Dig Dug

It's beginning to be pretty easy to experience the history of Namco's arcade development on Wii, as the Virtual Console is now home to one more of the company's coin-op classics &#Array; Dig Dug. The venerable tunneling and enemy-inflating design arrived for download in the Wii Shop this past Monday, and took its place there alongside such other legendary Namco titles as Pac-Man, Galaga and Xevious. Unfortunately, though, there's only so many times you can repackage and re-present the same games again and again, and Namco's array of arcade greats is starting to get grating.

 Create your own maze as you tunnel fearlessly through the earth. Your goal: Reap tasty vegetables worth healthy points. Your enemies: ghosts who want to bury you alive, fierce fire-breathing dragons, and mean balloon-like bullies!

In Dig Dug, your objective is to dig through the earth's soil and eliminate the monsters lurking within it. You can move through the soil (Thus creating tunnels) by simply moving around, but defeating the monsters is the hard part. You can do this by creating a tunnel beneath a rock wedged in the earth, making it drop down and crushing the enemy. But that's no fun, is it?

If you want a more inventive way to kill enemies, you're in luck, because there is one - You can throw out a hook, which, when successfully attached to the enemy, allows you to inflate it until it pops. If you only partially inflate a monster (For example, because other monsters are headed your way and you have to run for it), it will rapidly deflate back to its normal state before giving chase once more. While it is deflating you can run through it without dying.

 Namco Bandai continues to mine its library of arcade classics with Dig Dug for Xbox Live Arcade. Similar to the XBLA releases of Namco notables Galaga and Pac-Man, Dig Dug looks, sounds, and plays like it did in its original arcade cabinet. As pleasing as it is to have such a solid version of Dig Dug to play at home, it's a no-frills package, and once you've torn through the far-too-easy achievement points, there's not a lot to keep you playing.

Though it didn't seem particularly strange as far as arcade games went at the time, in retrospect Dig Dug had a pretty weird concept. As Dig Dug (whose proper name, for those hardcore enough to care, is actually Taizo Hori), you're placed in the middle of an underground playfield littered with rocks and monster-filled chambers, with the task of eliminating all the monsters. You automatically create new tunnels simply by moving around. Connecting your tunnels to a monster-filled chamber is a surefire way to get those monsters to give chase, though they also have the ability to phase through the solid earth into unconnected tunnels and chambers without creating new tunnels.

Less than a month into my tenure on Retro Gamer, I learned something important about my editor Darran Jones: he’s not a fan of Dig Dug. Within a month, the fact that I’d even brought it up in the office prompted him to write this piece on why he loves Mr. Do!

The argument is that it’s a better game than Dig Dug. But you know what? It turns out that it doesn’t matter. Sure, Universal’s game might well be deeper mechanically than Namco’s – but given that Mr. Do! turned up six months after Dig Dug, it’s hardly a surprise that it builds on the formula. And while Darran’s probably right to say that Namco’s superior business network was probably a greater factor in Dig Dug’s eventual popularity than the design of the game, the truth is that we love it  – I love it – precisely because it was so widespread.

 And it certainly doesn't help matters that this VC edition of the game is inexplicably priced at 600 Wii Points instead of the normal NES rate of five bucks. Nintendo's press release justification is that it's officially an "Import," as this particular 8-bit version of the game was never previously published in the States. That may be technically true, but the Dig Dug design has certainly been seen here countless times, in multiple forms, and even once previously on the Wii through Namco Museum Remix &#Array; so it's hardly an Import. That designation should be kept reserved for the true Japan-only games making the jump to the U.S. for the first time, games for which it's almost an honor to invest the extra cash, like Sin & Punishment.

But if you're able to drill down through all the many layers of previous releases, inflated pricetags and questionable-at-best Namco marketing strategy you'll find that in the depths of all this dirt lies the same great arcade design that you first had the chance to fall in love with over two decades ago. Dig Dug is an extermination quest, as you seek to find and destroy all of the enemies on the screen before they run away, or before you yourself get caught. The trick is that every foe is lurking, hidden, underground, and you've first got to dig to get to them before you can take them out.
There are only two monsters in the game. Pookas are red, balloon-esque enemies wearing goggles. They are harmless, unless they touch you, of course. Fygars are dragon-like creatures, which, if you cross their line of sight horizontally, will glow for a second or two before spewing fire about three spaces wide. Duck out of the way when they do this!

After the monsters move around for a while, they will be able to turn into a ghost of some sort and float through the dirt before appearing in another tunnel. After that they will need a few seconds to "recharge" this ability. If there is only one enemy left, ocassionally, it might get frightened and run for the surface. If it escapes, you will win the round.

Like most arcade games, the game has no ending. After 12 rounds, rounds 8-12 will begin repeating infinitely until you lose all your lives. The only thing that changes after a set amount of levels is the colour scheme of the dirt.

 One way to eliminate the goggle-clad Pookas and flame-spewing Fygars is to create a tunnel underneath one of the subterranean rocks and then step aside as the rock proceeds to fall down the tunnel, crushing any monsters that are in the way. Dig Dug also comes armed with what looks like a harpoon attached to a bike pump; you can hurl it at nearby monsters and then inflate them until they pop. And that pretty much sums up what Dig Dug is all about--two types of enemies, two ways to eliminate them. The color of the playfield and the placement of the chambers change as you advance, and the monsters become faster, more aggressive, and more plentiful, but the basic gameplay remains the same--and it's still quite fun.

The game has a very iconic look to it, thanks largely to the high-contrast strata of dirt that makes up the playfield, though the sprites for Fygar and Dig Dug himself haven't aged quite as well as Pooka. The graphics haven't been updated at all, but the presentation is enhanced by the really crisp, stylized cabinet art that flanks the playfield. The memorable electro-banjo music is still as urgent as ever, and it still does that neat little trick of pausing whenever Dig Dug isn't in motion.

When used correctly, Xbox 360 achievements have the capacity to breathe new life into a familiar game, but Dig Dug botches this by making the achievements much too easy. There are a few achievements to earn by dropping a rock on a number of monsters at once, and one for digging out every last bit of dirt on the playfield, but the rest of the achievements are awarded for collecting the different point-bonus items. You'll need to advance into the high teens in order to earn all these achievements, and the game really starts to get diabolical around level seven. Like the XBLA versions of Galaga and Pac-Man, Dig Dug lets you start a fresh game from the highest level you've reached in past games, so it's mostly a matter of just grinding it out--and an experienced Dig Dug player could easily earn all 200 points in less than an hour.

One more thing that should be mentioned is the music - Namco has done something rather strange (Yet inventive) with it, as it will only play while you're moving around. If you're standing still, the game is mostly silent.

So Dig Dug becomes a battle of balance as you try to tunnel your way down into the earth to get your foes in range of your primary weapon, but as you also try to keep an eye on your back for enemies barreling down on you from behind. The reason for caution is that your weapon &#Array; an air pump and hose &#Array; is unwieldy and takes a while to work. You launch the nozzle out into the body of the baddie before you, which freezes them in place, but then you have to pump, pump, pump them fuller and fuller of hot air before they'll finally expand and explode themselves out of existence. Stop short with not enough pumps of the plunger and the enemy will simply deflate to chase you again &#Array; you've got to make sure their bubble is burst before moving on.

Dig Dug faces down two kinds of foes in his subterranean adventure. Pookas, resembling walking orange golf balls with yellow goggles for eyes, offer no special hindrance or intimidating abilities. But Fygars, the jagged-toothed underworld dragons of the dirt, fight back against your advances with the power to breathe fire. Get too close to their mouths when their bodies are flashing and you'll get burnt, losing a life.

Beyond digging, pumping foes full of air and watching out for Fygar's fire, there's only one last element the rounds out Dig Dug's gameplay &#Array; rocks. A scattered amount of stones will appear in each level, and if you tunnel directly underneath of one it will shake for a second, dislodge from its position in the earth and fall straight down. It's a great way to squash enemy Fygars and Pookas who are chasing you from behind, but you have to be careful too not to get caught under the weight of the boulder yourself. Dig Dug can't keep on digging if he takes two tons of granite to the skull.

The inclusion of online leaderboards does a little to compensate for the easy achievements and the omission of the alternating two-player mode that was found in the original arcade version, but beyond the simple pleasure of treating underground-dwelling monsters like balloon animals, Dig Dug doesn't offer much incentive to keep coming back for more.