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"Keep pumpin' dude!"

OVERVIEW
Dig Dug is yet another charming arcade classic that found its way to the Commodore 64 in 1983, one of the biggest arcade-to-Commodore years. Back then the Commodore 64 was the big hype because it allowed you to play all those popular games without having to put in another quarter every time the screen displayed the dreaded words 'game over'. While not as famous as, for instance, Pacman or Space Invaders, Dig Dug is definitely one of the classics, and the name is bound to sound familiar to old schoolers.
Dig Dug is an action title. Each level pits you against a number of monsters lurking under the earth, and your goal is to dig tunnels, get to them and destroy them. With a conventional weapon? Wrong. With a pump.

GAMEPLAY
The concept of Dig Dug is simple. In every level, you dig tunnels through the ground in order to get to monsters hiding in small corridors, and you kill these monsters with a pump and air hose. Yup, you hook them onto the hose and them pump them up until they burst. Sounds gruesome to me, but it's certainly original.
Monsters come in two flavours - a silly yellow monster which merely chases you around the tunnels, and a green one which breathes fire, making it far more dangerous. Neither monster can dig tunnels through the dirt the way you can, but they can assume a spirit form which allows them to slowly move through the dirt. The trick to succeeding at Dig Dug is to dig your tunnels in such a way that you can lure the monsters to come to you through an open tunnel, allowing you to blow them up. Another way to kill them is to dig out one of the rocks stuck in the dirt on each level and crushing them under it. Meanwhile, you will have to be careful not to get surrounded - and since monsters get more numerous and more aggressive in later levels, that becomes quite a challenge.

Every level has you start out in the middle of the screen in a freshly dug tunnel from the surface. Monsters are in small corridors spread over the screen, where they wander around for a while. If you don't dig them out and destroy them soon, they will eventually get annoyed by your presence, change into a spiritual form, and slowly work their way through the dirt toward you. While they're in the dirt, there is no way you can harm them, and it is therefore important to lure them back into a tunnel. Vertical tunnels are much preferable here, because the green monster type can only use its fiery breath horizontally. Approaching it from the left or right can be suicidal, because in this particular version of Dig Dug, there is no way to see its fire coming. Another advantage of vertical tunnels is that rocks can be dropped down them. If you dig away the dirt directly under a rock, it will fall a few seconds later, crushing everything in its path (including you if you don't get out of the way in time). Falling rocks are a great weapon against groups of monsters which are hard to get otherwise (as you can only use your pump against one monster at a time, and blowing one up takes a few seconds).

Touching a monster, being hit by fire breath, or being crushed by a rock will all result in losing a life. Bonus lives are given out if you score enough points, and the quickest way to do that is to use rocks to crush monsters. That gives out more points than just blowing them up, and whenever you drop two rocks in a single level, a bonus item appears in the middle of the screen. The value of these items quickly goes up in higher levels, and picking up these items soon yields far more points than clearing out an entire batch of enemies.

CONTROLS
You move through tunnels and dig through dirt simply by moving your stick in the appropriate direction. The pump can be used by pressing the fire button. Pressing it repeatedly will allow you to quickly blow up a monster once you've managed to snare it with your hose.
While the joystick responds smoothly in this game, there is one significant annoyance with the controls. The game field consists of squares, and you can only round a corner when you are exactly in the middle of one. Usually you won't be, and therefore, if you try to round a corner, your character will usually end up going forward a little more first until he reaches the next square. This is particularly a problem when digging new tunnels, because then it's more difficult to see where the 'turning spot' is.

GRAPHICS
Slightly above average. The two monster types are clearly different from each other (not just in colour) and your own character is fairly well drawn. One good touch is that the dirt has four different colours, becoming darker as you get deeper. This lends variety to the looks of the level and also makes it easier to quickly judge the distance between you and a monster. For situational awareness, that is vital.
Every few levels, the colours of the dirt will change. For instance, starting in level 5, the ground will turn to a snowy white and light blue, from the original yellow and brown. These switches have been placed at just the right time: just when a certain colour layout gets boring, the next one kicks in.

One bad point about the graphics has to be mentioned: in later levels, when there are plenty of monsters at the beginning, some slowdown occurs, particularly when green monsters start breathing fire. This slowdown is definitely noticeable and may even be fatal at the wrong time.

SOUND
Dig Dug has one background tune which only plays while you are moving. It stops as soon as you stop, only to kick in again when you get back into motion. While the tune is repetitive, it doesn't get on your nerves very quickly. Silence would be a lot more monotonous.
Sound effects are decent. I particularly enjoy the 'BLAH' sound the green monster makes when he breathes fire. The only sound effect that annoys me at times is the high-pitched shriek your hose makes when you shoot it a monster. You'll be hearing it a lot, and it is just high enough to be unpleasant.

DIFFICULTY
The first levels are easy. Monsters mostly stick in the area where they begin the game and only decide to go out and attack you after you've almost cleared the level. Soon enough, however, monsters become more numerous and start closing in on you immediately. The difficultly builds up slowly over levels, at a pace which is just about right. Eventually (after roughly 20 levels), the game no longer gets any more difficult, but by then it will have stopped to give out bonus lives as well. At that point the game has become challenging enough that even an expert will lose the occasional life. Eventually, as is always the case with games of this kind, even the best player will be overcome.

THE GOOD:
I'd say Dig Dug did the following things right:

- Good learning curve, game steadily increases in difficulty throughout the levels;
- Original concept.

THE BAD:
The most noticeable flaws in Dig Dug are:

- Square-based movement hampers control at times (usually at the wrong times);
- Slowdown in later levels due to sheer quantity of moving graphics.

CONCLUSION
Dig Dug's a classic action title which is just a lot of fun. It's not without its problems, but generally it's a game well worth playing. I recommend this one.



Reviewer's Score: 8/10 | Originally Posted: 08/09/01, Updated 08/09/01

Atari's Dig Dug is the grandfather of all digging/tunnelling games and has spawned all sorts of games like Mr Do and Boulderdash.

It appeared in the arcades during 1982 and presented a novel new sort of game and consequently gathered quite a following. It's a simple tunnelling/drop the rocks on the baddies game which involves quite a bit of pattern work to successfully complete a screen.

When you start a game, your man appears on the surface of the ground at the top of the screen and digs his way through the earth in the middle. The game then starts playing properly. You have to destroy all the creatures on the screen by either blowing them up with your pump gun, or dropping a rock on them to advance to another screen. The creatures which inhabit this underground world are the fat Pookas and the fire-breathing Fygar dragons, both of which chase you and will kill you if they catch you.

The best way to tackle a screen is to dig your way through the screen and form tunnels, if there are no tunnels the baddies will mutate and start to burrow through the earth towards you. If they are burrowing, then you can't use your pump gun against them, but if there is a tunnel between you and them they have to revert to normal and are vulnerable. To use your pump gun, allow a Pooka or Fygar (beware it doesn't breathe fire on you) to get near and press the fire button quickly. This will pump them up with air and they will grow and grow until they burst. If there are horrors on your tail, then burrow upwards through the earth towards a rock. Once you have reached the rock, move left or right and it will fall onto the unsuspecting hostiles. You can't push rocks about like Boulderdash so this is the only way to squash the baddies.

At a random time during the screen, a fruit will appear in the centre of the screen. Collect this and you will earn a bonus points. Although the fruit is only worth 100 points on the first screen, it soon becomes well worth collecting, a nice 8,000 points is earned for collecting a Pineapple.

This is a very good conversion, although it's a shame that it has taken such a long time to come over the Atlantic. The graphics and sound are very similar to the arcade game and it features very similar screens to the original. There is plenty of challenge, on high levels everything speeds up and there are more and more Pookas and Fygars on each screen. I enjoyed this as I haven't seen Dig Dug for quite a few years and it was nice to play and reminisce about the old days, but if you haven't played it before then have a look before buying it, you may not like it.
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Presentation 78%
Very good instructions and in-game options.

As arcade conversions go, this is a very good one. It looks and plays fairly similar to the original and will probably be as popular. Graphically it's very good, with each of the characters being well detailed and coloured, and actually having 'character'. The sound is as irritating as on the original and had me hastily turning the volume control to it's minimum. I especially like the sick way the Fygars and Pookas pop when pumped full of air! Overall the game is fun to play, though I doubt its lastability due to its rather aged nature.

Graphics 69%
Good characters, colours and animation.

Sound 46%
Poor, but fitting sound FX and tunes.

Hookability 68%
Easy to get into due to its simplistic nature.

Lastability 57%
A touch repetitive but reasonably appealing.

Value For Money 53%
Quite old and would benefit from being a bit cheaper.

Overall 54%
Conversion of ageing arcade favourite that will appeal mainly to ageing arcade junkies.