An
arcade game made by
Japan's
Namco in
1982 (I think). The
American version was
produced by
Atari. It was
re-
released in the
rockin compilation of
oldskool Namco games for the
Sony PlayStation.
You
probably know it already, but you have to
pump up the
badasses,
Pooka and
Fygar as you
dig your way around, and walk through the
tunnels you've
dug.
LOOK OUT:
_ _
/' ' '\_ _
....... :' (o ''' . .
: __ ___; | ' ~ v v'' ', . '
*_ :| o| o| : ' \ ' ' ' . '
\: ~~ ~~~: : ' ^ ^/ '.' .
'.......' /' ' ' :~~ ',
|_ |_ /' ' :
;' ',.. ' |
Pooka ''.--; --'''_.''
Fygar
ascii by me
Some notes:
On
dislodging two of the
rocks found on the
level, a
tasty piece of
fruit appears in the
centre of the
field.
Grab it for bonus points.
Don't
forget that you get
score better when you
crush the
badasses with the rocks, rather than
pumping the
motherfuckers. From
time to time, either out of
desperate self-defense or just plain
meanness, it becomes necessary to
whip out the pump and
blow the
bastards up.
Screw it up:
Levels can be easily
beaten once it's
realized that there are only
4 patterns that the
enemies move in. This will get you up to level
36, where the game
speeds up, and you have to
learn the new patterns.
If you
manage to
simultaneously
murder a Pooka or Fygar with your
air pump AND a rock, the game
fucks up and all the enemies dis
appear.
Proceed to the next level by
dropping another rock. (Make
sure you have one left!)
At level
256, your game
returns to level
1 and gets
slow and
easy again. (...and you
damn well
deserve it!)
Note: No
luck finding a
reason for all of this
tunnel digging and
monster fragging. This game was around before the
need for a storyline. The action was
enough. The
colourful video
interaction machine was enough.
Frequently these days the
opposite is true, and the quality of the
story precludes the quality of the
game.
There is an early memory inside my skull of being forcefully removed from a Dig Dug coin-op at Chuck E. Cheese, arms and nerves twitching from the sheer excitement.