Incline The Dig

[Jools]

Anyone else enjoyed it? I see it's seldom mentioned, but I do have a fond memory of it. The atmosphere was great, it gave off "space opera hues" here and here, and juggled themes and moods that many games and movies didn't handle quite as gracefully (Mass Effect, Prometheus, Gravity).

Is the KKK disinclined to express praise towards this little game? Is it secretly admired by many who don't dare out of the closet?

 

[Ulminati]

The atmosphere was nice. Especially early on. The puzzles felt all over the place though. Sometimes with little rhyme and reason as to why you were performing them (tortoise skeleton springs to mind). It's been ages since I played it though. My recollection is pretty blurry. Maybe it's time to dig out the old lucasarts adventure CD-ROM collections again.

 

[Keshik]

Was a fun experience for me when I played it back in 97 or so, I remember enjoying exploring the dead world. Some of the puzzles were a pain in the ass for me, the reactor one (though that wasn't too bad) and the moon one were my bugbears. Wished there wasn't a happy ending in that everyone comes back, though.

Nice soundtrack to it, as well. Robert Patrick was pretty good as Boston too.

 

[FeelTheRads]

I enjoyed it quite a bit. Possibly Lucas Arts' weakest adventure game (if we don't count MI4), but still enjoyable.

 

[Jaesun]

LOVED this game <3 <3

Except for that F*&^%#$%^# bone puzzle.

 

[lemon-lime]

I liked it very much. There aren't enough games with a strong "archeology"* theme and I don't understand why. It's one of the best themes for explorationfags, IMO. Investigating ruins and stuff is inherently interesting, given they have a meaning and aren't just cinemajestic backdrop props. I don't give a shit wether the theme is historical, sci-fi alien or fantasy. It's what made me interested in the original Tomb Raider, one of the interesting (but unfortunately underdeveloped) parts of the first Mass Effect. It's a large part why Endless Legend's theme is very good.

And The Dig (along with Fate of Atlantis) is probably the strongest game in this department. At least of those that I played. (But I remember reading some archeology in gaming thread here, which came to the conclusion, that there aren't many fitting games.)

*meaning Hollywood archeology à la Indiana Jones mostly, of course.

 

[ghostdog]

It was a fun, polished game.... BUT, it just left me with the feeling it could have been much better. It had a great start, but as it moved on, it declined.

 

[Darth Roxor]

The Dig's atmosphere and the themes it explored were excellent, it's just a shame that just about all its puzzles were all shit. But the narrative was so gud that after a point I just played story mode (i.e. walkthrough in hand 24/7) just to get to the end and see wot happens.

 

[Infinitron]

The most memorable part of this game for me is when you hacked Brink's hand off and he immediately stuck his bloody stump right into one of ZE CRYSTALZ. Quite evocative. He would have turned into some kind of Gollum thing eventually I guess!

 

[Sceptic]

The Dig is good. Great atmosphere, great graphic design marred by a technology that couldn't support it (seeing those super pixellated screens and imagining how absolutely gorgeous the original paintings must've looked makes me sad), fantastic soundtrack that made excellent use of iMuse's ability to seamlessly transition from one track to the other (AFAIK this is the only non-MIDI Lucas game to pull it off). The sense of exploring an alien world and trying to understand an alien civilization has never been done so well IMO. Puzzles are good, fuck the haters - some are on the obtuse side, but aside from the afore-mentioned unmentionable bone puzzle they are all 100% logical within the alien world, and since the whole point of the game is to figure out the alien world's logic, they fit perfectly into the narrative. Besides, no one could possibly complain about having to backtrack or stop and think about puzzles when you're listening to the Tram music while doing so. The themes it explores are unique - it's an "adult" game in all the good ways. The exploration of mortality, immortality, loss, memory, it's all done extremely well, the game hits hard with some of its points without ever being preachy; it's a hard line to tread, and the game does it perfectly from beginning to... well, just before the end. Up until the very last action you take in the game, the narrative gets better and better, but as soon as the ending cutscene kicks in, it slowly spirals into complete retardo, because Spielberg. I don't know if he's the one who wrote it, but whoever did was clearly aping him, and it ruins the last minutes of an otherwise great game. I still think it's one of Lucas's best though - unsurprising since it was the brainchild of Brian Moriarty, who's perhaps the only video game writer who knows how to use interesting thematic issues to make great games out of them. I think I'd rank it up there with PST, MotB and Trinity (another Moriarty game, how surprising) as the best written games.

 

[Outlander]

GameSpot gave it a 4.5/10 -> http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/the-dig-review/1900-2533404/

Check out the comments

I really enjoyed The Dig, definitely a must-play.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

The dig. Everytime someone mentions old lucasarts games (not only adventures), I suddenly start to remember the lines of dialogue. the dig has some that to this day are stuck to my head:

"Aklash pak!"

"Rha tzo"

"My machine... You've broke my machine. You're... a DEAD MAN!"

"Two? only two?"

"The asteroid has been named attila, after the war leader of the huns..."

"It felt, hmmm... electrical!"

About the scene where Brink is stuck in the crack, I actually remember Guybrush in Monkey Island 3 mocking that scene, talking with brink's german accent.

But the most amazing thing in this game is its music.

 

[Ovplain]

My favorite point 'n' click IMO.

 

[Jools]

GameSpot gave it a 4.5/10 -> http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/the-dig-review/1900-2533404/

Quelle surprise.

 

[Jools]

The Dig's atmosphere and the themes it explored were excellent, it's just a shame that just about all its puzzles were all shit. But the narrative was so gud that after a point I just played story mode (i.e. walkthrough in hand 24/7) just to get to the end and see wot happens.

I gotta come out of the closet. The storyfag that I am, I think I finished it 6, 7 times (luckily, I didn't need a walkthrough the first time, and I just remembered everything after: the game is not that long nor complex). It's just one of the best "space" stories out there, be it game, movie or book. It the kind of stuff that one expects to find in an Asimov novella or short story. And yeah, I'm oblivious to the stupidity of some of the puzzles.

And I think The Dig has the best backdrops ever drawn by Lucasarts, at least before the higher resolutions hit the market. Those pixels are just seeping pixel-porn and inducing relentless, perennial VGA-boners.

Lucasporn (check out those colours, those palettes OHMAHGAAWDDDDD):

 

[ghostdog]

Daum, now I have to replay this game.

 

[Jools]

Daum, now I have to replay this game.

Yeah, opening and reading this thread made me wanna replay it as well. Goddamn me!

PS - ghostdog since you are already familiar with the process, why don't you make a LP out of it? I'm sure everyone in this thread will love you for it.

 

[Ulminati]

Ah yeah, the ending where space magic revives everyone and all is happy felt like a cop-out too.

Overall though, the atmosphere and themes made it sit somewhere squarely in the middle as far as LA adventures go for me.
It's never going to be a Grim Fandango, MI2 or Indy&Fate of Atlantis. But it's better than stuff like MI3, Loom and Full Throttle. Not that those 3 are bad games. It's just that other LA adventures were better.

 

[J_C]

I played it a few months ago for the first time, I think i even made a thread about it on the Codex. Many puzzles were shit, which almost made me give up on the game, but the story and atmosphere were so good, that it pulled me throught. Good game overall if you are a storyfag.

 

[Jools]

Ah yeah, the ending where space magic revives everyone and all is happy felt like a cop-out too.

Overall though, the atmosphere and themes made it sit somewhere squarely in the middle as far as LA adventures go for me.
It's never going to be a Grim Fandango, MI2 or Indy&Fate of Atlantis. But it's better than stuff like MI3, Loom and Full Throttle. Not that those 3 are bad games. It's just that other LA adventures were better.

Yeah, the ending felt like a 2001ASO-NGE inspired (shit) idea.

I'm debated about FT. It delivers a great atmosphere at times (noir-meets-madmax), but suffers from a few issues, IMHO.

To me, the first issue is that it's too damn short. The second, it's the silly "on the road" minigame, which really kills the atmosphere, to me: non-interactive cutscenes would have been much better, if they really felt the need to show some asphalt running by. Thirdly, the game seems to lack some "oomph", or "drive" (if you will excuse the pun), or "purpose". It feels like there is a lot of content that's been left out, or as if it's part of a bigger plot that never saw the light, it feels incomplete and temptative, so to speak.

These days I was musing about it (consequence of having recently watched Mad Max: un-Furry Broads), and I really wished they made a sequel, or a similarly-themed game, without all the shortcomings of the original FT.

NOT A FUCKING SPECIAL EDITION/HD EDITION/REHASH, YOU HEAR THAT, LUCASTARDS? I DON'T WANT A SODDING SPECIAL EDITION WITH SHITTY CARTOON HIGH-RES GRAPHICS. NO. NO. NO. EAT SHIT, YOU MORONS.

 

[Ulminati]

Yeh. Full Throttle was always lambasted for being too short - and I agree. The motorcycle driving minigame was definitely the low point, but it also had its share of bad puzzles. Remember near the end where you need to find a secret entrance. You're told it's somewhere on the screen, and that's it. You're meant to kick a certain portion of a wall (not everywhere will do) but only once some completely unrelated meters stop ticking every couple of seconds. That part was what eventually made me reach for a walkthrough.

And a HD remaster of The Dig could be nice if they didn't go with cartoony. And I don't think they would. The themes in The Dig aren't meant to be humorous like MI. I think it's unlikely to happen though. If they're going to necromance another of their old titles, they'd probably go with Sam & Max or DoTT.

 

[Ovplain]

 

[Jools]

Yeh. Full Throttle was always lambasted for being too short - and I agree. The motorcycle driving minigame was definitely the low point, but it also had its share of bad puzzles. Remember near the end where you need to find a secret entrance. You're told it's somewhere on the screen, and that's it. You're meant to kick a certain portion of a wall (not everywhere will do) but only once some completely unrelated meters stop ticking every couple of seconds. That part was what eventually made me reach for a walkthrough.

And a HD remaster of The Dig could be nice if they didn't go with cartoony. And I don't think they would. The themes in The Dig aren't meant to be humorous like MI. I think it's unlikely to happen though. If they're going to necromance another of their old titles, they'd probably go with Sam & Max or DoTT.

Definitively. I think The Dig wasn't welcomed that warmly (because, you know, people are -for lack of a better word- retarded), thus I doubt it'd be their first pick for their next necromancy experiment.

 

[Jools]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0446518530?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00

I just ordered it. I'm so vulnerable to influencing myself. XD

Has anyone read it? The reviews around are fairly mixed.

 

[Jools]

Meanwhile (well, a while ago), on reddit...

http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1wetwd/the_dig_would_a_hdversion_be_utterly_impossible/

Is it hopeless to hope for a HD version, because Lucasarts are gone? Or do other companies hold the rights? Was Monkey Island HD an entirely "in-house" rendition by Lucasarts, or was it made by outsiders?

It was one of the first computer games that touched me personally, several times over. Walking around in that game felt like walking through a hundred graveyards (which was not far from the truth), and it made me feel sorrow and empathy for characters, races, and culture, with its hauntingly beautiful soundtrack and extremely creative and aesthetically pleasing environments and architecture. I both wanted to go there and at the same time was horrified at the thought.

It's a very bittersweet memory, due to some of the events in the narrative. It managed something that no other game before had done to me: the more I delved into the city after the landing, the more important it felt to solve the mystery of the world, I needed to find out what had happened there, to do right by them. As a 15-year old (in 1994), that was a very strange and new feeling to have.

Can we legally kill these people? This motherfucker is even really close to my age, how the hell did he end up posting on reddit of all places about his want of a HD version of The Dig? What kind of sick wrong turns has his life made him take, to end up like that?