This game was ahead of its time...
When Spielberg makes a movie, everybody has to go see it. When there is a game tie-in, everybody has to go buy it. When Brian Moriarty (famous for his Infocom Adventures) co-authors the plot for a game, then the game just HAS to be of such epic proportions that it just has to make the number one spot regardless of who buys it.
The Dig has that quality about it, inspired by Spielberg and co-authored by Moriarty, that just puts it right up there in parallel with such classic movies as E.T. and 2001 a space odyssey. Add some orchestral music by Wagner, put the player in the role of a typical space-captain hero-type figure, make the co-lead an attractive woman with intelligence and a cutting sense of humour, and you have a winning formula for an award winning game which should be made into a movie.
The Dig, made way back in 1995 and released by Lucasarts, and re-released recently on Steam in 2009, promises much and, as far as plot is concerned, delivers much. You play the role of Space Captain Boston Low, voiced by Robert Patrick of Terminator 2 fame, and together with four other companions you are bundled in a space shuttle and fired off into space to divert a rogue asteroid that is hurtling towards planet Earth on a collision course. Once in orbit you, and two of your crew, are charged with placing destructive charges onto the asteroid in order to divert it from the path of destruction, however something strange happens when the charges go off and, together with two of your crew, you are transported inside the asteroid to a far distant galaxy and land on a planet that has been abandoned for eons.
Long ago the original alien inhabitants opened a portal and went into another dimension of space, but there are a few remaining artefacts and "ghosts" which have been left behind, and they eventually guide you into opening the portal to this other dimension so that the original inhabitants can return home again. You soon learn that this other dimension is not as good at the alien inhabitants thought it was, and they want to return home to their home planet and to live normal lives again. This is where you and your companions come in and it is up to you to find that path and open it up so that everything can return to normal and you can go back home to Earth...
The game itself is a combination of movie-type cut-scenes and logic puzzles, however they tie together fairly well and at times it feels like you are actually playing in an interactive movie instead of a game. The music is very well scripted and adds terrific atmosphere to the game, just as if you were watching a Spielberg movie, and it swells to a crescendo whenever you unlock a panoramic vista or when you reach a climax in the game... exactly like it does in a real movie. This really makes you feel as if you were on that alien planet in a far distant galaxy, light-years from your beloved planet Earth but at the same time, you also feel a sympathy towards this alien race that, just like you, wants to get home to their beloved planet and live a normal life again. The only way you will return home to Earth is to bring them back home here to their own planet.
There is also a real sense of character realism in this game. Each character has their own personality and there is interraction between the different characters in the game which you would find in most modern films of today. There are disagreements, fights, moments of disappointment and moments of revelation. Even the aliens have a sense of self-regret and responsibility when they realise that however advanced they might be, they can still learn humility and wisdom from "the younger races", something which seems to be missing from the games of today, being replaced by the usual mainstream gung-ho "let's kick it to them bad-ass aliens" shoot-em-up genres.
Modern day graphic perfectionists will be disappopinted with this game because Lucasarts opted to kep to EGA graphics, however you should not let this distract you from the sheer enjoyment of this game, graphics do not always make the game... plot does. In many ways this game was ahead of its time, the inventory system is a single semi-transparent overlay, but you can move things around and arrange them as you want so that you can place related objects together for ease of use. Items can be "grabbed" and used on the main play screen directly, something which we take for granted these days but which was fairly new back in 1995. Character interraction also makes an appearance, you can use a communicator to call up your crew, and at times you can play another character, but this seems to be an automatic process, you don't have a choice to swap characters in the game. However this was early signs of things to come and you have to hand it to Lucasarts when they added this concept to the game.
Playability in this game is a bit of a mixed bag, as far as controls are concerned they are easy. Only single left or right mouse clicks are required which is good, because you can concentrate on playing the game instead of trying to master a complex set of mouse or keyboard movements. Remember that this is a point-and-click adventure but it does suffer a little bit when it comes to cursor interraction. When you are entering a screen location you need to click on every path that you see, you won't get a nice convenient arrow telling you that there is an exit but you will usually get some king of indication that there is an exit under the cursor. Sometimes you will need to walk left or right or up to find a path that you need to take before you see any indication of an exit.
However, having said that, the cursor will clearly indicate when you are near an exit, and it will change to another color or pop-up a word telling you that you can move to another location. You also have an option of "double-clicking" your way off a screen if you have been there before, which is useful when you have to visit various locations several times, so this is a convenient time-saver. There is also another way of saving time between locations, but you have to unlock that during game-play...
Logic puzzles on the other hand seem to be a bit obscure in places, and you really need to think laterally on a couple of them. Obscure and fast-moving graphic sequences can be confusing at times but if you re-play them and take the time to study them, you should be able to make out most of what the game is trying to hint at. Nobody wants a game that is too easy but at times this game can be a little frustrating, so be patient and play along with it, the results are worth it.
You can't actually die in this game either, so you are free to experiment with actions and to explore as far as the game will let you. Any imminent death-scenes are neatly diverted using appropriate plot-elements, which fit in quite naturally.
As already mentioned the music score for this game is terrific, it adds a classic quality that you see in such movies as E.T. or Space Odyssey, it cuts in at the right moment and dies down when it is not needed. Sound effects are well-placed... birds on the edge of a cliff, little creatures in a cave, wind, footsteps on rock and sand... it is all there and all in the right place. I have to hand it to the sound programmers in this game, you did a wonderful job making the sound almost un-noticeable... and I mean that as a compliment. It is so naturally placed that it doesn't stand out, it fits in... perfectly!
When all is said and done, this game is very under-appreciated and it has a great concept, a reasonable plot and a very atmospheric soundtrack. It is perfectly playable on modern systems, especially if you download the Steam Version. If you have the original Lucasarts version then just download the SCUMM Virtual Machine and you can play it directly off your own disks. Graphics are a little primitive but you should be concentrating on plot and atmosphere with this game, so I disagree with the low Gamespot score and I would rate this game higher, based upon plot and reasonable playability.
Alan Dean Foster has already written a book based on this game, and I would love to see a film made, it is worthy of a big screen epic.