The Dig (PC)

I've never been a huge fan of adventure games... that might stem from the Commodore 64 days and being utterly stumped by the simplest of puzzles in text adventures. But I went through a spell a while ago of buying up all the re-released Lucasarts adventures. My wife's a bit of an adventure games fan, and I played through Grim Fandango with her years ago and loved that, and I've watched her playing other games, such as Syberia. It's a genre I feel I've missed out on a bit, so I thought I'd make the effort.

The Dig was my first choice for a couple of reasons... it's possibly the least renowned of those Lucasarts games, and I like to go for the underdog, and I also liked the look of the sci-fi theme. Not that you'd know it was sci-fi from the front cover...

I was immediately pleasantly surprised when I ran the disc and discovered the game didn't install! I can't remember the last time I played a PC game straight from the disc... thanks Lucasarts, for not cluttering up my hard drive any more that is necessary!

The game does look its age now... everything's seems a bit rough looking by today's standards. But it still puts across a tremendous atmosphere, helped greatly by the score. Music as a scene-setter is often overlooked in favour of the jaunty tune, but this one really hits the mark.

The game starts off with the end of the world nigh. That's a bit dramatic, but as you're charged with destroying the asteroid that's going to obliterate us, you know things will turn out alright. Or will they...?

As befits a good sci-fi story, things take an interesting turn. And that's where I am at the moment... I've just hit the first interesting part of the story. I played the game for a good while, but as was often the case with adventure games in the past, you have to do a lot of pointing and clicking and experimenting with items and conversations.

It's not something I'm used to, and I know a lot of people like to have a walkthrough at hand. But the game has a relaxed feel to it to start with... it couldn't be otherwise when you're floating around space in zero gravity. And I like taking my time and trying everything out. Games don't have to be belted through in record time, and I can see this becoming a chill-out game for me.

I say that because I'm sufficiently hooked on the story where I'm going to want to see where it leads. I loves me a bit of sci-fi. The Dig is off to a very promising start... I reckon Sunday afternoon will see me losing a few hours to this...