet, there’d be plenty opportunity for some teamwork in solving puzzles. There isn’t. You’ll spend most of the game exploring alone. Although you can chat with your teammates at times, they’d usually want you to leave them be. Overall, it feels like that the puzzles were more of an afterthought, with exploration of the planet being emphasized instead.
‘The Dig’ is a serious game, which isn’t a bad thing if the drama, tension and suspense are properly presented. Unfortunately they’re not. In one tense moment of the game, in which a character’s life is on the line, the other two just saunter and talk. The game’s pacing is too slow, with more backtracking and repetition than I cared for. While the graphics are colourful, other aspects of the presentation are flat.
Sadly for me, ‘The Dig’ is a disappointing game. You may be better off watching a Let’s Play video of it on YouTube if you’re curious about it.
The game starts out great. An asteroid on collision course with Earth, a ship sent to divert it, the crew discovering mysteries when it arrives... Some would call it generic, but I love stories like this and it seemed like the LucasArts crew got everything right.
Unfortunately, I was wrong. The quality drops quickly: the story becomes a mess, puzzles are forced and often illogical, and the ending... My God. That had to be THE worst game ending I've ever seen.
If you like sci-fi and adventure games, you can try The Dig, but don't expect anything above average. And when you feel like the ending scene is very near, take of your headphones and close your eyes.
The Hollywood influence really shows here, with the usual nonsensical reasons for splitting up a group in a dangerous environment, overly sarcastic replies to everything mistaken for humour, huge leaps in logic and characters realising unknowable things to move the plot along. It would have worked better as another tacky movie full of unlikable characters and visual spectacle (because that’s all you get here). By the same token, you do get a nice musical score, at times worthy of a movie and some beautiful art design.
The puzzles start off reasonable enough for the first 10 minutes, but soon start to take some liberties with ‘logic’. There’s a lot of large empty environments to walk through, so plenty of time to let your mind wander and think about better games as you back track to try that one new item (which may as well have been invisible as you clicked on it by accident) on that one random hole you found (which your character will know the advanced alien function of, despite talking like a stereotypical ‘yee haw’ army meat head… his stupidity is reinforced by the fact he’s often insulted by a snippy woman who uses constant sarcasm to show that she’s so much smarter than him).
This is the game that really showed me I’m guided by nostalgia for point and click adventures and that with an ‘adults’ mind I can no longer look past the paper-thin plots, illogical puzzles and sloppy design. I could have forgiven a lot if the ending had been at all meaningful, but it was a let-down.
The Dig is essentially a Lucasarts version of Myst with way less logic or beauty in it. You get to an empty alien planet with some islands upon an endless ocean, you search for the keys opening ways to these islands, you build A Device. Sounds familiar?
The puzzles were rather hard (for 1995), made harder by near absence of any logic. You basically had to pixel-hunt on each screen and if stuck - try to apply everything in your inventory to hot spots. There are some good tricky puzzles, but being rather hard they are made even harder by bad graphics. And yes, the graphics were dated even by the time of release. Really, this came out after Mission Critical! What worked for Full Throttle, didn't work here. And was not helped by strange mix of cartoonish characters and 3D-cutscenes.
Some people praise the atmosphere, well, there is some, although in my opinion less than even in original Zork. But it gets repetitive pretty fast.
But the main problem for me is the total lack of motivation in the story and infernal dialogue quality (written by Orson Scott Card!). There's a huge asteroid going to crash on Earth! Lets assemble a rag-tag team and send them out. They'll be bitching each other in space and trading inept jokes, sure, that's what you do with IMMINENT DANGER hanging over your planet. They get stuck light years from home on an empty planet without food, water nor way back - what do they do? Right, bitch each other and trade lame jokes! Seems like, as with graphics, the game tries to be both serious and funny and fails in both. You'll find yourself clicking through these dialogues just to stop them from ruining the last bits of rather thin atmosphere the game managed to create.
And yes, it was made by Steven Spielberg, and it shows: he had a very vague idea of what a good game consists of. It's playable, but not on par with real Lucasarts classics like Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle or even Zak McCracken. Get for collection, don't expect miracles.
This game is waiting for a review. Take the first shot!
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