I just couldn't dig it
Written: Aug 29 '08
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Starts out easy; decent graphics; original concept
Cons: terrible play control; way too slowly-paced; annoying music; quickly repetitive
The Bottom Line: It's rare I hate on a classic game, but I just cannot understand the appeal of Dig Dug
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| Chad9976's Full Review: Dig Dug for Atari 2600 |
When it comes to vintage video games I tend to enjoy and appreciate a lot of the “classics” no matter how basic their premise might be, among other archaic features. Retro gamers tend to love Dig Dug, but I’ve just never been a fan of it, especially its port to the Atari 2600 which is difficult to play and quickly repetitive. I can’t imagine it was any more fun in its original arcade version.
PRESS FIRE TO START
The premise to this game is bizarre and surreal. You play as a miner named Dig Dug who must burrow into the ground to destroy monsters and occasionally collect a prize for bonus points. To kill the “meanies” you shoot them with your air gun and literally blow them up. You also have the ability to lure them under boulders which will fall and squish them.
As weird as this premise is, the actual gameplay is derivative of Pac-Man, except this time you create your own maze instead of following a preset one. The vegetable prizes are also reminiscent of Pac-Man’s use of fruit for extra points. The skill level starts out easy and becomes progressively more difficult, which is typical for Sisyphus games of this sort.
PLAYER 1 – READY!
When I first approached this game I thought it was going to be entirely too easy since all you have to do is sneak up behind the monsters and shoot them, right? There really isn’t much strategy to be utilized other than this method.
The biggest problem with Dig Dug is the gameplay is entirely too slow. Both you and the meanies lurch around the screen in a rigid manner. There’s just no sense of excitement or anticipation to be found in a game played so slowly. Additionally, the enemies move much faster than you, so no matter how sneaky you think you are in approaching them, they can outrun and out maneuver you quickly and easily.
Another problem is how ridiculously repetitive the game is. There just isn’t much to do here and even though each stage is a little more difficult than the previous one, there’s no sense of challenge. The game pretty much turns on a dime from being entirely too easy to entirely too difficult.
JOYSTICKING
I already mentioned the slow gameplay, which is not necessarily a flaw, after all, Pac-Man, Space Invaders and other early games started out with very slow gameplay. What makes the sloth-like pace so annoying is the awful play control. Not only is character movement extremely stiff, but you are limited to only four directions in which you can go. This is made especially bad by the fact you must constantly line up your character perfectly with the tunnels you wish to enter. Many times I found myself having to go back and try again, which slows down the gameplay even further.
Perhaps the robotic-like controls wouldn’t have seemed so bad if it were easier to actually engage the enemies. Defeating bad guys is what so many video games are about, but if you can’t do that, then what’s the point? It takes a few shots of your air gun to blow up an enemy, but the programmers really screwed up by making the response extremely delayed. You would think simply tapping the button as fast as you can would make you shoot the meanies all the more faster, no? Unfortunately, no is the answer because you can mash the button all you want and the response is nowhere close to being in sync. As a result, I kept getting killed by other enemies while I was trying to shoot one of them. The only thing I could do is stop and run, but as I said, there’s really no way to outrun or outsmart them.
SPRITES & PIXELS
We all know how limited the Atari 2600 was in its capacity for detailed graphics, but that doesn’t mean it can’t have good-looking games. Surprisingly, the overall visual component to Dig Dug is appealing. It has a very clean, cartoony style and doesn’t have the primitive, blocky look so many other games of the era had. The characters are all pretty silly-looking, but at least they’re creative.
I like the use of a grid-like system of horizontal lines grouped by different colors to represent the different layers. These color patterns also vary as you progress in the game, so there is some variety. Of course, the use of a big square to represent a boulder is almost laughable.
CHIPPED TUNES
I’ve never played a game where the background music is directly in sync with the character’s movement. This is extremely annoying since the music is constantly stopping and starting since your character is constantly moving and stopping. I cannot see the logic in this approach. Additionally, the background music is made up of only a few notes and lasts all of a few seconds. To call it repetitive is an understatement.
INSERT COIN TO CONTINUE
Dig Dug is fun enough to play a few times upon initial encounter, but it grows old fast. If the play control had been much more fluid and the gameplay faster-paced, this game could have been on par with Pac-Man (the original, not the VCS port).
GAME OVER
I never played Dig Dug in the arcade or on its many home console incarnations until recently. Now I realize I wasn’t missing much.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
Chad9976
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Member: Chad Polenz
Location: Albany, New York
Reviews written: 686
Trusted by: 153 members
About Me:
Hi, I'm Chad and I like beer.
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